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Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22672 07/24/12 04:56 PM
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Don't nobody read my posts?! tongue wink

Re: My New MacBook Pro
grelber #22674 07/24/12 05:02 PM
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I do. Did I miss something? I went to that link about hard drives that you gave me. But, I still have questions. Rita


Originally Posted By: grelber
Don't nobody read my posts?! tongue wink


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22675 07/24/12 05:10 PM
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Not you (but others).
But as I noted, small and portable and cheap would be the WD drive I provided stats on. USB cable included.

Re: My New MacBook Pro
grelber #22676 07/24/12 05:49 PM
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Okay, then. Now that I've digested what you said, it sounds pretty good. Small, 1 TB (nice), cable included. Works with Time Machine. What's not to love? I'll wait to see if anyone has any dire warnings about this, and then make my decision. I know everyone has their preferences. But at this point, this sounds good to me and cheap!!

Thank you.

Rita


Originally Posted By: grelber
Not you (but others).
But as I noted, small and portable and cheap would be the WD drive I provided stats on. USB cable included.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
grelber #22677 07/24/12 05:59 PM
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Is this what you got or something close? I can't seem to find one for $60.00. But, maybe you didn't get it on Amazon or got it awhile back. Huh?

Rita

Western Digital Passport - Amazon


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
Virtual1 #22678 07/24/12 08:08 PM
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Originally Posted By: Virtual1
Or get a networked offsite arrangement, don't overlook that option.


I don't overlook that option--I just don't trust it.

There are a number of problems with using a network for your main or only backup system:

- You can't make a bootable clone of your system that way.

- Backup and restore of an entire hard drive can be a very time-consuming affair.

- Automated network backup software that runs in the background may back up system-related databases (for example, your Mail database) in an unstable state, for example while they're being written to, resulting in a potentially corrupt or incomplete backup.

- They require Internet access to work.

- Some Internet companies are now metering Internet access, charging for bandwidth used over a certain ceiling. Backing up a 500GB hard drive will most definitely cross that ceiling, potentially resulting in bandwidth charges that are as expensive as a new local hard drive would be.

- Server outages or problems may compromise the integrity and/or availability of your backup.

- Backup of sensitive data such as financial data, personal information, tax returns, photos, and so on may potentially make that information available to corrupt or inquisitive employees of the data backup company. (Even companies which provide encryption also say in their Ts and Cs that they have access to encrypted data.)

- If there is a hack attack against the backup company, your information on their servers may be compromised.

- The laws surrounding off-site backups entrusted to a third party are murky. For example, case law exists which holds that the government may subpoena your information from the backup company, and also bar the backup company from telling you that they have released your information.

- If a corrupt employee or a hacker does get access to your files, the contracts with off-site backup companies usually indemnify them against damages.

So as you can tell, I'm not keen on network backup services.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22679 07/24/12 09:30 PM
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Mine is, as noted in a previous post, WD My Passport Essential SE 1 TB Portable Hard Drive, Model WDBACX0010BSL. It's silver (to match the trim on my iMac) and also comes in black (which might be cheaper).
Also, as noted earlier, it cost $109 at a Canadian electronics superstore (Future Shop) just after the SE Asian flooding (ie, when all the HD factories were destroyed or not producing product and prices were climbing day by day due to the shortage — prior to that the cost was ca $70, and a week or so later it was $20 more; the last time I looked it was back to ca $110).

Should you get this, do not install any software on the CD provided. Just plug it in and your Mac will ask if you want to use it for backup with Time Machine. Say yes, and let your Mac do its thing. (All that's in previous discussion too.)

Re: My New MacBook Pro
grelber #22680 07/24/12 09:57 PM
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Hey, quit pointing it out that it was all in the previous discussion. You're making me feel embarrassed..... blush as I should! LOL! I'm kind of overwhelmed with all the new info. I'll look for that model number at Amazon and maybe a few other places now. Thanks for the tip about not installing any of the software. I am sure I would have been confused when that option came up.
Rita


Originally Posted By: grelber
Mine is, as noted in a previous post, WD My Passport Essential SE 1 TB Portable Hard Drive, Model WDBACX0010BSL. It's silver (to match the trim on my iMac) and also comes in black (which might be cheaper).
Also, as noted earlier, it cost $109 at a Canadian electronics superstore (Future Shop) just after the SE Asian flooding (ie, when all the HD factories were destroyed or not producing product and prices were climbing day by day due to the shortage — prior to that the cost was ca $70).

Should you get this, do not install any software on the CD provided. Just plug it in and your Mac will ask if you want to use it for backup with Time Machine. Say yes, and let your Mac do its thing. (All that's in previous discussion too.)


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22683 07/25/12 01:48 AM
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Originally Posted By: plantsowner
One more question: If the drive fails, do you work off of the external drive from then on, or do you have the hard drive replaced?

