Time Machine

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Ideas and Shortcuts

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  Jim Hamm presented some helpful tips to the AMUG Senior SIG today, and shares these links with us. 

    more from Lifehacker:  http://lifehacker.com/tag/101
9) (item obsolete - admin)
10) 50 Best Mac Tips: http://www.techradar.com/
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Look at the Apple Menu

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You’re comfortable with your Mac by now; you’ve learned some terminology and you’ve found some shortcuts.  But every time there’s an upgrade to your system there are changes to explore.  (Remember to click on the illustrations to enlarge. Then do Esc. to go back.)
Let’s look at your Apple Menu.  Go to the top menu bar, clear to the left side.  Click on the tiny apple. 

Click on About This Mac.  Now click on More Info . . . 
Up comes a box with headings: Overview, Displays, Storage, Memory  and on the far right side is Support and Service. 


Displays brings up the name, size and graphics info, and you can click to bring up User Manual.  You can also do Displays Preferences where you can adjust brightness, resolution, rotation, and AirPlay Mirroring.  Under Color you have profile info that you can open and also calibrate.  

Storage brings up colorful graphs showing how much memory is used on your HD: audio, movies, photos, apps, backups, and other. It shows how much free memory you have out of the total available. 


If you have a separate device for your Time Machine here is where you see how much memory is being used for those same categories, and it also posts how much free memory is available.


The SuperDrive is shown and lists Disc formats that can be written, such as  CD-R, CD-RW.   


Go back to Overview. Click On Memory and  it tells you how many memory slots you have, each of which accepts which  memory modules, and will say if all memory slots are currently in use.  In small type under that you can click where it says Memory Upgrade instructions.


On the right hand side of About this Mac is Support.  Click to bring up OS X Resources, Help center,  OS X Support.   Under Macintosh Resources you can click to go to User Manual, Specifications, and Hardware Support.  


On the far right hand side of About This Mac click Service. It tells about the limited warranty, & the complimentary telephone technical support.  It tells about the AppleCare Protection Plan. It says that even if your coverage has expired you may still be able to pay for any repairs you need through an Apple-authorized technician.  Here you can click to check your service and support coverage status, and your service and repair options.


Depending on your Mac and the system you’re using this will vary.  I’ve got 10.8.5. 


Back to the little apple on the main menu.  You can rearrange Dock.   Do you use Recent Items as a handy way to find where you recently were?  October issue of Macworld  magazine tells that you can hold down the Command key to get some other choices.  Also, here’s Force Quit. 


Under File you can choose Quick Look.  
Under Edit you can choose Start Dictation, or use fn fn  (the function key). 
Under View you can do Clean Up, Sort by, and Show View Options.
Under Go, there’s a list of your recently created folders.  
Under Help, is where we’ve probably all gone, at sometime or other.  Helpful links there. 
Look at the other items along that very top menu bar.  There’s DropBox, the icon for the Time Machine backup, day and time, and the very last is Notifications.  


On the top, far right hand side click on the magnifying glass icon.  That brings up Spotlight which does your search.  Type in a word or phrase and your smart little computer brings up a list of possibilities for you to check for the one thing you want.  As you bring your cursor down the list a tiny image of the page will show up.  But where is that document?  Click on Command and the R to bring it up in its folder.  


Just for fun I typed in cow.  One of the documents listed brought up a picture of a cow with our son Peter.  Doing Command R opened it, showing me where it was found.  

Spotlight’s list that appears has Top Hit, Documents, PDF Documents, Images, Messages that mention “cow,” Presentations, Look Up brings your word up in the Dictionary,  and finally Web Searches and Spotlight Preferences.


Here’s a shortcut that’s really handy:  In Pages:  Command + Z puts back in what you accidentally deleted when you did Command X, instead of doing Command C to copy!  


