Disaster and Recovery for Mac Users

Posted September 17, 2008

Backing up locally to an external hard drive is an excellent first step to safeguarding your data. Time Machine on OS X Leopard is really easy to setup and use. When you first plug in an external drive your Mac will prompt you to start backing up to it.

The next step is to start backing up your data to an offsite location. Reasons for keeping a copy of your data at another location include fire, natural disasters and theft. If this sounds unnecessary, consider the following:

  • If your Mac is stolen, are the thieves really going to be considerate enough to leave your external hard drive behind?
  • Your home insurance policy may cover your Mac in case of flooding, but what if both your computer and external hard drive are waterlogged?
  • Also consider that it is affordable and easy to back up your data using an internet based service.

Mozy and Jungle Disk are both good options. Jungle Disk offers flexible pricing using Amazon’s S3 service, but if you are backing up more than 30 GB then Mozy may be cheaper. Expect to pay about $50 a year. Crashplan is an alternative, backing up your data over the internet to a work or friend’s computer. Carbonite is another service to keep an eye on; the Mac version is currently in beta.

If you have multiple user accounts on your Mac, Time Machine will back them all up. However, the internet backup application may not be able to do this as easily due to file permissions. This is something to consider when evaluating backup services.

Posted in General

7 Steps to Secure your Data on a Mac

Posted September 10, 2008

Securing sensitive data on your Mac’s hard drive is not difficult, even if (like me) you have delayed setting up any kind of protection. Carelessly, I had stored personal identity information on my home iMac, and I needed a simple way to tighten up security.

First of all, I chose not to use FileVault. When it is enabled, FileVault encrypts and your entire user home directory. This is certainly a good option for some people, but I chose to only encrypt certain sensitive files.

Here are seven simple steps to securing your data with links to more information on each step:

1. From now on, use “Secure Empty Trash” when you empty sensitive files from your Trash. Also, don’t save sensitive files in your trash for someone else to recover when you are not looking.

2. Erase data on your hard drive that you have already deleted. It may seem strange that you need to delete your files after you have already deleted them, but the fact is that deleted files are recoverable.

3. Create an encrypted DMG to store sensitive data. This is an encrypted disk image, or a file that acts like a hard drive. Use it to store sensitive files. It’s absolutely critical that you remember the password you use for this.

4. If you are using Time Machine: Wipe your Time Machine backup disk and start over. Use Secure Erase in Apple's Disk Utility to do this. If you previously had unencrypted sensitive information saved on your hard drive, chances are that there is a copy of it on your external Time Machine backup disk.

5. Create a “No Backup” folder to exclude from Time Machine backups. Use this folder to work on sensitive files when they are not stored in your secure DMG.

6. Set up account passwords for all your users.

7. Finally, require the password to unlock the computer when you are away. These last two steps are a good practice and keep most snoopers out.

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Powered by

Posted August 25, 2008

This website is running on Viviti (www.viviti.com), a hosted Content Management System (CMS) and website builder.

A CMS is an application that allows posting and managing content on a website, usually through a visual editor right on the website itself. So there is no need to edit code or transfer files, which is ideal for non-technical people who write content for websites. A CMS also saves time for even highly technical people; it’s simply easier to work with content this way.

A “website builder” is a simplified tool that enables non-technical people to build their own websites from the ground up. Website builders usually allow users to quickly and easily change the way that their website looks. The trade off is that these services are usually over simplified and lack more advanced CMS functionality. Weebly (www.weebly.com) is a good example of a website builder.

“Hosted” simply means that the CMS is offered as a service. The application itself runs on a managed web server with maintenance and upgrades handled by the company. The advantage is that no software needs to be installed and maintained. The application code can not be customized, and the web designer will not have direct access to the database.

I describe Viviti as a hosted CMS and website builder, because it is really easy to use but also includes powerful features.

The simple user interface is actually fun to use and allows anyone to create a website intuitively; no web development knowledge is needed to get started. Basically, you select a theme and build your site by dragging and dropping blocks of content around on the page. Even as a Web Developer I had fun switching themes and dragging blocks around on the page.

While simple to use, Viviti has all the functionality of a full CMS. Where it really shines is the blog component with archives, and the RSS republishing component which adds feeds to any page. Other functionality that you would expect in a CMS is also included.

Viviti also has excellent support for custom themes and templates. The template system is very open and flexible. Because the HTML output is web standards based, developers have full control over the design using CSS. In fact, the built in support for CSS is better than other comparable services that I have used.

I am also a fan of LightCMS (www.speaklight.com), another hosted content management system which is similar to Viviti in many ways. LightCMS has some advanced features that currently make it more suitable for commercial projects.

As a web designer you can rebrand LightCMS as your “own” CMS for client work. Additionally LightCMS supports multiple users, user roles, and access control.

LightCMS also has an edge when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Including automatically generated XML and HTML sitemaps, 301 redirects, page specific META tag control, and you can add code to headers on a page by page basis.

LightCMS also includes a calendar component, which Viviti does not.

Viviti has great blog and archive components, and LightCMS only just recently added archiving to its blog component.

For now I will continue to recommend LightCMS for commercial client work. I have used the service for a few years and it has always been very stable. Whenever I have questions I always receive excellent email support.

But for personal websites and blogs I think that Viviti is my new favorite.

Currently Viviti is in beta testing and not open to the public, however I have several beta invitations that I can send out if anyone is interested in using the service. Just leave a note in the comments with your email address.

When Viviti is open to the public, paid upgrades will be offered but free accounts will be available. Details on how this will work have not yet been announced.

As a side note, another interesting competitor is squarespace (www.squarespace.com).

Update: Daniel from Viviti emailed, saying that most of the advanced features needed for commercial client work are coming soon:

"We're working on having multiple websites per account, multiple users, user roles, and access control. All of these features will be available in a future release! In the current release that we're working on we've got automatic site map XML generation, and some meta-data options available. We'll continue to add more SEO options as we get closer to our open beta. Also, the calendar component should be available by the time open beta rolls around. No specific date for this yet, but it could be soon."

 

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