Ming Lai wants to know how backup programs handle files that are currently open and changing.
Ming actually asked something much more specific: How does Mozy backup open TrueCrypt vault files. I’ll give you a more general answer, applicable to anyone who uses backup software, followed by some specifics about those two programs (both of which I use regularly).
Most good, current backup programs, including Mozy, use Windows Volume (more…)
Lenovo has the attractive IdeaPad Y450 on sale for $699 with free shipping. Enter coupon code “USPDISPLAY” and the price falls about 10 percent to $630.
This 14-inch, all-purpose laptop weighs 4.6 pounds and is built around a 2GHz Core Duo processor, 4GB of memory, and a 320GB hard drive. Billed as a multimedia machine, this IdeaPad’s striking screen and wide variety of ports and communication options make it a great choice for daily use.##2## (more…)
Michael Crandall wants to know if dividing his hard drive into multiple, smaller partitions will improve its speed.
I seriously doubt it. In theory, a smaller partition could improve seek times with fragmented files, because the head has to move over a smaller space to get to the next fragment. On the other hand, smaller partitions can get more fragmented, which could slow them down.
But when you consider the seek times of modern (more…)
Earlier this week, I covered MiniUsage, a menu-bar utility for monitoring your Mac’s performance. As part of that review, I noted that MiniUsage doesn’t track the available space on connected hard drives. A useful tool for monitoring this data is SpaceControl.
Like MiniUsage, SpaceControl sits in your menu bar and shows the remaining free space on your startup volume. Click the SpaceControl icon and you see a list of the remaining space (more…)
I’ve begun using BBEdit as my primary text editor, as Smultron is no longer being updated, and isn’t quite working right for me in Snow Leopard.
When I switched to BBEdit, one of the things that annoyed me was that the documents drawer–the sidebar that lists all open files–appeared on the right instead of the left, with no apparent way to move it from one side to the other. (In older versions of BBEdit, there was a preference for this, (more…)
Symantec’s Norton Ghost 15 ($60 as of January 11, 2010) substantially improves one of the most capable disk-imaging programs on the market. Some of the new features are of interest only to business IT managers, while others will appeal to consumers. And all of the enhancements make this a powerful tool for anyone serious about backup and recovery.
I used to be a heavy Quicksilver user in the days of Tiger. But when Leopard came along and brought with it faster Spotlight searches, and the ability for Spotlight to serve as an application launcher, I left QuickSilver behind and switched to Spotlight. It wasn’t quite as fast as the former, but it did the job and I was satisfied.
After hearing a lot of praise for LaunchBar–from none other than Macworld’s own Jason Snell–I decided to (more…)
As more organizations allow employees to use social media like Facebook and Twitter at work, cybercrime attacks on these networks have exploded, according to a report released Monday by IT security firm Sophos. Reports of malware and spam rose 70 percent on social networks in the last 12 months, the security survey reveals
Sophos’ investigation, titled “Social Security,” finds 57 percent of users report they have been spammed (more…)
Have a digital camera and plenty of photos? Want some help with editing and managing them all? We’ve rounded up ten downloads that will let you take control of your photos. Whether you’re looking for a top-of-the-line photo editor, a great photo manager, or nifty utilities to handle tasks such as finding duplicates, we have just the thing. And every program is free–not only to download but also to use.
(If you’re ready to grab several (more…)
I previously covered FinderPop, a great utility that, among its myriad features, lets you see what’s inside a folder in the Finder by simply right-clicking on that folder–you get a hierarchical menu of its contents. But if that’s the main FinderPop feature you want, FolderGlance is a good substitute–although it costs a bit more.
With FolderGlance installed, right-clicking (or Control-clicking) on a folder in the Finder pops up a contextual (more…)