Last, but not least, do you use “hot corners” also known as Active Screen Corners?  Go to System Preferences on the Dock, click on Desktop & Screen Saver. In Screen Saver you can choose hot corners and slideshows. You also choose how soon the slides should start.  When you drag your cursor to one of the corners of the screen the slideshow will begin to entertain you. Moving the cursor away from the corner brings back your normal view of your desktop.


You’ll discover shortcuts that you’ll be happy to use.  You’ll also discover methods that you might not need or use now, but it’s good to keep learning.   
That’s the fun of Mac.    : ) 

This is today's PMUG handout for 10-19-13.  Hope to see you at our next meeting.  
from ELAINE HARDT

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Backing Up With Time Machine

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         John Carter sends this info, "I recently experienced that Time Machine on my computer would not delete an older backup to make room for a newer backup, and consequently the backups continued to fail with a message that there wasn't enough room for the new backup. I talked at length with Apple Support about this and we came up with no solution. I simply purchased a much larger backup drive and started over again. It may take months now before the new drive gets full.

        "What I suspect was the problem was that my computer needs a backup drive that is more than twice as large as the total space USED in my computer. Since I'm using a little over 1TB that I want to back up, my new 3TB backup drive should now be more than adequate to handle two complete backups plus any additional incremental backups."
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Are You Checking Time Machine?

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          "If you're using a Mac, chances are you're using Time Machine. It's nice that Apple provides a backup system that's easy to use. However, have you checked that Time Machine is really backing up? No? Well, I haven't either. Here's a Blog from a guy that didn't check either.

        "Now might be a good time to verify that Time Machine is working correctly. What a pain it would be not to be able to recover -- in case of a hard drive failure -- all that important 'stuff' you've saved over the years."  
        And this is the little nudge from Jim Hamm that we probably all need!  
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You ARE Backing Up, Right?

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Just like a mother, I am smiling while I am reminding you.  Call it nagging, yes?  

Others have said it, you’ve made a commitment to yourself to do it.  So? You are backing up? Time Machine gave me an unexpected notification this week.  I’d never seen such a message before.  And it didn’t explain !  (Click on the screen shot to enlarge it.) 

        Nothing that came to mind to solve this new puzzle.  What did it mean?  The Time Machine message box did not identify which files it could not copy. There was nothing I had done recently to mess with the settings. But clicking on the tiny icon at the top of the screen showed the last back up to be last night at 8:30 pm.  What had I done then? Has some mean old hacker messed with my dear, trustworthy computer?   Taking a break to make lunch, the back of my mind was busily reconstructing the various websites I’d viewed, the changes I’d made on some recent writing, even the emails I’d received.  Finally, an idea.   I’ve been working on a new project to convert some of my stories and poems into an e-book.  I’d never done it before.  And, as of today it’s not yet complete.   On the e-book formatting following the guidelines:  https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A17W8UM0MMSQX6  I’d gotten down to Saving as Filtered HTML.  I clicked to let Microsoft Word 2011 do that job.  A folder was created, and looking at that folder’s content pages didn’t look familiar at all.   Oh, well.  Surely it knows what it’s doing.  But it was HTML.  Could that be what is “read-only” that my Time Machine could not back up? Bravely, I dragged my e-book writing folder to a thumb drive.  Bravely, I then dragged the original folder on the desktop to Trash !  Now, I shut down the computer with a prayer that I hadn’t messed up. Within minutes, I started up the computer again and saw that the FreeAgent Drive sitting behind the computer screen WAS lit up, like it’s supposed to be. I gave it a little time to …..hopefully !  Now, what does the little icon at the top of the screen say?  YES !  It had backed up.  It was behaving !  Stuff was saved.  There are 261 entries for How To  listed here at the PMUG newsblog and 13 are under the heading of Back Up, and they date from 9-10-09 to 2-24-13.   Scan through and see which device and which system you have.  Find what applies to your setup.  You’ll remember that CDs and DVDs can degrade over time and might get scratched. What kind of backup would save your valuable data?   You give it some thought. Then, back it up with a smile.

