[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by dre@ms

Ok. Any ways we can backup the installed apps and its data and restore them?

You can backup your entire home folder including hidden files and apps from Applications folder. Restore everything to the home folder later. Most apps should work that way, some may not.

[rajtheindian]

Originally Posted by dre@ms

That seems to be a himalayan task. Cant I take a kind of image and then restore it. BTW, what tool should I use for the backup. Just the personal files should do.

The best way is to take a complete backup using time machine. Re install LION. One installation completes connect the external drive and restore user data and apps, or user data only and install app from App Store



. BTW have you got a LION install media either in DVD or USB drive?

[dre@ms]

Originally Posted by Gandhi

You can backup your entire home folder including hidden files and apps from Applications folder. Restore everything to the home folder later. Most apps should work that way, some may not.

Will try that.

Originally Posted by rajtheindian

The best way is to take a complete backup using time machine. Re install LION. One installation completes connect the external drive and restore user data and apps, or user data only and install app from App Store. BTW have you got a LION install media either in DVD or USB drive?

Don't have it handy. Need to download it.
But now my first job is to source a Ext.HDD

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Samurai

The iMac was freezing whenever I do something heavy with display. Like playing a HD movie and drag that window across the screen. In addition, it was not booting 9/10 times, forcing me to use safe boot option in Mac OS. This second problem had started after I removed rEFit boot manager.

Their solution... take backup, re-install OS. How to backup 2TB drive worth of data? Also, how is display freezing connected to disk corruption?

No Saar, this is the only way. Their supervisor, some lady called Rekha literally tried to drown my protest on the phone, saying re-install is the apple approved technique to solve such problem.
.
.
.
In the next one month, they changed display, graphics card, logic board, and some cable, one by one. Basically, they kept changing things until things started working. Yet, they wanted to re-install the OS first, which would have been a very wasteful affair.

Last year I had described the dumb way apple tech-support people go around fixing iMacs. I personally don't develop on OSX, so I don't know what happens there. It looks like even developers are not happy these days, as Apple is focusing more on entertainment.

http://macperformanceguide.com/AppleCoreRot-intro.html

[ampere]

Apple drops prices by 200$. 13 Inch pro with Retina with 128GB SSD now starts at 1500 rather than 1700.

[pulsar56]

Picked up a 15" Retina Macbook Pro yesterday.
Got the following as free: superdrive, wireless mouse, 8gb pendrive, sleeve case for the mac, hdmi cable, key board protective cover, palm + trackpad protective cover (Should I use this?)

Few basic questions for the mac gurus:

1. I always had different partitions on my Dell XPS for music, videos, games etc so that backup and file management is easier. Should I partition the SSD in similar format?
2. How do I share apps between user accounts? For example, I installed Chrome using the admin(my) account but it's not available in the other account.
3. Should I install Windows 8 using the Boot Camp now or can this be done later also when the need arises?
4. Anything else I need to know?

[Mugen_Power]

Originally Posted by pulsar56

Picked up a 15" Retina Macbook Pro yesterday.
Got the following as free: superdrive, wireless mouse, 8gb pendrive, sleeve case for the mac, hdmi cable, key board protective cover, palm + trackpad protective cover (Should I use this?)

Few basic questions for the mac gurus:

1. I always had different partitions on my Dell XPS for music, videos, games etc so that backup and file management is easier. Should I partition the SSD in similar format?
2. How do I share apps between user accounts? For example, I installed Chrome using the admin(my) account but it's not available in the other account.
3. Should I install Windows 8 using the Boot Camp now or can this be done later also when the need arises?
4. Anything else I need to know?

Pulsar56,

Congrats for awesome purchase.

It is nor required to make separate partitions. There are already separate folders in Mac or you can always create separate folders and take backup accordingly.

Give your self some time to get used to mac os rather than installing windows 8 immediately and you can always install Windows 8 later on via boot camp. BTW Checkout www.parallels.com

You can make other user admin from system preferences/users & groups to grant access to all applications or via parental controls.

Hope it helps.

Cheers.

[pulsar56]

Originally Posted by Mugen_Power

Pulsar56,

Give your self some time to get used to mac os rather than installing windows 8 immediately and you can always install Windows 8 later on via boot camp. BTW Checkout www.parallels.com

You can make other user admin from system preferences/users & groups to grant access to all applications or via parental controls.

Hope it helps.

Thanks Mugen_Power. This is what I was looking for.

[Mugen_Power]

Originally Posted by pulsar56

Thanks Mugen_Power. This is what I was looking for.

I would suggest you to check out Alfredd app from www.alfredapp.com

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by pulsar56

Thanks Mugen_Power. This is what I was looking for.

Check out https://www.virtualbox.org/. It's a free virtualization solution.

[pulsar56]

Originally Posted by Gandhi

Check out https://www.virtualbox.org/. It's a free virtualization solution.

Thank You Gandhi... Will use when I install Windows.

Originally Posted by Mugen_Power

I would suggest you to check out Alfredd app

Thank you... This app is nice and very useful!

Another set of problems I just discovered...
I have a WD 1 TB drive (NTFS) with my collection and Mac does not write to NTFS. How do I overcome this?
I came across some apps like Tuxera and NTFS-G. Are these apps good enough or using windows is the only option?
I have around 100 GB of MP3 files which need to be accessible in all the user accounts. Is the 'Shared' folder the only option I have?

Any other recommended apps? I am very new to Apple and I miss the home/end/page up/page down keys as well!

[Rachit.K.Dogra]

Originally Posted by pulsar56

Thank You Gandhi... Will use when I install Windows.


Thank you... This app is nice and very useful!

Another set of problems I just discovered...
I have a WD 1 TB drive (NTFS) with my collection and Mac does not write to NTFS. How do I overcome this?
I came across some apps like Tuxera and NTFS-G. Are these apps good enough or using windows is the only option?
I have around 100 GB of MP3 files which need to be accessible in all the user accounts. Is the 'Shared' folder the only option I have?

Any other recommended apps? I am very new to Apple and I miss the home/end/page up/page down keys as well!

The way I solved this issue is by creating FAT partition. MAC & Windows both can read and write from FAT partitions. So the stuff I think will be shared with a Windows machine on my hard disk I have kept it in a FAT partition. I have created one MAC partition for Time MAchine backup and stuff

[dre@ms]

Originally Posted by pulsar56

I have a WD 1 TB drive (NTFS) with my collection and Mac does not write to NTFS. How do I overcome this?
I came across some apps like Tuxera and NTFS-G. Are these apps good enough or using windows is the only option?

I did have the same issue until I downloaded and installed the driver from my Seagate website. Now I can read\write from my ext.hdd with no issues.
FYI, I did try the above Tuxera and NTFS, it works, but detecting\writing\reading to my ext. hdd takes ages. But with the Seagate driver, it works normally.

Originally Posted by pulsar56

Any other recommended apps? I am very new to Apple and I miss the home/end/page up/page down keys as well!

I never missed thiose keys with the beautiful gestures available in MBP.

[shrjun]

Originally Posted by pulsar56

I have a WD 1 TB drive (NTFS) with my collection and Mac does not write to NTFS. How do I overcome this?

I use this program http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/

Works well. it's a paid app though

[Gandhi]

Best solution I've found for sharing HDDs between Mac and Windows is to format them in exFat. Both Mac and Windows support exFat natively and drivers are available for Linux too.