Stories, software and strategies to help nonprofits do the social web
Turns out Time Machine is not just for accidentally deleted files — it works great for restoring a Mac from bare metal, too. Even over the network. James Duncan Davidson’s instructions for using theOSX Leopard install DVD to boot and restore from a Time Machine backup work great if you back up to aUSB or FireWire drive. But I use Time Machine over the network, so my backup set wasn’t available. Nedospasov had the secret for mounting the network backup share first. Here’s the whole process: 1. Boot from the installer DVD...
June, 30 2008 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
The folks at JungleDisk released version 2.0 Monday. This is a major — and welcome — upgrade. Redone graphical interface with lots more options for what to back up and when Smoother handling of multiple buckets Standard bucket and folder naming, so you can use your JungleDisk S3 data with other software like S3Fox This requires converting your existing buckets to JD 2 format — which means that every machine accessing your JungleDisk must run version 2 Of course the Linux command line tools are still...
June, 25 2008 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
So the Mac OS X 10.5.3 update broke Time Machine for me. The update did fix Time Machine backups over the network for many people, but not for me. Lots of folks have tried various things to fix the problem (like standing on their head, reformatting, fingering prayer beads). Here’s what fixed Time Machine over AFPfor me. I had a setup that was backing up perfectly on 10.5.2. MacBook connected to wifi network Mac Mini with external drive A shared folder on the Mini’s external drive (called “backups”) that was...
May, 31 2008 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
We’ve updated our earlier howto JungleDisk for Linux Server Backups without X11 for the latest version of JungleDisk, 1.50. The new version is more reliable for transferring lots of files, and rsync works better. Rsync’s —archive flag now works as expected (though you still need —inplace). jungledisk now uses Fuse directly rather than davfs, so prerequisites are different The command-line jungledisk program now mounts by itself The configuration file gets a bunch of new options So check out our updated instructions...
April, 18 2008 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Leopard does not (yet?) backup to a disk attached to an Airport base station, to lots of people’s concern. But OS X version 10.5.1 will backup over the network — to another Mac. It works just fine over wired or wifi networks, so it works for MacBooks. Initial setup is easy. On the host Mac: Plug in your external drive. Turn on File Sharing from System Preferences (AFP, the default, is what you want). Share a directory on your external drive where you’ll store the backups. On the Mac you want to back up: Mount...
February, 8 2008 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Photographer James Duncan Davidson takes a look at The Economics of Online Backup — and finds that time and cost work against online storage for his terabyte of data. Worth a read. The comments mention some of the solutions we’ve tried here at el Studio — Mozy and JungleDisk/S3 — and also some that we haven’t, like CrashPlan. With any online backup plan, the crucial issue may not be how many GB of stuff you’ve got overall, but rather how frequently that data changes. Perhaps it’s fine if it takes a week to upload...
February, 5 2008 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
JungleDisk is another great entrant in the online backup business. Unlike Mozy, our favorite for Macs and PCs, JungleDisk also runs on Linux. And, since version 1.30a, it ships a command-line version. Which means you can give your Linux servers reliable online backup — stored on Amazon’s S3. These instructions cover version 1.50 — which has a different config file and a number of settings than previous versions. If you’re still using an older version, see the instructions for version 1.30 or 1.40 that we published...
August, 14 2007 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
We’ve been testing online backup software here at el-Studio for a while now. Remarkable how the slipping of the little rubber band inside our tape drive — the one that connects the motor with the thingy that spins the tape — brings online backups to mind. Plus there’s the appeal of saying “We backup to the cloud, man.” Anyway, our favorite online backup software/service is Mozy. First, we could tell by the way the folks at Mozy write that they feel our pain: Alternatives to Mozy Burn a new CD or DVD every...
July, 15 2007 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
JungleDisk is another great entrant in the online backup business. Unlike Mozy, our favorite for Macs and PCs, JungleDisk also runs on Linux. And, since version 1.30a, it ships a command-line version. Which means you can give your Linux servers reliable online backup — stored on Amazon’s S3. Here’s more about how JungleDisk works. Meanwhile, let’s get down to business. Our server install has three parts: JungleDisk command line program, which makes S3 look like a WebDav server DavFS, which makes WebDav look...
June, 27 2007 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Startup thinking for the social sector. Code to help nonprofits do the social web. Plus photography.
(And reading aloud.)
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