We're back from the Thanksgiving break with second helpings of Mac-related content! In this issue, Joe Kissell helps you choose backup software (excerpted from his new "Take Control of Mac OS X Backups" ebook). Matt Neuburg spotlights the Mac OS X-native version of the RAM-based database program Panorama V. Also, Adam takes Steve Ballmer to task for his complaints about spam, and Glenn Fleishman praises Apple's new .Mac affiliate program. We also note the releases of Security Update 2004-12-02, a new line of Squeezebox audio streaming devices, EyeHome 1.5.1, Mac compatibility from the U.S. Postal Service, and the long-awaited arrival of a Canadian iTunes Music Store.
Topics: MailBITS/06-Dec-04 DealBITS Drawing: Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro iTunes Music Store Opens in Canada Apple Starts .Mac Affiliate Program Panorama V for Victory Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Spam Choosing Backup Software Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/06-Dec-04
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MailBITS/06-Dec-04 ------------------
**Security Update 2004-12-02 Released** -- Apple continues to release security updates, with Security Update 2004-12-02 rolling in fixes for numerous potential exploits. The improvements update the Apache Web server, the Cyrus IMAP server, Kerberos, the Postfix mail server, QuickTime Streaming Server, Safari, and Terminal, along with several low-level frameworks. Although none of the vulnerabilities seem particularly serious, it's always worth staying up-to-date on security patches to help prevent problems. Security Update 2004-12-02 is available via Software Update (sizes range between 12 MB and 24 MB depending on operating system version), and it's available as separate downloads as well for the client and server versions of Mac OS 10.2.8 and Mac OS X 10.3.6.
It's worth noting in passing that Apple also recently released a minor update to iCal to plug a security hole surrounding alarms that open programs or send email. iCal 1.5.4 is also available via Software Update and as a standalone download; it's 8.2 MB. [ACE]
**Squeezebox Adds New Display, Features, Colors** -- Slim Devices has spiced up the Squeezebox (see "Good Vibrations from the Squeezebox" in TidBITS-726_). In August they upgraded the display to a "graphical" unit that displays 280 x 16 pixels and uses proportional fonts. More recently, the SlimServer software was upgraded to version 5.4. This update adds an Internet Radio directory, with listings from Live365, Radioio, ShoutCAST, AudioFeast, and their own aggregation, Slim Devices Picks. An RSS news reader is included, along with support for Ogg Vorbis radio streams, and (when running on Windows) support for WMA radio streams. Also bundled is SoftSqueeze, a software player that emulates the Squeezebox's interface. Slim Server 5.4 is a free update and a 6.3 MB download.
The Squeezebox player is also now available in four metallic colors: Rhapsody in Blue, Tangerine Dream, Purple Haze, and Triple Platinum. Slim Devices has also launched a CD ripping service, wherein you ship your music CDs to them and they return them along with digital versions in the format of your choice. A color Squeezebox is a $10 premium over the matte black version; CD ripping costs $130 for 100 CDs, with quantity pricing available for up to 1,000 CDs. [Andrew Laurence]
<http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_ripping.html>
**EyeHome 1.5.1 Improves Interface, Media Support** -- Elgato Systems' EyeHome media server has received a major update in the recently released 1.5.1 version (see "EyeHome: So Close, Yet So Far" in TidBITS-741_). This update includes both the server software on the Mac as well as the device's firmware. Changes include a new user interface, better support for DivX and 3ivx video, new support for the Ogg Vorbis audio format, a pop-up window that displays information about a video file's format, and the capability to display iPhoto pictures on the television while music plays from iTunes's Library. I'm pleased to report that the new interface is much more agreeable, and corrects most of the navigation issues I highlighted in my review. The update is free for all EyeHome customers, available via download. [Andrew Laurence]
**USPS Click-N-Ship Now Mac-Compatible** -- Thanks to Rob Faludi for passing on the information that the U.S. Postal Service Click-N-Ship program now works on the Mac. Click-N-Ship is useful because it lets you avoid trips to your local post office to mail packages, at least if you're using Priority Mail or Express Mail (including Global Express Guaranteed and Global Express Mail). In brief, you weigh your package, enter the weight, destination, and insurance amount (if any) in a Web form, and then pay for the postage via a standard Web shopping cart. A Java-based Web application helps you print the necessary shipping label on a normal sheet of paper (you can also buy special label stock). Your postal carrier then picks up the package the next day just as though it were an outgoing letter. We've only had the chance to use Click-N-Ship a few times so far, but it worked fine in Safari and OmniWeb, and should help us eliminate all those extra errands to the post office. The USPS doesn't claim Macintosh compatibility yet, but it's entirely possible that improvements in the Java VM for Mac OS X brought the necessary changes to make it all work. We still need to buy a good digital scale to take over from our analog kitchen scale, but once that's done, mailing packages will become less annoying than it has been. [ACE]
<https://sss-web.usps.com/ds/jsps/ds_landing.jsp>
