Online Backup

*NEW*

Since I originally wrote this blog post almost exactly a year ago, there has been a great maturing of online backup services. The big advantages of these online services is that you don’t have to remember to connect an external drive to your laptop and you don’t have to worry about losing both the computer and your backup drive if, for example, your place is robbed, flooded, or burns down. However, the big disadvantage of these services is that because it happens over the internet, the backups can be slow. My suggestion to mitigate that factor is to leave your computer on overnight while you do your initial backup and to try to take advantage of the much faster upload speeds of campus WiFi.Once your initial backup is done, the services will just upload updated or new files that you create. So then the subsequent backups will not really even be noticeable.

Now, keep in mind. I suggest that you use both an external drive backup (discussed in sections below) and these online backup services. But if you don’t want to spend the money on both, get the online backup simply for the fact that you are much more likely to use it.

Now, there are three excellent options that have very nice Mac support: BackBlaze, Carbonite, and Mozy. Each of these costs about the same (~$5/month) and will provide you will the same level of service, so it’s really up to you which one you choose. I personally use BackBlaze because I like the interface the best. But, again, any of them will work for you.

If you were to lose your data, you could get it back by a couple of different methods. For small amounts of data (or the cheapskates out there), you can go onto their website and just download everything that you have backed up. If you have large amounts of data backed up, you’ll want to go with the DVD or Hard Drive recoveries. In each case, they will send you physical media (a bunch of DVDs or a Hard Drive) with your files on it. This will cost a bit, but you’ll get your data back faster.

If you are too cheap to even spend $5 a month to protect all your data, Mozy provides a free 2GB account. If you do nothing else, please, please, please take advantage of this to protect your most important 2GB.

External Hard Drive

If you want to back up your data, you’re going to need some place to put it that’s not on your computer.  This is where an external hard drive comes in handy.  There are many types of external hard drives available, but for the purpose of backing up your computer, I suggest a small, bus-powered external.  You will have to have a drive AT LEAST as big as the size of your internal hard drive.

To check the size of your internal hard drive:
1) On your desktop locate your hard drive (Default name is “Macintosh HD”) and right-click (or control+click if you don’t have right clicking enabled) on it.
2) Select “Get Info”

3) On the Info window that comes up, look at the Capacity listed (Round up a bit.  i.e. 185.99GB is actually 200GB)

Since most of you have between 100GB and 250GB, you will all be covered by a 250GB drive.  The best deal right now are probably the Western Digital My Passport Essential drives. (Amazon links to different colors are provided)
WD My Passport 250GB USB 2.0 Portable Drive (Real Red)
WD My Passport 250GB USB 2.0 Portable Drive (Intense Blue)
WD My Passport 250GB USB 2.0 Portable Drive (Artic White)
WD My Passport 250GB USB 2.0 Portable Drive (Vibrant Pink)
WD My Passport 250GB USB 2.0 Portable Drive (Black)

Backup Methods

There are many different methods for backing up.  I’ll go through some of my favorites here.
First,you’ll need to know which version of Mac OS X you are running to decide which methods will work for you.

A handy rule is that if you have bought your Mac after October 2007, you have OS 10.5 Leopard.  If you bought it before then you most likely have OS 10.4 Tiger unless you have explicitly upgraded.  If you are not sure, click on the Apple Logo in the top left corner your screen and choose “About This Mac”  This will display a window that will give your version number as 10.x.x

Method 1:  Cloning (10.4 & 10.5)

Cloning is a method of backup that will make an EXACT copy of your entire drive.  So much so that if your internal hard drive were to fail, you could take the backup drive out of the external enclosure, put it in your computer and you will be back up and running right away.  The disadvantages to this method of backup is that you only have the most recent version of your data and it takes a very long time for each backup.

Programs to use for Cloning:
Carbon Copy Cloner (Free, donation requested) – Allows for basic cloning.
SuperDuper! (Basic Version – Free, Full Features – $28) – Allows for basic cloning operations.  Paid version allows for automatic scheduling, Smart Update (Saves a lot of time), and more nerdy features.

Method 2:  Manual Backup (10.4 & 10.5)
Manual Backup is exactly what it sounds like: You grab the files you want and drag them to your external drive to make a copy.  This method is probably the worst for a comprehensive backup as it is very easy to miss files.

Method 3:  Time Machine (10.5 Only)
Time Machine is the best solution for most people.  It is built into Mac OS 10.5 Leopard.  To set it up, all you have to do is plug your drive into your computer and window will pop up asking if you want to use that drive with Time Machine.
Once you click “Use as Backup Disk” it will begin backing up to that drive.  After that, any time your drive is plugged it (once an hour if the drive is still plugged in), Time Machine will update the backup with the latest versions of the files.  This is where Time Machine’s real strength lies.  Since it incrementally backs up your data, you will still have past versions of your files on your backup drive.  That means as long as you have free hard drive space on your external backup drive, you can keep going back in time to previous versions of your data.