 
Might Consider Doing an E-book?

Reading a book on an iPad, Kindle, Nook, etc will become a popular thing.  An e-book can be free, at a low price, or varying prices.  You can claim all rights so that the reader cannot share it.  On Amazon publishing is free, and you can specify the price you want.  You could get 35% royalty or you could set it up to get 70% royalty.  You’d read all the legal disclaimers to protect your writing.     Even if you do not envision writing a best-seller for which film makers would offer you a handsome price you could write something that your family and friends would be interested in reading. I’ve not found where it tells how long your e-book will be available to prospective readers.  I need to do the submit and review process before the deal will be finalized.  (There’s more to learn ! )           Here are several helpful sites to research: 

Here’s a publishing guide on-line that is free, the book is $5.99 paperback. 

 
Other Interesting Info 

Here’s an acronym list:  astronomy, atmospheric research, business, chatting, chemistry, medical, NASA, SCUBA diving, government, army official and slang, and more.

 
What Are You Doing, These Days?

        Using some new Apple device?  Learning more on your Mac computer?  Got any suggestions for your friends at PMUG?  Found any interesting info on the Internet that you’d like to comment on?    Have you subscribed to NetNewsWire?  You will then be notified when there’s something new posted to the PMUG site www.pmug.us.          Keep in touch and keep smiling ! This is today's handout at PMUG from Elaine Hardt 

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Serious Bug Discovered in Lion

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        John Carter wants our attention now!  "I just discovered that LION has a serious bug that Apple isn’t recognizing as a bug yet.   Files disappear from the hard drive.  Do a search with the keywords “files disappearing on mac."

        "It happened to me, and it’s happening to others.  I’m still looking into it.
        "There doesn’t seem to be any fix in the future. Maybe Mountain Lion won’t have the bug. It’s totally random while at the same time appears to be completely selective. All the files in every subfolder of one of my folders are missing: e.g., folder A contains folders B, C, and D. All files in B, C, and D are missing.
        "Other folders that I know should be on the machine are now missing — stuff that I put there just two weeks ago.
        "Using Time Machine only helps if you actually use it. In my case, the folders and files in question were deliberately excluded from Time Machine — to save space in my Time Machine backup. What a shame on me!"
        John concludes for now with, "Now, I recently worked with a client who has Snow Leopard, and dozens of photos disappeared off his Mac. No Time Machine backup. Another client also claims to have missing files — and he is not using Lion. So when did this problem start, and how widespread is it?"
        Want to see John's posts on this problem on the Apple Discussion site?  Find it here.  He is posted as jrc39 and his comments are as of 7-15.  Keep up the good work, John, and let us know the resolution of the matter.  
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Back Up iOS to iCloud & iTunes Simultaneously

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        "Here's a backup tip that appears, at first read-through (to me, anyway), a bit confusing," begins Jim Hamm.  He explains,  "Upon further cogitation, I think what it's saying is, when you're backing an iOS device (iPhone, iPad, etc.) up to the Cloud, to do a backup to iTunes as well. This requires an extra 'click', but once the data is in iTunes as well as iCloud, the data will also be backed up into Time Machine (from iTunes) the next time you run Time Machine. Pretty neat idea, and I haven't been doing this when backing up to the Cloud -- but I will now."

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Movies, Word Processing, Time Machine

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        Does it seem like there's always more to learn?  Oh, yes, but it's fun on a Mac.  At PMUG we call "learning"-- "opportunity."  And April brings a bunch.
        First, look at the PMUG site, www.pmug.us and see the Calendar.  John Carter is our April speaker with his topics:  Time Machine, the first hour, and Word Processing Software, the second hour.  Note, too, his 2 Digital SIGs.
        John also did an hour presentation for the combined Mac and PC group on March 24.  He's generously posted his topic "Online Movies for Movie Addicts; " go under www.pmug.us/tips-n-tricks to find the link.  It's password protected for members, so you'll go to About Us, scroll down to Contact Us, then click on Webmaster to email for the password.

