Backup Your Data Before Upgrading - Mac Tips Daily! #332

Listen to this episode Backup your data before you upgrade to Mac OS X Leopard 10.5. In fact, even if you aren't upgrading to Leopard -- Backup Up Your Data!! Everyone uses their own solution, but here are a few recommendations. Some are free, some cost some $$, but each have their own set of unique features. Find a solution that works for you and fits your needs.

Full Drive Clones

First let's go with doing a total clone of your hard drive. To do this you will need another drive and/or partition that is approximately the same capacity as your OS X Drive. What's nice about this method is that if Leopard totally bombs your system, you can boot from your cloned disk with all of your original data & operating system. There are two great utilities each with their own set of features. But they both have one feature that works well, and that's making an exact bootable copy of your hard disk. The first program is SUPER DUPER from Shirt Pocket Software, and it's well worth the $27.95, due to the versatility and extra features it offers. Another alternative is Carbon Copy Cloner, and it's Donationware!! Both will duplicate your disk for free and area equally great programs.

Partial & Incremental

If you want an incremental backup, and you subscribe to .Mac, you already have the Backup program. It will allow you to copy files and folders and store them one another drive, your iDisk, or burn to Cds and DVDs. This is nice if you already have .Mac. A free solution however is a program I really like called iBackup. It's a another donationware program and it will backup all of your files and folders, and you can then burn them or copy them elsewhere. Personally, it's the program I prefer to use when I am backing up and not doing a full drive clone. There are a plethora of options, but these are a few quick suggestions that I have tried, and I like them all, depending on your needs. NOW GO BACKUP!!

Backup iPhone Pictures - Mac Tips Daily! #358

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When you have problems with your iPhone, you may have no other choice than to RESTORE it back to the factory state. Before you restore, iTunes says it is making a backup of your phone. However, it isn't making a backup of any photos you have taken with it. So when the phone is restored, all of your photos will be gone. The good news is that If you have your iPhone set to sync your photos with iPhoto automatically when you plug it in, you may be OK. However, if you are like me and choose for the iPhone not to launch iPhoto when you connect it... well, you need to backup those pics.

How to do it:

1. Plug-in your iPhone and launch iPhoto. iPhoto will detect your iPhone, and you can now choose to import all or import selected pictures.

Doing this will add pictures you have taken with your iPhone into your iPhoto library. 

Another Way - Image Capture

You can also use Image Capture to do the same thing, but not add them to your iPhoto library.

1. Plug-in your iPhone. Launch Image Capture. You can find it in your Applications folder. If you don't see it there, look in the Utilities folder. Note: On the podcast, I said it will be in the utilities folder... I forgot that it may reside in Applications.

2. Now it will detect your iPhone, and you can choose to Download Some or Download ALL to your Mac.

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