TechNotes August 97

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August 1997

Not so formal introductions... Editor: Tracy Valleau

Welcome to techNotes samples.

This issue will cover backup hardware, a frequently bewildering subject, but one that is vital to the secure use of your computer.

But first, let me introduce myself. My name is Mr. Tracy Valleau, and I'm been around this industry since it started. (Sorry for the "Mr." there, but with a first name like "Tracy" I frequently receive mail addressed to "Ms." and I just wanted to get that out of the way.)

I've been a programmer and software designer and consultant for over 20 years now. My clients have included Apple, Sony, Disney, Silicon Graphics, Jasmine, Synapse, the US government and many others over the years. Depending on who you ask, I'm either the inventor or co-inventor of hypermedia.

I decided to do this newsletter because it seems to me that there is a gap in accurate information for people who are certainly no longer beginners with computers, but who have not yet risen to the exhaulted title of "techo-geek" either (and may not want to, for that matter.)

I want to fill that gap with my experience and my opinions. While I'll be as objective as necessary, I don't want excessive objectivity to become a mush of useless information either. I'm paid for my opinions by huge corporations, so you'll get my candid opinions here too. If I don't like a piece of software or hardware, and I think I can save you some grief by telling you, then that is exactly what I'll do.

This newsletter should, at its bottomline, be useful to you.If it's not, please let me know.

Tracy

Back up options.

You'll know when it happens: your stomach turns in a sudden knot; you suddenly are sweating and flush; you may feel slightly dizzy. What causes this onslaught of illness? You turn on your computer, and it refuses to boot. Just a Sad Mac staring you in the face. So you run Disk First Aid, or Nortons. Neither one even knows that your hard drive is there. Even your local Mac guru cannot get it back up and running for you.

The past three years of work is gone forever, or will cost you $1500 to have recovered by a specialty data recovery house.

No problem! You're fine. After all, you do backup your hard drive every night... right?

A crashed hard drive can be an inconvenience, or a threat to the survival of your company. If you have a back up, the most you can lose is a day or so worth of work, instead of everything since you bought your Mac. You may go along forever without a single crash. But when you crash, it's certainly too late to be considering a backup.

Hard drives are mechanical devices, and as such have a pretty finite life, running between three and 5 or 6 years for consumer level products. It will eventually wear out.

So let's agree that backing up your hard drive is a good thing to do.

Now you're faced with a bewildering array of options to select from. Let's see if we can point you in the right direction, and make your choice a little easier.

First, you need to match the size of your drive (that is, the amount of data you'll be backing up) to your choice of media. For example, if you have a 200 megabyte hard drive, you can back the whole thing up on a couple of Zip disks; but it you're running 8 gigs of data, nothing less than a tape if really feasible.

(In this article, when I refer to Zips, I do so only because they are the most common removable disks. I mean to include in this category, Jaz drives, all the various Syquest drives, and even magneto-optical and CDs.)

Basically there are two kinds of backups: a mirror image (also called a finder format) and a backup set (usually in a special format created by a backup program.)



		August 1997


What's coming. Mac OS 8.1 will probably be available in early December. It is unclear if a longstanding issue with file sizes will be fixed in that version, or if the fix will be part of Rhapsody (which is still on schedule for a 1st quarter 1998 release.) As you may have noticed, the larger your hard drive, the larger the minimum file size. With a four gig hard drive, the smallest file you can save will occupy 32,768 bytes, even if it only contains a single letter! Obviously, this wastes a lot of space on your drive. The new filing system will take care of this, but, at the same time, will require that several pieces of software you may currently use be updated (such as Norton Disk Doctor; Disk First Aid; and, obviously, the finder, among others.) If you want to know why the problem occurred, read on, or you can just skip this paragraph. In the old days, the largest number the CPU could process was 2 bytes 'wide'. Since a byte is 8 bits, 2 bytes is obviously 16 bits, and therefore the largest number is 2^16, or 65536. (OK, since computers include 0 as a number, the real largest number was 65,535...) Therefore when the filing system broke a disk drive into blocks of data, it broke it into 65,536 blocks...regardless of the size of the drive. Thus, with a smaller drive, the minimum file size was smaller, whereas with a larger drive the minimum block (ne file) size was larger. Now that we are no longer limited to a 2-byte wide number, the drive can be broken into smaller chunks. See? Not overwhelmingly complex.	Backups (continued) You can do a finder format backup yourself, with no special software required. Just drag the folders you want backed up onto some removable media, such as a Zip disk, Syquest or even CD Recorder (CDR.) Pull out the removable disk when you're done, and you've created a backup. You'll start noticing that to do this every night takes a while since you're copying the same files over and over again. Wouldn't it be nice if you could somehow copy only the files that had changed during the day, and leave the nonchanging files as they are? The time it took to do a backup would be dramatically shorter, wouldn't it? Well, there is a way. Connectix makes a product called Speed Doubler, and one of the things it does is copy only changed files when you drag the folder off to your backup disk. A version for Mac OS 8 will be available shortly, and if you're not using 8, you can get Speed Doubler now for System 7. For many users this technique, dragging to a removable media, while using SpeedDoubler, will be a perfect solution. For those who want a more complete backup, or have large amounts of data, I'd recommend using a tape backup system. Now, while a Syquest or Zip drive can be used for other data storage and purposes, a tape system is strictly a backup device. It is also more expensive by a few hundred bucks. On the other hand, it is far more convenient to use, and can keep a virtual snapshot of your hard drive and everything on it. Restore from a tape after a crash, and you'll have your hard drive back virtually identical to the way it was when you last did the backup. Restore from a Zip and you'll bet your data back, but not all the hidden files, and, of course, the things you forgot to drag over. Finally, tape can backup unattended; you've got to be there for the Zips. To use a tape, you'll run software to do it, usually Retrospect from Dantz Software. Once it is set up, you merely insert a tape and hit the "go" button. You can even schedule a backup to take place automatically, say from 1 AM to 4 AM, when your office is closed. Like the Zip, you can also set up Retrospect to back up only a part of your drive if you like (but if that is all you did, you'd be missing the true benefit of tape, which is to back up everything.)

