Real World Mac Maintenance and Backups

Reviewed by Michael Potter

Author: Joe Kissell Publisher: Peachpit Press, in association with Take Control Books http://www.peachpit.com http://www.takecontrolbooks.com Released: October, 2006 Pages: 230 USA $29.99, CAN $36.99, UK £21.99 ISBN: 0-321-49218-8 ISBN-13: 978-0321492180 Audience: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced.   Strengths: Well thought out and detailed advice, up to date, easy to understand.
Weaknesses: Pricey.

 

Introduction

The two most neglected tasks in the computer world are running regular maintenance on your computer and backing up the many multi-gigabytes of data we generate every day. Face it, it's a daunting task to keep on top of these steps!

 

When iPods and the iLife suite of easy to use multimedia applications became common-place, all of a sudden we could no longer back up our entire collection of text documents to a single CD (or floppy), but now had to figure out what to do with 18+ gig of music ripped from our CD collection, iMovie projects filling up our Movies folder, as well as many thousands of digital photos.

 

Joe Kissell's book lays down the foundation for multimedia serenity and teaches us there's really no excuse for not performing any of these routine maintenance and backup tasks on your Mac.

 

In this book…

The book is divided into two main halves reflecting its origins as two separate e-books originally released by Take Control Books.

 

The first half, consisting of chapters 1 through 8 focuses on what you can do on a regular basis to maintain your Mac and keep it running at peak condition.

 

The remaining chapters, 9-12, concentrate on best practices for backing up your Mac. This second half is the meat of the book in my opinion but we'll come back to that in a minute.

 

As any good support person should do, Kissell begins the book by getting everyone to common ground. Chapter 1, entitled “Start On The Right Foot,” takes us through the process of upgrading OS X to the latest version, running software updates on both OS X and third-party applications, cleaning up the “cruft” as he calls it – that is, getting rid of the junk files on your computer – trolling through your start up items looking for applications that can be removed, as well as a number of other simple steps to get you started on your journey toward a more efficient Mac. Divided into Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Yearly tasks that should be performed on your Mac, Kissell very clearly lays out a foundation upon which you can build an effective strategy for a smooth running machine.

 

I must say that every step mentioned is pretty spot on. As much as I tried to come up with something he missed or maybe didn't cover completely, I could not. That includes more complicated tasks such as clearing caches and running Disk Utility on down to cleaning the iSight camera. Even when I tried really hard to root out fault, I found that he, instead, very eloquently played to both sides of the court. Such as when I came across the sub-heading, “Empty Your Trash” in the Monthy Tasks list. As I read the book, I found that some sub-headings like that one can be a tad misleading.

 

In Chapter Two, Perform Daily Tasks, for instance, the subhead reads: “Download Software Updates”. Certainly we don't want to be saddling ourselves with that each day we sit down to be productive, however, when you read the section, he explains that, in truth, you should be checking for updates no more than once a week and should postpone updates that might pop up in between those times. I would consider renaming these subheads or possibly moving the content to another chapter, but that's nitpicking. Then again, maybe it's just a simple test so he can tell if you actually read the book or not.

 

Once you've got the routine for what you should be doing down pat, Kissell moves on to discuss a couple maintenance tasks that are often mentioned in the same breath as the others but, he suggests, aren't really all that necessary. The first is Repair Permissions and the second is Defragmenting Your Hard Drive. Once again, Kissell deftly navigates potential conflict with those who might disagree with this assessment by pointing out when, in each case, these tasks might be warranted.

 

Chapter 7, “When Apple Releases a New Version of Mac OS X,” is a nice addition to the maintenance half of the book and one I think many new Mac users will find useful with Leopard, at the time of this writing, only a few weeks away. Though not long, it very neatly preps the reader for the second half of the book where full backup strategies are discussed, by strongly encouraging a Bootable Backup be made of your system before any OS upgrades are installed. In fact, he suggests two if time and resources permit. Sound advice.

 

An interesting perspective in this chapter is that you should NOT wait to upgrade to the latest version of OS X when available, instead, he says, go ahead and plunge right into it. His point is the benefits of the new release will far outweight any difficulties you may run into during the initial release. Most folks, including many noted Macintosh pundits, would bristle at this suggestion, but as an early adopter myself, I'd have to say I agree with him. Especially if you're the person everyone turns to when problems arise.

 

With this good foundation of maintenance under our belt, Kissell moves on to discuss strategies for backing up your Mac in Chapter 9. Of all topics discussed, I feel this chapter is the most valuable in the entire book. Kissell begins with a discussion of sample backup approaches covering everything from budget concerns to data safety. This is all laid out in a nice pros and cons style which makes it very easy for anyone who is not familiar with sound backup principles or terminology. In the pages that follow, he very succintly defines ideas such as archiving, creating duplicates, synchonization, scheduling your backups and whether you should consider incremental or differential backups. It's all logically organized and he takes care to limit his descriptions to small, easily digestible bits of information. Most importantly, Kissell discusses the special needs of those who have large photo, video or music libraries.

 

The chapter concludes with a recommended strategy for each of the backup methods described in the book. This is a welcome addition to the chapter and shows anyone new to backing up a computer how to use these methods individually or in combination with each other to ensure complete recovery in the event of a major hardware or software failure. I think even grizzled veterns of server room backups will appreciate this chapter. We tend to get one method stuck in our noggins and it's nice once in a while to analyze someone else's routines and adopt some of their best ideas to our own.