Although it would be possible to have a bootable image or partition on the Time Machine drive it is usually NOT a bootable drive nor or the files in the Time Capsule directly usable. (You do not really need to know this technicality, but FWIW Time Machine backups are physically stored in a sparse image bundle — something like a .dmg file on the host disk drive.)

In the worst case scenario of a complete mechanical HD failure you would replace, or have Applecare replace, the failed drive in your MacBook and then restore all your applications and files from your Time Machine backup.

A more likely scenario would be a failure that trashed the volume structure on your boot drive rather than a complete mechanical failure. In that case you would reboot while holding down the Option key and select the Recovery HD partition Lion automatically puts on each bootable drive. From there you can run Disk Utility and repair or erase the failed volume and then restore the lost system and data files from the Time Machine volume.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
joemikeb #22685 07/25/12 03:14 AM
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Oh, okay. Thank you. Now I'll know what to do if and when....

Rita


Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Originally Posted By: plantsowner
One more question: If the drive fails, do you work off of the external drive from then on, or do you have the hard drive replaced?

Although it would be possible to have a bootable image or partition on the Time Machine drive it is usually NOT a bootable drive nor or the files in the Time Capsule directly usable. (You do not really need to know this technicality, but FWIW Time Machine backups are physically stored in a sparse image bundle — something like a .dmg file on the host disk drive.)

In the worst case scenario of a complete mechanical HD failure you would replace, or have Applecare replace, the failed drive in your MacBook and then restore all your applications and files from your Time Machine backup.

A more likely scenario would be a failure that trashed the volume structure on your boot drive rather than a complete mechanical failure. In that case you would reboot while holding down the Option key and select the Recovery HD partition Lion automatically puts on each bootable drive. From there you can run Disk Utility and repair or erase the failed volume and then restore the lost system and data files from the Time Machine volume.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22686 07/25/12 09:43 AM
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Originally Posted By: plantsower
there was something you said I had to hold down to get to recovery disk but it looked like symbols, so I don't know what you were trying to say. Take a look. ......option key or ⌘R at startup.... What is that word between "or" and "at'?

It's "command" R, where "command" is the cloverleaf symbol you see next to the word "command" on the keys on either side of the spacebar.

The "cloverleaf" (of the freeway variety, not the shamrock variety) is actually the Unicode "PLACE OF INTEREST SIGN". Your signature says you're running Safari on OS X, which should have no trouble properly displaying Unicode symbols. Is there something odd about your browser setup that's not reflected in your signature?

In Safari, look at the View->Text Encoding menu. Select "Default" if it isn't already checked, then reload the page and see if things look better.

You should see:

⌘ is the command symbol (cloverleaf)
⌥ is the option symbol
⇧ is the shift symbol (a hollow up-pointing arrow)
→ is a thin right-pointing arrow, useful for expressing hierarchical selections

(For example, instead of writing View->Text Encoding, I'd usually write View→Text Encoding, not only because the true arrow looks a little nicer, but because faking the arrow with hyphen-greater can leave you with a line break between - and >, which is just plain ugly. Not the program's fault; the semantic meaning of hyphen is "if you need to put in a line break, here's a good place to do it.")

Re: My New MacBook Pro
ganbustein #22691 07/25/12 03:35 PM
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Safari is already set at the text encoding default. I just see all those letters and symbols you put in and didn't understand what they meant. Thanks for the explanation.

You said this is what I should see? I see it now. But before it was just jumbled letters, etc.


⌘ is the command symbol (cloverleaf)
⌥ is the option symbol
⇧ is the shift symbol (a hollow up-pointing arrow)
→ is a thin right-pointing arrow, useful for expressing hierarchical selections


Rita


Originally Posted By: ganbustein
Originally Posted By: plantsower
there was something you said I had to hold down to get to recovery disk but it looked like symbols, so I don't know what you were trying to say. Take a look. ......option key or ⌘R at startup.... What is that word between "or" and "at'?

It's "command" R, where "command" is the cloverleaf symbol you see next to the word "command" on the keys on either side of the spacebar.

The "cloverleaf" (of the freeway variety, not the shamrock variety) is actually the Unicode "PLACE OF INTEREST SIGN". Your signature says you're running Safari on OS X, which should have no trouble properly displaying Unicode symbols. Is there something odd about your browser setup that's not reflected in your signature?

In Safari, look at the View->Text Encoding menu. Select "Default" if it isn't already checked, then reload the page and see if things look better.

You should see:

⌘ is the command symbol (cloverleaf)
⌥ is the option symbol
⇧ is the shift symbol (a hollow up-pointing arrow)
→ is a thin right-pointing arrow, useful for expressing hierarchical selections

(For example, instead of writing View->Text Encoding, I'd usually write View→Text Encoding, not only because the true arrow looks a little nicer, but because faking the arrow with hyphen-greater can leave you with a line break between - and >, which is just plain ugly. Not the program's fault; the semantic meaning of hyphen is "if you need to put in a line break, here's a good place to do it.")