Rhapsody You should know that you'll not be losing your investment in the Mac OS when Rhapsody arrives. For one thing, Rhapsody won't initially be aimed at individual users, but a corporate enterprises. Apple is not only _not_ abandoning our traditional finder interface, but has, in fact, increased by 50% the number of programmers working on it.



		August 1997


	Backup (continued) What's the cost? Zips, Jaz and Syquest can run from $150 to $500 for the drive, and from $20 to $200 for the disks. While there are super-tape drives costing thousands, the consumer level HyperQic costs about $500, and the tapes, which can hold 8 gigs of data, are $35 each. Regardless of whether you choose disks or tape, you'll want several of them to start. What's my recommendation? Tape if you can afford it. Removable disks otherwise, or if you need the versatility.
Rhapsody (continued) In short, for quite a few years (5? 10?) the two operating systems will be in parallel: Rhapsody and MacOS will exist side by side, and you can choose the one most appropriate for you. Timbuktu 4.0 If you have two Macs, say a PowerBook and a desktop Mac, then you should have a twin-pack of Timbuktu, and install a copy on each. That done, you can control one from the other from any place in the world (that has phone lines.) I really mean control: you can not only transfer files, but literally see the other Mac's screen on your screen; literally move the other Mac's mouse around, pull down menus, run programs and so on. Timbuktu also works on local networks or over the internet. If you've got the need, this is serious software. http://www.farallon.com.

	Viruses
	First, viruses are real. There are about 23,000 PC viruses and about 40 Mac viruses.(No, that's not a mis-print.) Second, a virus is a computer program. Let me say that again: a virus is a computer program. It is NOT a text document. It cannot be a text document. A text document will NEVER be a virus. Why? Because a text document is not a computer program. It is a text document. Period. Email, therefore, CANNOT be a virus. Period. BUT!!!!!You can _attach_a computer program to an email letter. These show up as attachments in your email program. You must decode and run them. Notice that this is NOT the same thing as reading the email letter to which the program is attached. Well, what about the Microsoft Word Macro viruses? Aren't those text documents? No: they are Microsoft Word documents, not Microsoft Word _text_ documents.Microsoft, in all its wisdom, decided that it would be really cool if a user could attach scripts to documents. The scripts will instruct Microsoft Word to do certain things. Bad idea. Those certain things can include lots of trouble-makers. ( Microsoft has the exact same problem with ActiveX, and it lets all kinds of programs in over the internet to wreak havoc on your computer. Microsoft seems to be rowing with one oar here...) So, if you got attacked by one of the many Word viruses, isn't that an email virus? Well, if you get murdered by a hitchhiker, isn't that a 'car virus'? Hardly: just don't pick up

One final opinion
There is really only one big Mac mailorder house: MacWarehouse. I've bought my fair share of stuff from them. Their prices are good, and their shipment is prompt, but I keep returning to MacConnection, a firm that is about one-twentith the size. Why? Fantastic service. When I had trouble with a printer's power supply, I phoned the printer manufacturer. "Ship the whole printer back, and we'll look at it," they said. "But it's only the plug-in brick, and I just bought it yesterday," I replied. "Sir, our policy is that you must pay to ship the entire printer...blah, blah, blah." I called MacConnection. "Sir, I'll ship out a new power supply right now, along with a return tag so that you can ship back the old one at no cost." That's not the only example, but it explains why I call MacConnection first.



