mac – Page 14 – Kev's Development Toolbox

November 6, 2011

Invaluable tips for restoring a Mac OS X Time Machine backup to a new drive

I recently replaced my hard drive in my 2008 MacBook Pro. After following the excellent step-by-step instructions here, I booted up from my install DVD formatted my new drive, selected the option to restore from backup and was shocked to not see my new drive as an available target drive. I can’t find the post where I found this invaluable tip, but apparently it’s a known issue with the install DVD and the ‘restore from backup’ feature that if you’ve just formatted a new drive, you need to press ‘back’ all the way back to the language display screen before going forward again to get to the restore option. Now you new drive appears as a target drive for the restore. Bizarre. Ok, well it works.

The great thing about Time Machine on the Mac is that it’s effortless to restore your whole machine from a backup. This was the first time I’d tried it to a new hard drive but it worked without any issues. Well, almost…

Not thinking, I booted my machine for the restore from my original Leopard DVD but I had upgraded my machine to Snow Leopard some time back. Restore completed without an issue, rebooted, got a kernel panic! WTF! That’s the first time I’d seen that on my Mac. Quick bit of Googling later, rebooted from the Snow Leopard DVD, redid the restore and now all is ok.

May 9, 2011

Jobs not keen on MobileMe either

I have a Mac, it’s my main computer at home. I’ve always wondered what the attraction of the MobileMe service is/was. It just doesn’t offer enough to justify the cost – to me it’s way overpriced.

Considering with my Android phone I get automatic email, calendar and contacts sync’ing between the online services, my Mac at home plus my phone FOR FREE I have to wonder why anyone would pay $100 for a year of providing this service is just beyond me.

Apparently Jobs also felt the same way when the service was launched, according to some recent quotes talking about the MobileMe development team: “You’ve tarnished Apple’s reputation…” apparently Jobs said, “You should hate each other for having let each other down”. Wow. Ok. So you don’t like MobileMe? Guess I’m not the only one..

March 17, 2011

Macs – not just for content creators anymore

The interesting thing about Apple’s focus on iOS development, the iPhone and the iPad is that the focus and push on these devices is clearly focused at ‘content consumption’ and not ‘content creation’ that Macs have been traditionally known for.

Think back over the years, the Mac as a desktop computer has always been known as ‘the’ choice for content creation, especially media rich content. Now they’ve got both sides of the equation covered, and have devices for content creators and content consumers.

Given the overwhelming success in sales of the iPhone and the iPad, I wonder whether internally Apple is thinking that their future is more focused on new content consumption type devices like the iPad, or if they will consciously keep their foot on both sides of the fence and cater for both types of consumer?