**Digital Photography: Correction & Follow-up** -- I would like to point out a mistake in my article "Sense & Sensors in Digital Photography" in TidBITS-751_. I stated that smaller sensors are more sensitive to camera movement than larger sensors, but when the field of view is comparable, they are not. This vitiates one paragraph but has no effect on any conclusions or advice. Also, an editing gaffe at the end of the same article sowed some confusion over the role of green in Bayer sensors. The second link below points to a clarification of this and also to an extensive set of FAQs that have come out of the series. [Charles Maurer]
DealBITS Drawing: Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro -------------------------------------------------- by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
For many people outside of large cities, the Internet has revitalized radio, vastly increasing the amount of content - both spoken word and music - that's available. But most of it is streamed, making it just as disrespectful of our time as television for those without a VCR or DVR. With Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro, however, you can have your Internet radio and eat it after dinner (or whenever and wherever you like) too. It's a slick application that lets you record audio from almost any source to a digital format, making it useful not just for recording Internet radio programs for later listening on your iPod, but also for ripping your old vinyl albums to MP3.
<http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/>
In this week's DealBITS drawing, you can enter to win one of three copies of Audio Hijack Pro 2.1.1, each worth $32. Entrants who aren't among our lucky winners will receive a discount on Audio Hijack Pro, so if you've been considering converting your LPs to MP3 or scheduling a regular recording of Car Talk, be sure to enter at the DealBITS page linked below. All information gathered is covered by our comprehensive privacy policy. Be careful with your spam filters, since you must be able to receive email from my address to learn if you've won.
iTunes Music Store Opens in Canada ---------------------------------- by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
At long last, Apple has opened the iTunes Music Store to iTunes users in Canada [1]. Not being an actual Canadian [2], I'm sure there are aspects to the Canadian iTunes Music Store that will escape me, but I did notice that the standard price per song will be CDN$0.99, or US$0.84 [3]. Apple also claims the iTunes Music Store in Canada features over 700,000 songs, which is comparable to the number of songs offered by the EU iTunes Music Store, though still well behind the 1,000,000 songs offered in the US iTunes Music Store as of August, 2004 [4]. Apple also said that the Canadian iTunes Music Store will feature many top Canadian artist exclusives [5].
[1] Note that I avoided a sarcastic joke here about how there aren't that many people in Canada as an explanation for why it took Apple so long to allow Canadians to purchase from the iTunes Music Store. Honestly, I have no idea why it took so long - it seemed like an obvious early move to me.
[2] Though I have been mistaken for one, while travelling in Australia in 1998. But I suspect the person was just being polite.
[3] It was tempting to throw in a ludicrously low number to poke fun at the exchange rate, but the Canadian dollar is actually doing quite a lot better from the recent low of US$0.72 to CDN$0.99 back in May, 2004. Still, I wonder if there will be people with US and Canadian credit cards and addresses (such that they can order from both stores) who will happily buy music at whichever store has the lower price.
[4] Has anyone figured out how to make a list of which songs are available in one iTunes Music Store but not another? That would be cool.
[5] Too much fun could be had with this statement. For instance, the number 5 top single (as voted by "over 300 Canadian musicians, critics, and music biz types") was "Echo Beach" by a group called Martha and the Muffins. But does Martha and the Muffins show up in Canadian Musician Magazine's list of Canadian artists? No [6].
[6] But the list does include what I suspect is the group's later incarnation, Bertha Does Moosejaw.
Apple Starts .Mac Affiliate Program ----------------------------------- by Glenn Fleishman <glenn@tidbits.com>
Apple has just launched the .Mac affiliate program: if someone signs up for .Mac by following a link on your site, you receive $15. It's that simple.
<http://www.mac.com/1/affiliates/>
Affiliate programs have been powerful tools for drawing in new customers for subscription and e-commerce retail stores because the goal in those cases is lifetime customer value. It makes sense to pay relatively large commissions to referrers who produce single-year subscribers, who, in turn, are more likely to become multi-year subscribers. In other words, paying $15 to gain $200, $300, or $400 in eventual revenue doesn't seem silly.
Apple has certainly done the testing and run the numbers on this program. A $15 bounty for a new .Mac subscriber means there's a large universe of potential .Mac customers that Apple can't reach through its other advertising techniques; they must also be seeing a fairly high non-cancellation rate among referred .Mac subscribers.
Affiliate programs also have the benefit of stamping the imprimatur of the site that refers (the affiliate) to the site that pays (the advertiser). If a Mac Web site started showing a .Mac affiliate banner, it says to me that the site thinks referring people to .Mac and having them sign up makes sense for its readers.
Panorama V for Victory ---------------------- by Matt Neuburg <matt@tidbits.com>
Throughout the nearly 20 years of its history, ProVUE's flagship database application, Panorama, has been ahead of its time; now the times have caught up, and Panorama has risen to the challenge. Panorama, as you may recall from my original review (see "Seeing the Light with Panorama" in TidBITS-606_), is lightning-fast because it keeps the entire database in RAM, and this of course makes today's speedy RAM-packed computers and Mac OS X's advanced memory management a perfect platform. Thus, a Mac OS X-native version is a natural for Panorama. Such a version has been available in developmental form for over a year; now, with Panorama V, it's official. (The Roman-numeral version designation is doubtless a nod to Apple's "X".)
The whole look and feel of the program has leapt into the 21st century. Colors, 3D gradients, and form widget appearances harmonize with Aqua; dialogs are cleaner and non-modal; support has been added for scroll wheels, text-to-speech, vCards, the color picker, and phone dialing; and the thoroughly revised documentation looks great in Preview. There are numerous new or improved wizards (many of these work seamlessly with the Internet, using the command-line based curl utility in Mac OS X) and lots of new features. Particularly slick is the Live Search feature, with an interface like the search-as-you-type field in the Panther Finder or Apple Mail.
Panorama developers will find the native scripting language greatly expanded in some profound and thoughtful ways. There are hundreds of convenient new functions and procedure commands, along with the capability to create custom global routines. A function can now assign a value to a field or variable as a side effect. Running and debugging procedures are now much more convenient, and procedure menus can be created dynamically. The handling of custom dialogs and menus is much better. Support for calling AppleScript has been improved, and of course it's now also possible to call the Unix shell. Many wizards assist with common programming tasks.
The installation and registration procedure, always a bit dicey for me in the past, is now clean, simple, and reliable. The Web site has also been improved to provide information more clearly. Basically, if you've been holding off on trying Panorama because it wasn't Mac OS X-native, now's the time to dive in. (At the same time, Panorama V is a Carbon application and runs fine on Mac OS 9 too.)
Panorama V is free to download, and you can use it free forever if your database has a fairly small number of records, or if you are willing to play a simple but inconvenient game (find and click the bold letters in a dialog) every time you save. Otherwise it's $300 ($140 for Panorama 4 owners), with a $30 option for a license that lets your copy run on unlimited personal machines. There are generous terms for distributing your database along with a special non-developer version of Panorama, in case you want to share your database with friends or you use it to develop a killer app. For Mac OS X, Panorama V requires Jaguar or later; the download ranges from about 65 MB with developer tools and documentation down to 5 MB for just the application itself. Next on ProVUE's plate: updating the Windows version.
Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Spam ----------------------------------- by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>
In a recent AP story, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was quoted as saying that Bill Gates "literally receives 4 million pieces of email per day, most of it spam." Fascinating! It implies that Gates is still using the classic billg@microsoft.com address, which makes no sense. It's not as if he wants to be accessible to everyone on the Internet who might like to send him email, so I can't see why he wouldn't just use an unpublished address for everything.