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Be Prepared!

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        Not just a Scout motto, but a good reminder to all of us, “Be Prepared.” Our main consideration today is be prepared by backing up what’s on your computer. Hopefully you’ve got an exterior drive that’s lit up, doing its job with Time Machine, as you’re writing on your computer. So what happens when the unexpected happens? What about an electric surge or malfunction of the transformer out there in the alley?
        Surge protector strips might help. How about an APC Back-UPS device? Or, better yet, a whole-house surge protector from APS?
        We experienced a problem just last week with the alley transformer. Four neighbors were also affected. Interesting what got fried and what didn’t. Good-bye to my dishwasher, microwave, fluorescent light in the laundry room, 3 radios, the doorbell, and a couple of surge protector strips. Thankfully, not hurt were the computers, printers, TV, and washer and dryer.
        SOS to some knowledgeable guys from PMUG. “Would an additional backup device that’s only plugged in once a day to use, then unplugged, be a good idea?” was my query.
        John Carter emailed, “For my iMac, I have a 500GB USB powered hard drive that is solely dedicated to being a fairly recent clone of my internal hard drive, and once I update the clone, it is put away in the closet. I only update it once every few months. I also have Time Machine backing up to a 1TB hard drive. If I should lose my internal drive — or the entire computer — I can boot up off the clone and restore from the Time Machine. I also have another 500GB USB powered hard drive that I back up my personal files to. This one gets updated fairly often and then is unplugged and put aside. Now, I have two machines, an iMac and a MacBook Pro, and they are pretty much a clone of each other. The MacBook Pro has its own Time Machine hard drive. So if one goes down, the other is brought up to date from the backup of the down machine and I’m no worse for wear. And since both machines have the same operating system and complete set of applications, I only need one bootable clone for both machines.
        "Industry standard backup methods is to have one set of full backups onsite and another duplicate set of backups offsite. The onsite backups are incremental every day and the offsite backups are full backups once a week. The weekly backups are rotated every four weeks so that only four devices are needed for the weekly backups. One device is used for the daily incremental backups. These daily backups are accumulated on that one device until the end of the week when it becomes the full weekly backup. A duplicate is made of it and sent offsite. Every fourth week one of the weekly backups comes back from offsite and becomes the next daily incremental backup device. Once a year, or as often as the company’s policy dictates, the backup devices are replaced with new ones.”
        John summarized, “You can never have too many backups. Choose what is critical to you and be very paranoid about it.”
        Jim Hamm wrote, “I recently purchased a small external drive from Amazon, a Buffalo Technology MiniStation Stealth 500 GB USB 2.0 portable external Hard Drive HD-PCT500U2/B (black). It is very small, quiet and only $50. I’m quite pleased with it and would buy another one.”
        David Passell went into detail, “I bought two My 500GB Passports about two (or three) weeks ago from Best Buy. One was specifically for Mac, the other for PC. I set up/partitioned my Passport for Mac as a clone for the Mac HD;  I purchased the fully featured SuperDuper. The internal Mac HD was 120GB and was getting limited in free space. I created a sandbox, in a much smaller partition, on the passport from which I always start. I also have some items I save on a partition that is just "passport.” It works very well. if I disconnect it (while the Mac is off), the Mac will restart from its internal HD. When starting/restarting, hold down the OPTion key and select the drive or sandbox to start from. The System Preferences startup disk does not work.
        "As for the PC Passport, I connected it to a Windows 7 Dell. it backed up the machine two ways. (1) I used the 'smart' software that came with the Passport and found it only backed up Data. I used the backup software that is part of Windows and it backed up (I think) the whole computer. I am really not very familiar with Windows and have difficulty telling where anything is, or what is running.
        "As for writing to the PC Passport if I plug it into the Mac: I obtained Mac Fuse and NFTS 3G. That combination of 'other' system preferences allows transparent writing to the disk. Before installing those, I could only read from an NFTS-formatted drive. Formatting a drive to NTFS is another matter. It appears more involved. Several forums simply say find somebody with a Windows machine.
        "I bought a Seagate Free Agent several weeks ago. It had a lot of movie promotional material on it; one movie I could watch free, and about 150GB of movies I would have to 'subscribe' to. It seemed clunky and I returned it.
        "I purchased a WD My Book 3TB drive hoping to replace the 500GB that I have been using since 2008 for Time Machine. It was PC formatted but I repartitioned it for Mac OS extended Journaled it to use for Time Machine and other things. It was totally unsuitable. It would not automatically mount on Mac turnon. I reformatted it (on a PC) to NTFS, restored the software that was on it, and returned it for credit."
        David’s recommendation: “As far as power surges are concerned, I strongly recommend putting a UPS (I've been using an APC for years) between your equipment and your power lines. I also installed a power surge protector right inside the main breaker box (keep one hand behind your back and wear rubber soled sneakers when you do this :).  I also have a UPS between the power line and my VCRs and DVD recorder. That way recordings and timer settings are seldom lost except for very extended outages.   
        Jim wrote again to emphasize, “The most important thing about backing up is to do it. Another aspect that's important—and which I just recently did—is to have a bootable backup clone. A couple of programs to do this, and which are mentioned often in blogs, are Super Duper and Carbon Copy Cloner.”
        Don got us started now, buying two APC Battery Backup units that each handle 6 outlets. But, that’s just the start, so the project continues . . .
        Review the basics: A 5 minute video about Time Machine http://www.cultofmac.com/82299/how-to-easily-back-up-your-mac-with-time-machine-video-how-to/
        A helpful article from Macworld on what and how to backup. http://www.macworld.com/article/156601/2011/01/what_how_backup.html
        So, what do you think, and how can YOU be prepared? Are you backing up? Are your backups secure?
        See you at Saturday's PMUG meeting!

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Time Machine Isn't Permanent, Either

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        Thanks to David Passell for the following important info.
        "Time machine is a very good program for going back if something goes wrong, but don’t use it as a backup for things you might want to go back to in the present. If you open Time Machine preferences you will note the last line, 'The oldest backups are deleted when your disk gets full.'
        "The nasty thing about it is that you get the warning after it has happened. (A clue is when menu icon turns for a long time). Then you open Time Machine and find out nothing but the last month or less is still backed up. If you think you can go back to that choice picture/article/etc. you deleted to save space, you are out of luck.
        "I have had it happen to me more than once. The following conditions may cause this to happen:
      • Forgetting to exclude Parallels virtual machines.
      • Connecting a new disk drive and putting a clone of your system or a sandbox on it.
      • Creating or downloading a large video or program file (Lion upgraders take notice).
It is probably a good idea to turn off Time Machine before doing a large download or any operation that may cause a backup of it all to occur. Before starting Time Machine again go to Options and exclude the new drives."
         At this point David offers his closing comment, "One last thing about Time Machine: I am considering purchase of a larger drive to replace the 500 GB drive I have been using since 2008. (I lost those early time machine records long ago). However, I have seen no instruction on transferring an existing Time Machine to a new drive to preserve the old ones and continue with new. Could I clone the Time Machine to a partition in the new drive, and then select the partition in the new drive as 'Use for Time Machine'?"

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Solid State Drive in Your Future?

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        "I think it's the technology of the future," comments Jim Hamm about SSD, as he sends us this article from Small Dog Tech Tails.  Scroll down to "Just a TRIM."  It explains why a Solid State Drive (SSD) needs a TRIM (or a similar function) to prevent the degradation, over time, of the write function. (TRIM, while capitalized, is not an acronym for anything; its purpose is to trim old data from the SSD.)
        I asked Jim about replacing an existing drive in a Mac with a SSD.  He says it's not commonplace, but several new Macs, including the new MacBook Pros with SSD come with Thunderbolt and do support TRIM.  He thinks SSDs are available to be used as an exterior drive of Time Machine, and suggests this info from NewEgg. 