Recovering from a Backup

Hopefully, you won’t ever need this section.  But if your hard drive fails, you’ll need it.  First you’ll need to get a new drive for your computer.  If you within your AppleCare warranty period, you can bring it into the Apple Store and the Genius will help you get a new drive and then transfer your backup onto the new drive.  If you’re out of your warranty, you (or a nerdy friend) will need to buy a 2.5″ SATA hard drive and install it in place of the old drive.  If you have a Time Machine backup, you will be able to choose to recover from that backup when you install OS X from your recovery DVD.  If you have a clone, you’ll have to boot to your external backup and then clone it back to the internal drive.

Remember that all of these methods require that you at least remember to plug your backup drive in once in a while.  Just plug it in when you go to bed if nothing else and run the backup.  You will be kicking yourself real hard if you lose all your data just because you forgot to plug your drive in.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me.

iPhoto is a great tool for organizing your photos on your computer. But what happens when you want to put those photos on an online service like Facebook? Thanks to iPhoto’s Export Plug-in architecture, uploading your photos to Facebook is a breeze.

UPDATE: iPhoto ‘09 has built-in support for Facebook in addition to a large number of other features.  Order it here.

The first thing you’ll have to do is download the Facebook exporter for iPhoto from Facebook’s developer website. Once it is downloaded, double click on the installer package and follow the instructions to install it.
Once that is done, open iPhoto. Select the photos you want to upload. Once you have your selection highlighted, go to File, Export…

You will have a new tab available labeled Facebook. Click on this to bring up the Facebook Exporter pane. Here you will be able to set everything for your upload.

First things first, click on Login. You will be brought to a Facebook page asking you to log in and give permission to the Facebook Exporter tool to access your profile. Accept this and you can go back to the iPhoto Export window.
From here you can now add your photos to an existing album or create a new one.
Now you can go through your photos to add captions and even tag your friends.

Once you’re all done with that, click export and the photos will be uploaded to your account. Once they have finished upload, you’ll be taken to your Facebook account to verify the addition of the pictures to your profile.

Once you’ve approved the photos, they will be added to your account and you’re done!

Update:

So here’s something new I’m trying, it’s a video tutorial of this blog post.  Leave some feedback and let me know how you like it.

Creating Ringtone Files

First, we need to choose the songs you want to make into ring tones. If you’ve bought protected songs from iTunes, you’ll need to convert them to unprotected AAC or MP3 files. (I’ll be writing a post on how to do this later) So once you’ve got your song file chosen, you need to edit it.

Using GarageBand to Make the File

GarageBand is an audio editing/music creation tool that is included with all new Macs as part of iLife. It allows your to mix, clip, create, and otherwise edit sound and music. This is a very powerful tool that can do a whole lot, but we’re just going to use a very small, simple bit of it.

Once you’ve opened GarageBand (in your Applications folder) you’ll want to choose the option to “Create New Music Project”, save it where ever you’d like. You will be present with a blank music project with a Grand Piano track. Click on that track and press Command-Delete to delete the track. Now drag you music file from Finder or iTunes into the GarageBand window.
From there you can scrub through the song to find the area you want as your ringtone. Once you have found it, place the playhead at the beginning of the clip you want, making sure the clip is selected, and press Command-T to split the clip at the playhead. Then, while holding shift, click the part of the clip you want to keep to deselect it. Your window should look something like this:

With the part of the clip you don’t want selected, press Delete to delete that section. You can then click and drag the remaining part of the song to the beginning of the track. Repeat with the end of the clip you want as your ringtone. You should end up with something that looks like this:

Now that you have your clip done, we can export it to the format to be used on your phone. The easiest way to set the output selection is to go to Share, Send Ringtone to iTunes. A window will pop up asking to adjust the cycle length of the clip. Click adjust on this window to automatically set the selection length. From here there are going to be different instructions based on your device.

Exporting for iPhone

iPhones are by far the easiest to add ringtones to. Once you have the cycle length set, just choose Share, Send Ringtone to iTunes again (You may need to go into GarageBand’s preferences to set up your info before it will let you export it that way) and you’ll have it in iTunes in your list of Ringtones.

Exporting for .mp3 Compatible Phones

Most phones that allow custom ringtones use .mp3 files as the ringtones. So we have to create a .mp3 file from GarageBand. This is relatively easy. Go to Share, Export Song to Disk… On the window that pops up, check the box to Compress, select MP3 Encoder. Under Audio Settings, choose Custom… Since this is going to a ringtone and, as such, doesn’t need to be stereo, we can choose mono sound to reduce the file size. Select 64kbps as the bitrate with VBR on and set to highest. Your settings should look exactly like those on the right.
Once those settings are set, you can click OK and then Export. Save the file where ever you will remember it. Now there is a file ready to be put on your phone.