The quote also implies a huge level of malevolence on the part of spammers. I've been using ace@tidbits.com on the Internet since the early 1990s, and my address shows up weekly in email on tens of thousands of computers (some of which are undoubtedly PCs infected with email address-gathering worms), on the Web, and even in Usenet news. For all that, searching Google today for my address turns up 9,670 hits, compared to only 5,390 for Gates's. It's not surprising - you don't see Bill Gates popping up in public mailing lists or putting his address on public Web pages. So why should my spam load (pre-Postini) have been only about 1,000 messages per day, whereas Gates gets 4 million per day? All I can think is that he's being targeted directly by spam and worms, which makes me wonder even more why the address would be active when it's obviously being used as the target of an ongoing denial-of-service attack.
Ballmer also said that Microsoft has special technology just for filtering the spam out of Gates's incoming email, and it's bolstered by several Microsoft employees dedicated to the task of ensuring that Gates doesn't see any spam at all. I'm sure it's effective in the end, but come on: why not install some real spam-filtering technology that doesn't require, as Ballmer puts it, "a whole department almost" to clean up after it. Or just forget about it and turn off the darn account!
Of course, as Todd Bishop of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer clarified by contacting a Microsoft spokesperson, a more likely explanation for the entire situation is that Ballmer's speaking style often leaves room for interpretation, apparently a highly useful trait in a CEO.
What about Ballmer himself? He claims that he is "probably also among the most spammed people in the world" because he gives out his email address whenever he makes a speech. That could imply that Ballmer's speeches are heavily attended by spammers, since publicizing his address in a speech to honest, law-abiding citizens wouldn't result in him receiving spam. I'm not sure I'd be proud of addressing spammers so frequently. More realistically, I suspect he doesn't understand how spammers operate. On the Internet, where spammers are known to trawl for email addresses because it's easier than attending keynote presentations and taking notes, Ballmer's address, steveb@microsoft.com, elicits only 868 hits in Google right now, and that's about triple where it was before Google started indexing all the news stories on this topic.
Sorry, Steve, it's not the talks. The only sensible conclusion is that spammers are targeting you too, just like Bill. The real question is if other big company CEO-types are being similarly attacked, or if Microsoft could somehow, and I certainly couldn't imagine how, tweaked off a bunch of people over the years?
Choosing Backup Software ------------------------ by Joe Kissell <jk@alt.cc>
When is a backup program not a backup program? A lot of software that calls itself "backup software" does not actually perform backups in the two key senses I discuss in my new ebook, "Take Control of Mac OS X Backups." That is to say, some backup programs do not create additive incremental archives of your files, some do not create bootable duplicates, and some do neither! The latter category includes, interestingly enough, Apple's own Backup application.
Unfortunately, because software developers use terms such as "incremental," "archive," and "backup" differently, you may think you're getting certain capabilities when you buy a product that later turn out to be missing. Thus it is extremely important that you read the fine print, and understand exactly what it is you're looking for.
**Duplication Features** -- Many different applications can create a bootable duplicate. This entails copying all the files (including hidden files) on your hard disk to another volume while preserving Unix ownership, permissions, and symbolic links. In most cases, such applications can also update a duplicate incrementally (rather than recopy every single file each time).
However, you should consider a few other things when looking at a duplication program:
* Can it create a bootable duplicate directly onto a hard drive (as opposed to an intermediate disk image or optical media)? If you have an extra hard drive available, you'll want this capability.
* Conversely, can it create a restorable duplicate onto optical media or a disk image? Sometimes this capability is useful, other times not.
* Can it automatically update the duplicates on a schedule?
* When updating a duplicate incrementally, can it also delete files that were deleted on the source volume? If not, your duplicate may include extraneous files that you don't want.
* Does it have any other features you might use, such as file and folder synchronization?
That said, the duplication programs I've tried are more alike than different, so if you're looking for an application to accomplish only this one task, just about any of the duplication programs I list in the ebook should do the trick.
**Archiving Features** -- Among applications that provide archiving features, there's a huge range of variation in how they work - and how easy they make it to restore your work later. The fact that an application stores multiple revisions of each backed-up file does not, by itself, make it good for creating archives.