		August 1997

No ads I'm going to try to run this newsletter without any advertising. That way I'm beholdin to no-one except my subscribers and my own conscience. If you like it that way, please let your friends know about techNotes. With enough subscribers, it can afford to stay advertising free. Let me know what you like to see here. See you next month. Subscriptions are $12 per year. To subscribe, just email to: editor@linksware.com and include your email address and credit card information. You can also visit our site at: http://www.linksware.com/techlinks.html for an online subscription form.
	hitchhikers.Same with the Word macro virus: you did NOT get it by reading the email it was attached to; you got it by decoding the attachment; running Microsoft Word, and then loading in the Microsoft Word document (which contained an auto-running Macro.) My point here is that the virus was in the attachment, NOT in the email itself.ANYTHING that you download from ANY SOURCE could contain a virus. (Even pre packaged software direct from the original publisher has been known to have viruses.) So, when you download a program, or extract an attachment, you should do so with an eye toward checking if for a virus. (Especially if you have a PC, and not a Mac.)SAM (Symantec Antivirus for Mac) [and by implication, I'd assume that their PC version as well] offers to set up a folder that is an auto-check folder (subdirectory, for you PC - types.) Anything that you put into that folder is automatically scanned for viruses.Most software that can download also offers a way to set a default folder into which the download will be placed. Make this folder the same as the anti-virus folder, and you're automatically scanning for viruses. So, when someone sends you some email warning about other email (like "penpal" or "goodTimes") and swearing that someone they know knows someone whose friend's hard drive was trashed by just opening a piece of email...well you know better now. It can't be true. And, please, don't forward that incorrect rumor to anyone. To protect against a virus, I use SAM (Symantec Anti-virus for the Mac) which is a commercial product, updated each month (http://www.symantec.com.) Disinfectant is a free product, you can find at ftp://ftp.acns.nwu.edu/pub/disinfectant as well as on AOL and most of the shareware sites. SAM has an annoying INIT that will automatically scan everything for a virus, and automatically conflict with half your software. Some people swear by it; others hate it. I don't use the init, but instead keep an alias to SAM on my desktop, and just drag what I want scanned for viruses on to that. Really want to know more about viruses? Here's where you can find out more, including whether or not that urgent warning your friend sent you is for real: CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) is at http://www.cert.org/ CIAC is at http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html and the NCSA virus Technical Lab is at http://www.ncsa.com/virus/




August 1997
Not so formal introductions...		Editor: Tracy Valleau
Not so formal introductions...
	Welcome to techNotes samples. This issue will cover backup hardware, a frequently bewildering subject, but one that is vital to the secure use of your computer. But first, let me introduce myself. My name is Mr. Tracy Valleau, and I'm been around this industry since it started. (Sorry for the "Mr." there, but with a first name like "Tracy" I frequently receive mail addressed to "Ms." and I just wanted to get that out of the way.) I've been a programmer and software designer and consultant for over 20 years now. My clients have included Apple, Sony, Disney, Silicon Graphics, Jasmine, Synapse, the US government and many others over the years. Depending on who you ask, I'm either the inventor or co-inventor of hypermedia. I decided to do this newsletter because it seems to me that there is a gap in accurate information for people who are certainly no longer beginners with computers, but who have not yet risen to the exhaulted title of "techo-geek" either (and may not want to, for that matter.) I want to fill that gap with my experience and my opinions. While I'll be as objective as necessary, I don't want excessive objectivity to become a mush of useless information either. I'm paid for my opinions by huge corporations, so you'll get my candid opinions here too. If I don't like a piece of software or hardware, and I think I can save you some grief by telling you, then that is exactly what I'll do. This newsletter should, at its bottomline, be useful to you.If it's not, please let me know. Tracy
			Back up options. You'll know when it happens: your stomach turns in a sudden knot; you suddenly are sweating and flush; you may feel slightly dizzy. What causes this onslaught of illness? You turn on your computer, and it refuses to boot. Just a Sad Mac staring you in the face. So you run Disk First Aid, or Nortons. Neither one even knows that your hard drive is there. Even your local Mac guru cannot get it back up and running for you. The past three years of work is gone forever, or will cost you $1500 to have recovered by a specialty data recovery house. No problem! You're fine. After all, you do backup your hard drive every night... right? A crashed hard drive can be an inconvenience, or a threat to the survival of your company. If you have a back up, the most you can lose is a day or so worth of work, instead of everything since you bought your Mac. You may go along forever without a single crash. But when you crash, it's certainly too late to be considering a backup. Hard drives are mechanical devices, and as such have a pretty finite life, running between three and 5 or 6 years for consumer level products. It will eventually wear out. So let's agree that backing up your hard drive is a good thing to do. Now you're faced with a bewildering array of options to select from. Let's see if we can point you in the right direction, and make your choice a little easier. First, you need to match the size of your drive (that is, the amount of data you'll be backing up) to your choice of media. For example, if you have a 200 megabyte hard drive, you can back the whole thing up on a couple of Zip disks; but it you're running 8 gigs of data, nothing less than a tape if really feasible. (In this article, when I refer to Zips, I do so only because they are the most common removable disks. I mean to include in this category, Jaz drives, all the various Syquest drives, and even magneto-optical and CDs.) Basically there are two kinds of backups: a mirror image (also called a finder format) and a backup set (usually in a special format created by a backup program.)