Enterprises Chucking Windows & Choosing Macintosh

"News Analysis. Macintosh is choice du jour for enterprises deploying operating systems other than Microsoft's Windows. Uh-oh. One Linux version is catching up.

Windows Vista dissatisfaction and concerns about Windows 7 compatibility and deployment costs have some enterprises looking at alternatives, according to the research. The economy is a factor, too, but more to the benefit of Linux than either Mac OS X or Windows. The number of businesses considering "an alternative to adopting Windows Vista or Windows 7" is 50 percent, up from 42 percent in 2008, according to the report."

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Backup hell and back!

Well what can I say I should practice what I preach about backups. I have always strongly encouraged my clients to backup their data however as for my data well I was always going to do it next week. So recently I had back to back disk failures. Not only did I have my main disk but also my recovery hard disk as well! No fun for sure so I thought I would blog about my experiences and perhaps some others might be saved some of the pain the I have been though.

Disk failures what can be done? Well generally there are two types of problems and both of them can be cause you heartache:
1) Physical hard disk failure. Physical hard disk failures are the type of failures in which something is physically wrong with the hard drive itself. Perhaps its making a clicking sound or the drive head scratched the platter. It’s very possible that the hard drive may not make any noise at all or that the computer doesn’t even acknowledge the hard drive’s existence.
2) Logical failure is the type of failure in which there’s nothing physically wrong with the drive itself and it working just fine. However, the information stored on the hard drive is in bad shape due to data corruption, cross linked files, bad blocks, etc.

Fist if you have a problem run the built-in tools that came with your computer for Macintosh OS X users that program is Disk Utility and older Windows users use ScanDisk or Check Disk. Windows XP users can run Check Disk by reading tech note # 315265 How to perform disk error checking in Windows XP. Sadly for most OS X users Disk Utility is not going to solve your disk problems other then repairing permissions. So far I haven't had great success with DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro. I do like Drive Genius and Data Rescue II. However some times even the best tools will not be able to save your bacon so your best off having a good backup plan.

What is a backup plan?

Well I could be very complex here but Ill make it very simple for the average user. You should have a local backup and an off site back up. Why do you need both? A local backup is great for quickly recovering a file you might have deleted. Whereas the off site backup is great in cause you suffer a natural disaster or computer theft.

What software should I use?

Well there are lots of options for sure but I am only going to cover some of the most common that I have used. 

Time Machine is great choice of any OS X 10.5 user as it's free and can be used with any USB or FireWire external hard disk. However Time Machine can be extreemly frustrating because if there is a problem your going to have a dificult time tracking down the problem and fixing it. If your interested in the gory details of how Time Machine works then I recomend reading Time Machine Exposed! by Matt Neuburg. Also if you have run into problems with your Time Capsule then check out Save the World, Save Time Machine. 

Backup 3 is not a bad choice if you are a .Mac user. Because with one click you can backup all or most of your data to your iDisk. However depending on the .Mac account you have then you have between 10-20GB of space and Apple is willing to sell you more. However to me this seems to be a pricy option if you plan to also backup your photos and music as I think you will go way over the default disk space.

EMC Retrospect Desktop Edition is a great choice for power users. Infact if you buy a hard disk from many vendors Retrospect Express is bundled with the hard disk for free. The Retrospect software comes with simple scripts and works with both Macintosh and Windows. if you are a power user then you can customized all your backup needs in detail. I like Retrospect and now use it rather then Time Machine.

What do you do if your want to also do off site backups and you don't want to have to think about it? Well there are some very interesting cross platform solutions such as Mozy, CrashPlan, steekup.  Mozy has been my choice because they give you 2GB of storage space for Free! Folks free is hard to beat! Now if you need unlimited space then Mozy cost around $4.95 a month. Steekup seems to be the cheap at around a $1.45 a month but I have not used this service myself as I have been using Mozy and while it's no speed demon it does the job.

 Important note if you have lots of data and you don't plan on sending it to your chosen offsite service (if they offer such an option) then remember it's going to take a very long time to copy all of your data up to their server so plan for that and do keep making your local backups and if at all possible make a copy of your data and keep it in your bank safety deposit box or at your parents house in a fireproof safe. Another thing you want to consider is not using any of the off site services if you ISP is Time Warner Cable as they are now using Internet metering and the cost of backing up could become very expensive for their customers.

I try to keep an open mind so if you want to post about your backup experience with local and remote (off site) cross platform backup solutions Id love to hear about it.