 

The remaining chapters of the book explore the hardware, software and setup needed to perform your backups. A very common question I'm asked is what the best media are for long-term backup storage. The truth is, of course, that very few of us ever find out because technology changes so rapidly and what might work well for us one year, may be rendered completely obsolete five years hence. So good practice is to continually migrate your precious memories to newer technology as it matures and our old methods begin to decay.

 

In Chapter 10, Kissell considers the technology available now, such as hard drive, optical, tape, flash, network attached storage and internet backup services. He even discusses some of the more esoteric backup methods such as using a camcorder (a method I recall first experimented with about 9 years ago or so using home VHS video recorders) or the less commonly found Iomega REV drives. For each, pitfalls and chances for data recovery in case of emergency are considered and eventually boiled down to his recommendation for the typical user.

 

For software recommendations, Kissell breaks it down three main types: combination software that incorporates archiving and duplication; duplication only software; and archiving only software. If you incorporate his backup strategies, you'll need something that does both, even if it ends up being two different applications. For instance, I use iBackup for my achiving and SuperDuper! for drive duplication and have been extremely happy with both, though I noted iBackup was not on his list of recommended programs.

 

In the final chapter of the book, “Set Up Your Backup System,” Kissell takes you through the methodical steps of testing your hardware, software, labeling your media and, lastly, performing test runs of both your duplicate and archive backups as well as sample restores of your data. Testing your equipment and methods of backup is well-grounded practice, because the last position you want to find yourself in is when you're in emergency recovery mode and only then discover your media are all blank! Kissell closes the book out with a firm emphasis on the importance of off-site storage for your backups.

 

What follows in the back of the book are three appendices with lists of troubleshooting resources, a recap of backup software mentioned, including prices current at the time of publication as well as contact information, and a rather indepth discussion of using EMC's Retrospect as your primary backup solution.

 

Also in the back of the book you'll find a complete Glossary, Index and Periodic Checklist of Maintenance Tasks.

 

Conclusion

As up-to-date as this book is – it really is! – “Real World Mac Maintenance and Backups” completely skips over the upcoming inclusion of Time Machine in OS X Leopard. While some might argue that it would be irresponsible to try and give advice based on something we've yet to lay our hands on, it certainly warrants a sidebar for no other reason than it will be an incredibly important advancement for the typical Mac user and how they approach backing up their data.

 

As much as I like Kissell's book, I have a couple minor quibbles with it.

 

In the first chapter, he recommends the installation of an anti-virus application on your Mac. This is an argument with no winners and has been played out in many other forums before, but beyond the risk of viruses that may, someday, be released into the wild for the Mac platform, one of the main reasons to install an anti-virus program, according to Kissell, is to help protect Windows users to whom we may unwittingly pass along a virus-laden file via e-mail. He admits there have been so few viruses for OS X in the wild that he could count them on one hand, but for Windows, we know, there are hundreds of thousands, so am I to understand that it's for these Windows users I should run an anti-virus? Users who should already be running up to date anti-virus software and following safe computing practices?

 

I run a Mac with OS X so I don't have to worry about that ... as much. When it's shown to me that OS X is as inherently flawed as Windows and becomes a breeding ground for viral activity, I'll pay more attention to installing an anti-virus application. In the interim, paying attention to the types of activities I do online, practicing safe computing, securing my Mac with strong passwords, not opening foreign attachments and keeping my system up to date with the latest patches will suffice. The biggest danger on the Mac platform now are a number of potential vectors of attack that would go unguarded by an anti-virus application because they are of the social engineering variety. As IT Manager for a predominantely Windows-based network, I'm quite familiar with the dangers to computers from malicious software.

 

Understanding fully that nobody is ever totally immune from malware on their platform of choice, the extra overhead of running the program, the licensing costs, and the constant maintenance an anti-virus application would saddle me with, I'll take a pass for now. Ultimately, you should do what makes you feel the most comfortable and, for you, that may mean an anti-virus application.

Kissell also spends an inordinate amount of time discussing EMC's Retrospect for the Mac – including an entire appendix to its use – I'm inclined to write that off more as familiarity with the product than an attempt to hawk it to those in the reading audience. He even says as much in Chapter 11.

 

Much like the suggestion to purchase the book “Take Control of Upgrading to...” in Chapter 7, these inclusions, to me, call attention to the book's origins as two smaller e-books and may make readers less experienced with backups, feel uncomfortable choosing something different – even if that other choice is more suited to their needs and budget.

 

One other minor complaint I have with the book is the price. At $29.99, I feel it's a bit overpriced. I sure the real question is, however, what price can you put on solid advice for keeping your data safe? I don't know and will leave that up to you to decide. Your experience with backups and the Mac may dictate whether you feel the same way about the price as I do or not. It's certainly cheaper than hiring a consultant to give you much the same advice and, for the most part, this is a book full of good solid advice.

 

Recommendation

While still technical in nature, it's not made too difficult for those new to the Mac platform to comprehend. That the topics of his book can be covered so thoughouly in a mere 230 pages is a testament to the straightforward nature of his writing. Short of the couple minor points brought up in this review, I was hard pressed to find much of anything to criticize within the book and believe it would make a wonderful addition to the shelf of Mac users of all levels.