**Archive Varieties** -- First, there's an important distinction to make: true archives versus rotating backups. In a true archive - that is, an additive incremental archive - every version of every file you designate is saved, but identical files are never duplicated. In a rotating backup, the program creates a complete, separate copy of all your files every day - basically a non-incremental archive. Then, after a certain number of days (specified by the user), the program erases the oldest backup and adds a new one. Rotating backups, because they copy every single file each day, take longer to perform and require much more storage space. If you have room and time to spare, there's nothing wrong with that approach, and it removes the need for a snapshot list, since all the files themselves are there (see "Snapshots and File Lists," just ahead). However, because you're erasing files older than a certain date, you're restricting your restoration capability. If you keep, say, five days worth of rotating backups and find you need a file you deleted a week ago, you're out of luck.
A few applications offer the best of both worlds: rotating archives. Like a conventional archive, new files are added to the backup incrementally (without overwriting older versions). However, in order to conserve space, you can opt to erase the oldest versions of selected files at the same time - for example, all versions older than 30 days, or versions copied more than 30 sessions ago.
**File Format, Compression, and Encryption** -- To oversimplify somewhat, most software employs one of two basic methods to copy files when performing a backup. One way is to copy each file in a stand-alone Finder-readable format, so that the backed-up files look exactly like the originals. Another way is to copy all the files into a single, larger file (sometimes called an archive file or a backup set). Each approach has advantages and disadvantages.
Finder-format copies can be restored without the use of a backup program - just drag and drop. Some people also feel more secure knowing they can get at their files easily even if their backup software goes south. Of course, the backed-up files will always take up exactly as much space as the originals.
Archive files can be compressed efficiently as they're stored, potentially saving a large amount of hard disk space. They can also be encrypted, so if your backup media is lost or stolen, no one can read your files without knowing your passphrase. And unlike Finder copies, which always take as their owner the user name of the person currently logged in, archive files can preserve original Unix ownership and permissions. Of course, you will need the backup software to restore files, and in some cases you have a slightly higher risk of data loss due to file corruption (since all the data is stored in a single file) - but most backup software has verification mechanisms to compensate for this.
(Note**:** Not all programs that offer compression or encryption copy data into a single archive file. A few can compress or encrypt individual files, such that they can be moved or copied (but not opened) in the Finder. You must still use the backup software to restore them to their original state.)
However, you should also be aware of a third option: disk images. Some backup software, at least when backing up to a hard disk, stores files in a disk image. Like an archive file, a disk image is a single file that contains all your other files - and can optionally be compressed, encrypted, or both. The difference is that you can double-click a disk image, and after supplying the passphrase (if necessary) it will mount on the Desktop as a regular volume - after which you can read and copy files using the Finder. Sounds great, doesn't it? It can be, but keep in mind that in most cases, each incremental archive backup is stored on a separate disk image, so without a snapshot or file list provided by the backup software (see "Snapshots and File Lists," just ahead), restoration can be quite involved.
When making a bootable duplicate onto another hard disk, Finder copies are obviously mandatory. For archives, though, I strongly prefer a format that offers both compression and encryption - and in this respect, archive files are generally more elegant and convenient than disk images.
**Snapshots and File Lists** -- When it comes time to restore files from an archive, you must be able to locate the versions you want quickly and easily. Some backup programs facilitate such restorations by offering snapshots - lists of all the files on your computer as they existed at the time of each backup, even if they were already present in the archive and therefore not copied during that particular session. Suppose you want to restore all the files on your machine as they existed last Tuesday. Having a list of all the files as they appeared on Tuesday - and an automated way to restore them - can be extremely valuable.
On the other hand, imagine that you want to look back at every version of just one particular file as it existed over the past month. In this case, you don't want to wade through snapshots - you simply want a list (sorted by file name or date - or better yet, searchable) of each version of the file in the archive, from which you can choose just the ones you want. Without either a snapshot or a file list, you'll need to locate each version of the file manually in dated folders. This makes for a long and tedious restoration process.
**Sources and Destinations** -- The volume from which you are backing up files is known as the source; the volume to which you are backing them up is known as the destination (or target). Be sure the software you select can accommodate the sources and destinations you wish to use.
All backup programs can copy data from your startup disk. Most can also copy data from other attached hard disks, network volumes (including AppleShare volumes, FTP servers, and iDisks mounted in the Finder). And usually you can select arbitrary folders or files anywhere on those volumes to be backed up. However, there are exceptions. Qdea's Backup Simplicity, for example, supports only your startup volume.
<http://www.qdea.com/pages/pages-bs/bs1.html>
In most cases, your range of destination options also includes any Finder-mountable volume. (So, theoretically, you could even back up one network volume to a different network volume if you wanted to.) But not always: Babel Company's Impression, for example, cannot copy files directly to a hard disk - though it can create a disk image that resides on a hard disk. On the other hand, at least Impression creates the disk images for you. Most programs require that you manually create the disk image yourself using Disk Utility and mount it in the Finder before you can use it as a backup destination.
<http://babelcompany.com/impression/>
A similar issue comes into play with optical media. A backup program can support recordable CDs and DVDs as a destination in either of two senses:
* You pop a blank disc into your drive, give it a name, and allow it to mount in the Finder. The backup software sees the disc as a possible destination like any other volume. After running the backup program, you then return to the Finder to manually burn and eject the disc.
* The backup program itself asks for blank media when needed, writing to it directly without the intervention of the Finder.
The first way of supporting optical media is trivially easy for software developers to implement, so that is how many backup programs work. But this approach does have some problems. First, it requires much more human intervention - performing manual steps despite the fact that the backup itself runs automatically on a schedule. Second, it eliminates the possibility of multisession recording (the ability to record additional chunks of information on a partially used disc after the initial write session), since the Finder does not include this feature. This is a problem because without multisession capability, you will use a much larger number of discs - increasing not only media cost, but inconvenience. (Note, however, that some applications, including Retrospect, use a packet-writing technique to add data to partially used optical discs. This is even more efficient than multisession support, but it means that only the application used to record the discs can read them later.) Therefore, if you need to record backups onto optical media, I strongly recommend using an application with multisession (or packet-writing) support.
<http://www.dantz.com/>
A related issue is what I'm going to call media spanning. Suppose you have more data than will fit on a single CD or DVD - or even that you have a single file that's too large to fit on a single disc. Some backup programs intelligently manage backups that span multiple discs, prompting you for new media when required during a backup (splitting files if necessary), and asking for the proper discs when restoring files (rejoining split files). Although the need for media spanning could affect those backing up onto hard drives as well, it's most crucial for those using optical media. Only a few backup programs offer media spanning, and even fewer include both media spanning and multisession or packet-writing support.
**Selectors and Exclusions** -- Selective archive backups (as opposed to full archive backups) do not include every file on your hard disk. But archiving even your entire home folder may be overkill, since it includes things like cache files, which serve no useful purpose in the context of a backup, and digital media files (such as MP3s ripped from your CD collection), which, because they change infrequently, are adequately backed up already if you maintain bootable duplicates of your entire hard disk. So instead of simply selecting one or more folders to archive, you may wish to explicitly include or exclude certain types of files.
Some backup programs include user-definable criteria specifying which files should be included (selectors) or excluded (exclusions) from a particular folder or volume - and a few programs offer both. Depending on the program, these criteria may include file names, sizes, Finder labels, extensions, modification dates, and any number of other factors.
In general, I find exclusions more useful than selectors, though I would not generally consider either an absolute must in a backup program. Your mileage, of course, may vary.
**Ease of Restoration** -- No matter how easy it is to back up your hard disk, if your software makes it difficult to restore files, you're going to be unhappy with it. After all, a backup that you can't restore is worthless. Backup programs typically offer one of three main approaches to restoration:
* Finder restoration: The backup program has no Restore command; to restore files, you drag them manually from the backup volume onto your hard disk. This is fine if you're restoring an entire folder, but if you've done an additive incremental archive, you may have to sort through dozens or hundreds of folders to locate the right versions of each of your files.
* Reverse backup: In this scheme, the backup program once again does not offer a Restore command, instead expecting that you'll simply swap the source and destination locations and perform your backup again - in reverse. While this may reduce manual effort somewhat, it's still going to be a hassle when restoring versioned files from an archive. And even in the best cases, a reverse backup can be confusing and stressful, because it's easy to get the source and destination mixed up when their contents are so similar.
* A Restore command: The backup program (usually) keeps track of all the files you backed up during each session, allowing you to copy them back to their proper locations - or another destination of your choice - with a few clicks. In most cases, before starting the restoration, you can choose a subset of the files, or even pick out one version of a single file if that's all you need. Restore commands and snapshots tend to appear together.