Make your Mac's Speech Recognition work for you

"Mac OS X comes with a pretty great Speech Recognition tool built-in, and, although it doesn't do all that much out-of-the-box, it's really easy to create your own speakable actions for virtually any application." Have some fun and try some of the built-in supported programs. If you are an advanced user you can even increase the power of the Mac's built-in Speech Recognition by using AppleScript.

read more | digg story

Five reasons why Vista beats Mac OS X

The conventional wisdom, that Mac's OS X is superior to Windows Vista, is flat-out wrong. In fact, despite much belief to the contrary, Vista is a superior operating system according to Preston Gralla of ComputerWorld. After your done reading his article view the video from Chris Pirillo.


Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

read more | digg story

Leopard spanks Vista!

Today Computerworld wrote that  "There's really no contest. Tiger is a better OS that Vista, and there are no long-term downsides to Leopard. Vista doesn't measure up. " I also found and interesting article about the myth that buying a Apple costs more then a PC. The author explains how that PC you are thinking of buying really will cost more then the an Apple Macintosh would. Looks like Apple is also working on 10.5.1 and it's said to have at least two dozen fixes. Also included are updates to Leopards FireWall. iLounge talks about the secrets & features of iTunes 7.5.  My odd bit of interesting news for the day was a Digg Story the spooky side of Scientology. 

Apple bits

All is well and good for Apple computer (yes I know they dropped the computer from their name but I still like the sound of "Apple computer" better then just Apple) as of today they have sold over two million copies of Mac OS X Leopard!  

So far there have been very few problems reported in the news about Leopard bugs. So if you are a user of APE you are sure of have some problems. I recommend that you uninstall the software before you install Leopard.

Recently there have been a number of articles written about how well Mac's do when compared-with PC's in the area of total cost of ownership (TCO). While the numbers are small Apple is growing in the corporate and small business worlds as a viable work tool. Have you noticed that Apples have less support calls then PC's so have many an open mined IT manager. But of course there are always those Apple haters in the world and to them I say hey if you enjoy working on your broken computer great I have real work to do.

Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

Last but not least how many times must I be told that this or that user can't use a Mac because they don't have a second button? Check out an Apple Mighty mouse and if that's no to your liking well there are other options such as the Microsoft Intellimouse. Chris Pirillo as written a interesting article about this mouse myth. 

Apple will shortly be selling the iPhone in the Europe but how many will want them without 3G? I for one will be very interested in seeing what the sales numbers are for Europe are because there are rumors that Apple will be selling a 3G iPhone in the not too distant future. The heavy text users in the UK should keep an eye out for so called premium text services as they are not covered under the iPhone plan. One father had a rude surprise, when he received this daughters $10,000.00 phone bill? Some in Europe will are predicting that the iPhone will cause a crime wave but IMHO no more then any iPod has.

Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

Why Leopard rocks and Vista is a sleeper for older PC's

Don't get me wrong Vista is much better then Windows ME but is it better then Windows XP? Well much of that may come down to your preferences and if you own a new computer or not. The major problems with Vista is that in addition of the sucking sound of your CPU used by all the extra DRM that unless you do a lot of work making sure you have the correct drivers Vista is not a simple upgrade.

What is the average use to do thinking of upgrading to do? Well if you are going to by a new computer you might as well consider the Apple Macintosh running Leopard and of course the OS will work with most of the current Mac's as well. Leopard will offer 0ver 300+ new features that are sure to dazzle most users but not all. In my mind there are a few features that really jump out like much improved security, parental controls, automatic backup, and Unix! Yes, Unix and that is a major reason why OS X is so stable. Lets not forget that every Macintosh comes bundled with iLife 08 which I would say is a must have and there is no bundle software on the Windows side that you can even compare to iLife.

Another option for users of older computers who can't afford a new PC running OS X or Vista is Linux. There are many flavors of Linux and each has its plus and minus but if you have no preference then a very popular choice is Ubuntu. I was able to take and install Ubuntu on an antiquated dell laptop with no problems. The Ubuntu software recognized all the systems hardware and made the system feel almost new.

However these days do you even really need a full computer? If you are not a heavy Internet user consider the iPhone or iPod Touch. So far the iPhones have had very strong sales and I have yet to meet an iPhone owner who is sorry they bought it. Both devices ship all the software you should need to be productive and soon Apple will add third party software.


Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

Mac OS X Leopard ships this month!

Apple will be shipping Mac OS X Leopard on October the 26th. A special event will he held at every Apple Retail Store from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m and if you’re one of the first 500 guests, you’ll go home with a special edition Leopard T-shirt.

Leopard will be the latest in the line of Apple OS X releases replacing Tiger (notice the cat theme) and it boasts 300+ new features. While I must admit it's becoming harder for Apple to wow us (and Microsoft for that matter) there are a number of useful features being built into the operating system that I am sure most will find very useful.

I have had the chance to run the Leopard beta and it seems pretty solid so I am looking forward to the new release on the 26th. Will you be upgrading? I will, but remember folks its always a good idea to backup your system before you leap.