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Take Control of
Mac OS X Backups 1.1
By Joe Kissell
eBook in PDF format, 103 pages, downloadable
Dec 9, 2004, US $10 (Free Excerpt)
- What the Book is About
- This eBook has great information
concerning the general requirements and performance of data protection. The book
speaks specifically about hardware and software that is directly applicable to Macintosh
operating systems. It was excellent and, I felt, very thorough.
The book covers primarily four elements of backing-up your computer data.
- Development of a strategy appropriate
for your needs (dollars, required time commitment, and data importance).
- Choosing appropriate hardware
to meet your available schedule and desired level of protection.
- Choosing appropriate software
that delivers the needed elements of your strategy, and
- Pulling it all together to establish
and operate your personal backup system
The book has a very serious portrayal of what are very likely our own inadequate
data protection systems. In general, we are not sufficiently protecting ourselves
- I know I'm not.
- Target Audience
- The book was written at a level
that would be understandable to a novice like me and yet, I believe, offers significant
information to those who may be experienced with backup systems.
- What I Got Out of the Book
- I received motivation to establish,
and knowledge of how to establish, an automated backup system. Likely I will purchase
a separate hard drive and some basic software allowing me to manually protect my
data against loss (perhaps a $200-300 investment). My current needs are very small
(some documents and my digital photographs). The book discusses many potential causes
of loss and depending upon the importance of your data, how it can be adequately
protected from those losses.
A great discussion was offered on a wide variety of terminology and different backup
methodologies. There are many different methods of protecting one's data and they
are not equal. Despite them all being called backup systems, they offer significantly
different methods and levels of protection - final version versus incremental changes;
duplication versus archiving, push versus pull, etc..
Not only were equipment choices contrasted against each other, the performances of
several software packages were also compared. After reading the book it would be
easy to make hardware and software selections that will meet one's needs and have
a general idea of your probable expense for those selections.
- Highlights
- I considered the discussion of
the wide variety of backup methods and their efficiencies extremely valuable. Copying
everything onto CDs may be acceptable for your digital photos for a few years, but
is not a very secure or efficient protection method for items that change such as
documents, address lists, bookmark lists, etc..
Additionally, the book did not limit discussion to protection of an individual computer's
data, but also included discussion of providing protection for networks whether at
home or in a business office.
- Mac Guild Grade
- A (Outstanding)
- Final Words
- Even at 100 pages, it was a quick
read, presented in a way that is readily understandable at many reader levels. I
found it to be very thorough, and I believe it would be a valuable resource for everyone's
data protection needs.
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