It probably goes without saying that I prefer applications with a Restore command - they make the restoration quicker and easier. Of course, the presence of a Restore feature does not, by itself, mean the process will be easy, but it's a hopeful sign.
**Restoring a Full Archive as a Bootable Volume** -- If you choose to perform a full (rather than selective) archive, bear in mind that not all backup software can restore your archive from an arbitrary point to a blank disk in such a way that the resulting volume will be bootable. In order for a restored full archive to be bootable, several things must be true:
* All files needed for your computer to start up - including a great many hidden files - must be included in the backup and restored afterward.
* The backup software must preserve Unix ownership, permissions, and symbolic links during both the backup process and the restoration process; doing so requires that you enter an administrator's password.
* When restoring the files, the destination disk must not contain any extraneous files that could interfere with booting; normally, this implies erasing the disk before restoring the archive.
Most backup software that provides both duplication and archiving features also enables you to restore a full archive as a bootable volume, assuming that you set it up properly. Some programs, however (notably Synchronize Pro X) can restore a bootable volume only from a duplicate, not from an archive. A few applications permit full archives to be restored as bootable volumes, but lack a snapshot feature - meaning you must manually locate and copy a large number of documents to return your disk to the state you wish to recreate.
Unfortunately, most backup software does not explicitly state whether or not it can restore a full archive as a bootable volume, and of the programs that do, some are more reliable in this regard than others. This may be a good reason to consider performing selective backups instead; on the other hand, if full archives are important to you, I recommend using Retrospect.
**Ease of Use** -- In addition to ease of restoration, an application's overall ease of use is also important. The interface should be self-explanatory - ideally, clear enough that you can figure out how to perform a basic backup and restoration without ever looking at a manual.
If your backup software is difficult to learn or set up, you're less likely to use it. So you want an application you can configure in an hour or so - not something that takes you an entire day to figure out. You also want your backup software to perform its duties on a schedule with as little interruption to your routine as possible. The best backup software would be completely invisible, working silently behind the scenes until you needed it.
Even so, don't underestimate the importance of good documentation. An extensive, well-written manual can be a godsend when trying to comprehend the minutiae of rotating archives or client-server configuration.
**Support and Reputation** -- Some backup software is published by individuals who like to program in their spare time. At the other end of the spectrum, some backup software is published by large corporations with a small army of programmers and a full-time paid technical support staff. Ironically, I've often received better and quicker technical support from individual authors - even those who give away their applications for free - than big companies. On the other hand, if you're entrusting all the data on the computers in your home or small office to a backup application, you may feel more comfortable knowing that a professional staff stands behind the product.
Of special note in this regard is Dantz (now owned by EMC), developers of Retrospect. They charge $70 to speak to a technical support representative on the phone - a seemingly outrageous fee. However, I've used Dantz technical support more than once, and I believe you get what you pay for. The technicians answer promptly, are highly trained, and continue working with you - even over multiple phone calls - until the problem is solved (without charging you for each call). When I'm terrified that I might have just lost all my data and my software doesn't seem to be functioning correctly, I'm only too happy to pay $70 for the reassuring voice and advice of an expert who can help me get things working again.
**Price** -- The backup software I discuss in the ebook ranges in price from free to $130. The price does not necessarily correlate to capabilities, but I urge you not to skimp when it comes to backup software just to save a few dollars. After all, time is money. If you lose a day of income because your backup program makes you jump through too many hoops when restoring files, that's likely to be a bigger financial hit than the cost of better software.
**Take Control of Mac OS X Backups** -- In "Take Control of Mac OS X Backups," I take this information a step further and provide detailed recommendations about which software is best for particular uses, including network backups. I also include an appendix with feature comparisons, pricing, and contact information for about two dozen backup applications. In addition to software recommendations, I discuss hardware options, backup strategies, restoration techniques, and more - everything you need to know to set up a reliable and easy-to-use Mac OS X backup system. "Take Control of Mac OS X Backups," a 96-page ebook, costs $10; as always, purchasers are entitled to receive all minor updates free of charge.
[Joe Kissell is a San Francisco-based writer, consultant, and Mac developer who kicked off the Take Control series with the best-selling "Take Control of Upgrading to Panther," and has also written two ebooks about Apple Mail. His secret identity is Curator of Interesting Things for the Interesting Thing of the Day Web site.]
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