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Odyssey reader Norman L. Rubenstein writes:
As a former (home) Mac user whose various law firm and judicial employers insisted upon Windows computers, I “switched back” to a Powerbook as my main personal computer a year and a half ago.
I currently utilize a 17” Powerbook as my main computer, (and am a daily Applelinks reader). However, I ordered a Power Mac G5 2.0 Dual back in June, which I have been led to believe (no snickering allowed) will be delivered within the next ten days.
I would like to be able to copy my preferences, Safari Bookmarks, iTunes Library, etc. from the PowerBook to the new Power Mac, but have no firm idea as to how to do this. Is there a book or article that you could recommend that could assist me in this regard?
Many thanks and best regards,
Norm
Back up user prefs is a Mac OS X AppleScript freeware application that backs up a user's ~/Library/Preferences folder for safety in the event of corruption of either individual preferences or the entire folder. It also backs up the ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook and the preferences folders for for Camino and OmniWeb that lurk in the ~/Library/Application Support folder and Mozilla ,Mozilla Firebird , and Safari in the ~/Library folder. ( Netscape ,iCab, Opera , and Microsoft Internet Explorer preferences are automatically backed up when the ~ /Library/Preferences folder is saved.)
Back up user prefs allows the user to elect to save previously backed-up preferences in the event that something goes wrong. In addition to the capabilities of earlier versions, which include the ability not only to restore preferences that have previously been saved using the application and allow the user to choose the location of saved preference files, all versions since v 2.3.7 include a feature that permits the user to choose to restore 1) the Preferences folder only,
The application includes the option of backing up the user's Mail folder, as well as the Address Book and Calendars folder, and it sports an error-recovery capability that, in the event of a copying error caused by the presence of a file or files whose owner name is "system" or "root", which will result in an aborted backup, flags the culprit file(s) and lists it/them, offering suggestions as to how the user can reset the owner name to allow the application to work successfully. While, Backup User Prefs is intended to be used for backup purposes, I think it could work for transferring OS X preferences from one computer to another.
More information is available at:
Another application that could help is Tri-Edre's Tri-BACKUP automatic backup and synchronization utility. Tri-BACKUP offers different types of backup and synchronization to fit your needs. You can create as many different actions as needed, for example to backup your entire disk every week, a special folder every day, to synchronize your customer file twice a day, etc., and also provides "immediate actions" to easily and quickly perform a simple backup or a synchronization, to compare the content of two folders or volumes, or to compress (uncompress) a folder.
Modes:
Tri-BACKUP sells for $49.00, but a 30-day free demo is available
For more information, visit:
Preferences could also be copied from the PowerBook to the G5 manually. Most will be in the Preferences Folder in the user's Home Library Folder, although some application preferences may be in the Application Support folder or even the Documents folder. I hope this helps. OS X vs OS 9/8.6 etc Dual Boot Reasons for Mac OS X booting From Jonathan Boyd Hi Charles, looks a few misunderstandings with regards to the state-saving issue on both my part and David's. I don't so much take issue with the idea of state-saving, as with the idea that it would help with leaks. Of course, upon looking back at his original email, I don't see too much about memory leaks there, so it is entirely possible that I made a few unwarranted assumptions there, for which I apologise and don a sheepish expression. I agree that it would be handy if you wanted to shut down your machine and have a quick restart later, but since the main reasons I have seen given (elsewhere apparently) for restarts or fresh logins, are to alleviate problems which state-saving would not fix, I don't think it would be a killer feature. Useful yes, but killer no. I don't believe it to be as difficult to implement as David thinks I do. One place where I sued this all the time was VPC and going along those lines, having the option to save Classic to disk for later restoration would be very nice. It doesn't require an inordinate amount of memory when running, but freeing that extra little bit up, along with the small amount of CPU power, would make a difference on the more under-powered machines. My iBook would certainly appreciate it. Since Classic is very rarely updated, this would be a nice way to preserve the environment across reboots (of the whole machine) and save on restart time (of Classic).
Finally, about using old versions of applications from memory after updating to a newer version; David rightly acknowledges that this would be a Bad Idea if it was the OS, rather than an application, but even with an application, there could be occasions when the app needs to load some code or data from a file which has since been updated, potentially with incompatible code/data, causing Bad Things to happen. There are good reasons why updaters are generally run while applications are not running. --
Hi Jonathan;
Thanks for the clarification and further observations.
I agree that save to state wouldn't help when the reason for rebooting is to deal with memory leak consequences, as 95%+ of my own reboots are. But it would be useful when you need to install a piece of software that requires a logout/login. More than a few times I've held off for days installing a program because I didn't want to lose my current setup.
Charles From Wil Nelson I do not miss OS 9/8.6 a bit. I just spent the morning (4 hours) trouble shooting a type 2 memory error which I was unable to resolve, tried NDD, trashing preferences, testing RAM (although I have never had a problem with RAM from MacSolutions), reinstalling programs and finally a clean install of 8.6 on my wife's iMac 266/466 and reinstalling applications. The OS had been operating for about 2 years so I guess it was time. But after not having had to do that in such a long time I really do enjoy OS X, 10.2.6 etc. Everyone should make the transition. It just works and I do not have any significant problems. Wil Nelson
Hi Wil;
OS X has been very stable for me too, dating back on my Pismo to November, 2001 and OS 10.0, upgraded incrementally to OS 10.2.6. However, my OS 9 install on that machine is even older, and I've found 9 to be very relaible as well on a variety of Macs.
I do still miss the speed and responsiveness of OS 9, and I hope Panther will address those issues.
Charles
From David Johnson Charles eMacs don't have FW 800 either. FYI David
Right you are, which strengthens the firmware block theory.
Charles From anonymous Charles, Apple can't have the excuse of Firewire 800 for the 12" Powerbook or iMac G4, or eMac with Superdrive. Neither can it for the RAM bus since the MDD machines that can boot into Mac OS 9 use DDR RAM that is the same as the new iMac. And the eMac with Superdrive is 1 Ghz, which surprise, so were the MDD of August 2002. So what is the common denominator? Airport Extreme? No the eMac 800 Mhz is Mac OS 9 bootable and still has Airport Extreme. New graphics card of the 1 Ghz eMac? No it is the same for the 800 Mhz. Bluetooth internal? eMac doesn't have it even in the 1 Ghz. So what is it? Must be a new motherboard architecture somewhere else on these machines. It seems that the eMac and iBook are designated the machines for education, but why not the iMac G4? I mean hey, most education software hasn't been upgraded to X yet, and they need it updated to X before they can upgrade to X. PowerMac G4 many pro software hasn't been upgraded to X, and that's the most likely machine for people to purchase who use pro software. Same with the Powerbook Titanium.
Sincerely,
Thanks for the obsrvations.
Charles
The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here: Note: Letters to Moore's Mailbag may or may not be published at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context. Opinions expressed in postings to Moore's MailBag are those of the respective correspondents and not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Editor and/or Applelinks management. If you would prefer that your message not appear in Moore's Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published. CM
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