Loading Ringtones on pre-2008 Alltel Motorola Phones (RAZR, ROKR, etc.) or US Cellular Motorola Phones

These phones are among the easiest to add ringtones to as they are not locked down in any way. To load the ringtones, you will have to first set up the bluetooth connection to you phone. To do this, turn your phone’s bluetooth on and set to “Find Me” (Settings, Connections, Bluetooth). Then, on your computer, click on the bluetooth icon in your menu bar and select “Set Up Bluetooth Device.” You will be taken through a step-by-step setup of the bluetooth connection.
Once this setup is complete, you can transfer your ringtones to the phone. Go to the bluetooth icon again and find your phone then select “Browse Device…” A window will then pop up with a list of folders, open the “audio” folder. Once you’re here, you can just drag the ringtone files into that window and they will be available as ringtones.

Loading Ringtones on 2008 and later Alltel Motorola Phones (Advanced)

Because of the software on the latest Alltel Motorola Phones, adding audio files to the phone will not automatically make then available as ringtones. However, there is a way to activate them for use as ringtones. For these steps, you will need a few things:

• PC running Windows XP
• USB connection cable for your phone
• A nerdy ambition

Follow the steps for loading on other Motorola phones to get the files on your phone. Then on the PC, you’ll need to download and install Motorola Software Update and P2KCommander. Once these are installed, open MSU.  Once MSU is open, plug your phone in via the USB cable.  Wait a bit until MSU shows your phone’s MEID number on the left side of the window.  Then open P2KCommander.  On the right drop-down menu, select “/a Phone System” or something to that effect.  Wait a minute for the file system to load, and then delete the MyTonesDB.db file.  Restart your phone and the ringtones should be available.

Other Phones

I will be posting instructions for Alltel and US Cellular LG phones in the next few days. If you have another type of phone you would like instructions for, leave the phone model and carrier in the comments and I’ll look into adding instructions for those.

Video Capable iPods

The following iPods are capable of playing back video: iPod 5th Gen, iPod Classic, iPod Nano 3rd Gen, iPod Nano 4th Gen, iPhone, iPhone 3g, iPod Touch.

Converting with HandBrake

HandBrake is an open-source DVD conversion program that can be used to convert your DVDs to iPod compatible files.
Installing HandBrake is very simple. If you are using OS 10.4 or below download HandBrake 0.9.1 from here. Otherwise, the latest version can be downloaded from the HandBrake website. (if you aren’t sure which version of OS X you have, see this post)

Once you have downloaded the appropriate version of HandBrake, drag the HandBrake file to the your Applications folder. You will also have to download VLC Player from here. Place VLC in your application folder as well and open it at least once. VLC is a media player that will play just about any kind of media file you throw at it. We, however just need to install it for some of the support files it has.

Once you have installed HandBrake and VLC, you can actually start converting your DVDs. First thing to do is put in your DVD and open HandBrake. You will be greeted by a screen that looks something like this:

From here you should select the DVD you inserted. Once the program has finished scanning the titles of the DVD, you will be able to change the settings.  HandBrake comes with several presets to make the conversion easier.  The iPod High-Rez and iPhone / iPod-Touch settings are best for those devices.  There are many, many settings you can change if you are feeling adventurous but the presets suit most people just fine.

After you have chosen the video settings, specify a place for the file to save to.  Click start to begin the conversion.  Depending on the setting you selected and the speed of your computer, the conversion should take between 1-4 hours.

Now that the DVD has been converted to a video file, you can watch it on your computer or iPod whenever you would like.  However, if you add it to iTunes as it is, the file will be added as a movie with the filename as the name of the movie and no other information about it.  Tagging it is a way to attach information such as synopsis, rating, actors, and cover art to the file so that it looks much more prettified in iTunes.

MetaX (download here; different versions for OS 10.4 and 10.5) is a free automated tagging program based on the Atomic Parsley command line tool. It allows you to quickly and easily tag your video files for iTunes.

The basic operation of MetaX is very easy.  Just drag the video you want to tag into the program.  When you select the movie in the queue on the right, pre-made tags will populate the search box on the left if someone has tagged this movie before.  Select the correct tag on the left, previewing the details in the middle pane.  Be sure to check the boxes next to the fields you want to use.
 Once you have found the correct tag (or filled in the fields if the correct tag could not be found) click “Write & Share” to apply the tags to the file.  The tagging process will take a few minutes for each movie.  Once the file is done tagging, you can add it to iTunes.  After adding a few movies, it will start to look like this: