TimeMachine

Disable TimeMachine via Terminal/SSH

Mike Hudson Leave a comment

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TimeMachine has saved my ‘bacon’ on many an occasion. However, when trying to stream movies over wireless in can sometimes get in the way, and cause the film to stutter whilst it backs up.

Now, the easy way around this is to disable TimeMachine before you start your film, and then start it again afterwards. However, if like me you forget to do so – and you Mac is set up for SSH access, you can do this easily via your phone.

SSH into your Mac, logon with your credentials and run the following command:

Entering your password when prompted. This should ensure no further interruptions whilst you watch your film.

Once you’ve done, turning it back on again is just as simple:

All that without having to get up out of your comfy chair! Perfect!

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Don’t just backup.. Clone!

Mike Hudson Leave a comment


One of the worst feelings in the world for any PC or Mac user is the dreaded error message on Boot-up stating your hard drive has failed. Putting your trust in hardware (despite its age) is foolish to say the least. We are all guilty of it, including myself.

OS X has a pretty impressive backup utility built in as standard TimeMachine which is even capable of doing offline backups. However, TimeMachine won’t help you if your entire OS fails to boot.

But don’t reach for your wallet just yet the boffins over at Bombich have been hard at work updating their flagship backup application Carbon Copy Cloner, which now fully supports OS X Lion. Which not only creates backups (full and incremental) of all of your data, but is also capable of creating recovery boot disks, containing your OS and all of your backed up files!

Carbon Copy Cloner has a long list of features, most of which wouldn’t look out of place in a commercial and expensive backup solution. Carbon Copy Cloner has been designed as shareware, but has not been crippled in anyway. The only thing you will notice on the ‘free’ version is the inclusion of a banner add, much like the one in the screenshot above. However they have been tastefully placed to ensure they don’t hinder your cloning experience. You can however get rid of the advertising banners simply by making a donation to it’s ongoing development.

I recommend using both TimeMachine and Carbon Copy Cloner to my fellow mac users, to ensure an issue free restoration should the need ever occur.

Once Carbon Copy Cloner has been configured to your liking you really can set it up and forget it, as it’s scheduled backups will incrementally keep your backup file up to date.

You can download Carbon Copy Cloner direct from Bombich’s website by clicking this direct link.

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Offline TimeMachine Backups

Mike Hudson 1 Comment

One of OS X Lion’s new features around it’s fantastic TimeMachine backup facility is also perhaps one of the least known. TimeMachine is a built in backup system which you can set up and forget about, each time it detects your backup device it will automatically start backing up. (If you last one was missed/delayed)

However, if you are a ‘road warrior’ and spend more time disconnected from your backup device then connected, you no longer have to worry about your important files not being backed up. OS X Lion actually back’s up your files in a local cache whilst your normal backup device is unavailable. Then, when you plug in/come in range of your normal backup device, TimeMachine will then move the cached files over to your other drive!

Despite the fact the market is full of third party backup applications, including some very powerful free ones, I personally have no need to use anything but TimeMachine. In my opinion it’s almost perfect!!

Time Machine works with your Mac and an external hard drive or Time Capsule. Connect the drive, assign it to Time Machine, and start enjoying some peace of mind. Time Machine automatically backs up your entire Mac, including system files, applications, accounts, preferences, music, photos, movies, and documents. But what makes Time Machine different from other backup applications is that it not only keeps a spare copy of every file, it remembers how your system looked on any given day — so you can revisit your Mac as it appeared in the past.

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TimeMachine makes finding previously backed up files as easy as navigating normal finder views:

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…Restore files is as simple as ‘Right Click > Restore’. I have actually been known to use TimeMachine as a built in source code revision system. Bringing back files prior to code changes – all whilst being out on the road and not near my TimeCapsule.

If you use something else for your backups, let me know by using the comments system below.

 

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