Last edited by plantsower; 07/25/12 03:39 PM.

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Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22692 07/25/12 05:17 PM
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Rita--

I purchased it from Other World Computing, which was the source you first contacted mentioned in your post.

Yes, it comes with a USB 3.0 cable, and it is just like a "regular external hard drive", just more compact. Depending on the height of your table, the cable may be long enough to set up as you described.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
Ira L #22697 07/25/12 09:59 PM
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Right. Thank you, Ira.

Rita


Originally Posted By: Ira L
Rita--

I purchased it from Other World Computing, which was the source you first contacted mentioned in your post.

Yes, it comes with a USB 3.0 cable, and it is just like a "regular external hard drive", just more compact. Depending on the height of your table, the cable may be long enough to set up as you described.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
joemikeb #22737 07/27/12 06:31 AM
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> Joe can backup the most critical data files to iCloud and assuming the HD has not failed completely can repair the volume structure on the HD, reinstall Lion (or Mountain Lion) and all the apps purchased through the app store from anywhere there is a high speed internet connection. So when on the road Joe can leave the Time Machine drive behind.

Yes, Joe can leave his Time Machine drive behind, but only if his destination is high-speed Internet enabled, and there is still a significant portion of the world that is not, as there are a significant number of destinations that are not. (Ref. Internet Access in U.S. Homes Increase, Yet Digital Divide Persists and, more recently, South Korea hits 100% mark in wireless broadband.)

And adding insult to injury...

Originally Posted By: David Pogue
Keep in mind, too, that Mountain Lion is available exclusively as a download. This time, Apple isn’t even selling the software on a USB stick as a fallback. That’s a big “tough rocks” to people who don’t have high-speed Internet (yes, they still exist).

(I'm particularly pleased with the realistically, in my opinion, anyhow, negative attitude I've seen Pogue direct at Apple recently.)


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
joemikeb #22739 07/27/12 07:01 AM
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Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Originally Posted By: artie505
Apple's having given us Time Machine doesn't negate the fact that an indeterminate percentage of the world's current and potential Mac users, you (Addendum: grelber), as has been already been noted, included, has been disenfranchised and/or inconvenienced and/or forced to spend extra money for something that may, in some circumstances, be considered useless.

I seem to recall that same thing being said when Apple abandoned the floppy disk drive, OS 9, the Motorola 68000 series processors, SCSI, the PowerPC, etc. Unlike Microsoft, Apple has never clung to outdated technologies and Apple users have adapted to the changes. Watch for near future releases without Firewire, SATA, or rotating hard drives. They have to be on the list of soon to be obsolete technologies.

I'm not bemoaning the fact that new technology replaces old technology (although I do bemoan the cost of new, expensive toys far exceeding my ability to indulge in them frown  ), I'm bemoaning Apple's approach to implementing its new technology...disenfranchising the not-insignificant portion of the world that hasn't got access to high-speed Internet, by way of example, not to mention producing bottom-of-the-line machines with top-of-the-line-technology - Thunderbolt - that is useless without the expenditure of an additional several hundred dollars for an "enabler." I note that Apple, itself, has realized that that was a mistake, as demonstrated by its much-belated realization that Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet and Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapters are necessary. (I'm amazed that it took them so long to realize the necessity that, as of this writing, Firewire adapters are still not available.)

No, what I'm bemoaning is the fact that Apple is in the process of deprecating the world as we know it in favor of some brave new world envisioned by Steve Jobs...long before its time.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: My New MacBook Pro
tacit #22742 07/27/12 07:54 AM
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Originally Posted By: tacit
Originally Posted By: artie505
Apple's having given us Time Machine doesn't negate the fact that an indeterminate percentage of the world's current and potential Mac users, you (Addendum: grelber), as has been already been noted, included, has been disenfranchised and/or inconvenienced and/or forced to spend extra money for something that may, in some circumstances, be considered useless.

I've been a computer owner since 1977, when I got my first Radio Shack TRS-80, and if there's one thing I've learned in that time it's that a backup hard drive is *never* useless.

There are two kinds of computer users in the world: those who have experienced a catastrophic loss of their hard drive, and those who will. Anyone on any computer of any kind whatsoever needs to understand that if your data are important to you, a backup system is not optional. You *will* lose data if you don't have one; it's only a matter of time.

I actually keep two--one that I do frequent backups onto, so that if my hard drive takes a header I'll never lose more than a day or two's work; and one that I do less frequent backups onto, so that if I accidentally delete a critical file and I don't figure it out for a week, I'll still be able to recover it. smile

You're most assuredly correct about the need for backups, but what needs to be backed up is purely subjective; there are some, likely many, users who can back up everything they see as "precious" to a single CD and live very happily, thank you, with neither Time Machine nor a bootable backup volume, gamblers, albeit low-risk, that they are.


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