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Strategy & Need for Backup

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Here's that reminder we need. De Prez Allen Laudenslager explores the serious need for backing up, and explains his strategy. "This article at Daring Fireball is just about the best description of backup strategy and the critical need to stay of top of the latest software and techniques.

"While most of us don't make our living from what's on our computers, as John Gruber does, what's on our hard drives is critical to each of us. My personal back up strategy is a monthly back up with Super Duper that clones my hard drive including the OS, all applications and all files. I also run Super Duper every time I add an application.

"As things change I run Time Machine. If I write something I'm worried about, I just run a special back up, but I run Time Machine at least once a week.

"His point about multiple external drives may be over kill for most of us but with a 750 gig external drive at $125 (Costco) and Super Duper for $40 (direct on line) it's cheap insurance. I saw 100 gig drives for under 50 bucks at both Best Buy and Costco, and that will back up most of our computers unless you're really loading up on pictures or music."

(Your eyes might thank you if you use Command and + to bring up Daring Fireballs small white print to a larger size.  You might also try Control and Option and Command keys in unison with the number 8 key to toggle to black print.)

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Backing Up to Your External Hard Drive

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Save yourself some grief; De Prez Allen Laudenslager will walk us through getting ready to back up to an external hard drive.  This is a must!
He introduces the subject, "Because of the complexity I will be doing it in two installments. This is the first and is mostly about how to format the drive when you first get it home so it will work with your Mac."



"Many of you will remember my hard drive failure way back in May of 2009. I was relying on my Mobile Me account with Apple to keep my back ups. Imagine my surprise when the backups clear back to February of that year were corrupt!

"I can’t begin to tell you how much stuff I lost because Mobile Me didn’t have any way to tell me that the backups were corrupted. I’ve been putting off buying an external hard drive and backing up to several DVDs once or twice a month for the last 2 months.

"I just got a new external drive as a birthday present and now I’ll be backing up using Super Duper AND time machine. This will automate the process and provide a lot more security.

"So, now I’ve convinced you to buy that backup drive for between $60 and $150 there is one important thing you need to do as soon as you get it home.

"Format the drive.

"Almost any drive you buy will be formatted for Windows and that is incompatible with OS X. Just connect the drive, go to Finder Applications and scroll down to Utilities. Once you open Utilities, look for and open Disk Utilities. The process is the same in Tiger, Leopard, and Snow Leopard.

"In the top left hand column, you’ll see the computer’s internal drive listed first, followed by your brand new external drive. Highlight the external drive and the right hand column will give you the options to format the drive to work with your Mac. Select partition and then rename the drive.

"Why rename? To make it obvious which drive you are selecting a few weeks from now when you’ve forgotten the details of the process. There is, also, always the chance that you will have so much stuff that you will be connecting more than one external drive. Seem unlikely? I remember my first hard drive, 20 megabytes. Yes, that’s right, meg, not gig. If you have lots of photos, you may very well need several drives depending on the sizes you buy.

"I recommend setting the drive up as one big partition and then creating folders if you need to organize further. Next, select Mac format, extended journal. Then click apply. The process will take several minutes but once done, the external drive will show up in finder and you can transfer files just like any folder on your computer.

"In the next installment, I’ll explain why I am using both Super Duper and Time Machine to back up my files and how to set up to use either or both."

Jim Saves Time

We all like to save time, right? Jim Hamm, De Previous Prez, tells us how he saved time when transferring files to a new computer via Time Machine. "Here is an article from the 'Ask Dave Taylor' Newsletter on how to go about transferring files, etc., from Time Machine to a new Mac. It works, and one important item Dave mentions: connect Time Machine to the new Mac via ethernet cable, not wi-fi, which is too slow for massive transfers of data." http://www.askdavetaylor.com/use_apple_time_machine_to_restore_new_macbook.html