Ten, no, eleven tips for sane computing under OS X
I bought my first Mac back in 1988 or so. I was
working under a brilliant engineer named Jack, and he had decided that Macs were
the way to go: they were so far ahead of the PC offerings of the day that we
could flat out-perform someone tied to the old Microsoft DOS world of the day.
We would create our Excel spreadsheet simulations of electronic circuits, taking
into account all kinds of variabilities in components, and prove out the
accuracy of our designs. Then we would write up our manuals and specification
sheets in Microsoft Word, using the magical table generation capabilities. We
got a lot done with our humble little 16 MHz Mac Plus
computers.
Jack had a little ritual he did every Friday. About 15 minutes before it was time to go home, he would get out his box of disks, and fire up the backup program (the name of which escapes me, but it was the one that was built around Smart Sets). Then he would feed his disks into the computer and back the whole thing up before going home for the weekend. Thus did I learn Sane Computing Tip #1: Back up your data regularly!
With time, I have developed other practices of my own. Mostly they are little pro-active actions to take against the inevitable computer gremlins that creep into your life. I list them for your edification below. Some of them are generic, but most are tied to the operating system I use most often, the Mac OS X operating system.
1. Back up your data regularly
You've heard it a million times... but do you do it? Most people don't, as a matter of fact. But, inevitably, sometime you'll wish that you had backup, and probably not because of outright hardware failure. Backups are handy for restoring your computer after other mysterious software glitches as well. Recently I found that the SmartMedia card reader that I use to transfer photos from my camera to the computer had stopped working. A little sleuthing on the internet led to a posting where someone experienced the same kind of failure; the solution was to restore a certain kernel extension file directory. I went to my backups, and copied the directory over, and sure enough, the reader was working again.
I think that the key is to make your backup strategy simple enough that you actually do it. My strategy is to use Carbon Copy Cloner, a shareware program, to make a complete disk image of my computer on a hard disk once a month. It's not the fastest backup, but it is simple to initiate, and very complete.
2. Save and organize your downloads
You can designate a default folder for your Internet browser to use for all your downloaded files. Periodically, I clean out this folder by transferring and burning the compressed files to a CD. That way, if I need to go back to a previous version, or need to progress through installing all the previous versions on a new computer, I have what I need. Sometimes someone else needs a specific version of something that has since progressed beyond, and you can supply it from your CD.
3. Make a pdf file of important receipts and software codes that you are given electronically, and store them in a folder within your Documents folder.
I like shareware. Under OS X, much of the shareware is quite polished and capable. However, shareware is useless if you have lost the activation key, so take a moment to print to pdf the browser screen or the email that you received with the key for a program. Store it in a folder called Receipts somewhere where you will know to look for it in your home directory.
4. Use Keychain Access to store passwords
So many sites require passwords, how do you keep track of them all? I classify my passwords in two categories: those that I don't care whether they are compromised, and those that I do care. For the ones that I don't care, like the New York Times password for reading the on-line version of the newspaper, I use the same password everywhere. What do I care if someone impersonates me on the New York Times web site? I don't care. So keep your life simple there.
For the ones that I do care about, it's another matter. I use different passwords for each banking site and each email account, and I make an entry in the Keychain for each one, regardless of whether the browser will automatically look it up for me. It's a little more work, but I always know that I can look up a password, and I also know that no one can access those passwords without the master password for my computer.
5. Use a bookmark organizer for your browser
No single browser is perfect for all things, and so we often use different browsers for different purposes. I myself use iCab (www.icab.de) for most browsing tasks because it is fast and has excellent security control features, but there are times when only Internet Explorer (www.mactopia.com) will do for compatibility. If you use more than one browser you are familiar with the bookmark coherence problem: you'd like to visit some site, but the bookmark to it is stored by your other browser.
The solution to this is a bookmarking utility. I use Bookit, from Everyday Software . It is drag and drop simple to use, and it allows me to have a unified set of bookmarks across any browser I care to use. Its great for organizing even a single browser's bookmark system.
6. Be slightly paranoid about security
Although the Mac OS is arguable more secure than Windows, never let your guard down. Use passwords that are difficult to guess - never your spouse's name. Turn on security features like the OS X firewall (accessible from the Sharing pane of System Preferences). Turn off and leave off unused services like SMB sharing if you don't use them on a regular basis. If your wireless network has security features like WEP or WAP, turn them on and assign passwords to them. Just be sure to record the details in the Keychain Access database so that you don't lock yourself out.
7. Never jump on a brand new operating system release
The repair book "How to fix your VW rabbit" had some advice that I remember vividly to this day: if it don't stink, don't stir it. Meaning, if you don't have a compelling reason to perform an upgrade (to fix a bug or add a needed feature), wait a while. The first releases often have large changes and will quite easily make your life miserable until you figure them out. One thing in particular: device drivers for your hardware often need updates for new operating system upgrades, and they may not be available at the time of the new OS release. It is often wise to do a complete system back up before an operating system upgrade so that you have a clear downgrade path if you find out later that you're not happy with the new release.
8. Perform maintenance regularly
I recommend that you make a habit of performing maintenance on your computer. On an OS X system, you should boot into single-user mode about once a week, and run 'fsck -y' to check and repair your disk. Follow this up by typing 'reboot'. Once the system is up and running it is a good idea to repair permissions; you will find this as an option on the repair tab of the Disk Utility application.
Another type of maintenance is keeping up with security updates. I like to control exactly when my computer is updated, so I turn off the "check for updates automatically" feature of the Software Update pane of System Preferences. Instead, I perform a back up, and then manually check for updates.
9. Don't complicate your life if you don't have to
Everything one does with computers involves complexity. I try to stick with the adage that it is better to have a few tools that you know well than a hard disk full of stuff that you seldom use and hardly can navigate. You could buy a shareware program to keep track of recipes, but if you only use it once in a while why not just write up your recipes in a document processor like Appleworks?
10. Live within the recommended guidelines of OS X
This tip mostly applies to choosing shareware: some shareware programs use undocumented calls of the operating system to perform nifty actions like putting a menu on the Finder menu bar. While these can be quite handy, they are the most likely to break your system when you upgrade to a new version of OS X. Be very wary about installing programs that add onto to existing Apple functionality like the Dock or the Menu bar.
A related tip is to be careful about installing shareware that requires an administrator password for installation. This implies that the installer is putting code into protected spaces of the system; there may be good reasons for needing access to those protected spaces, but often you can find a similar application written to operate entirely within the user space, which is safer and less likely to break the system due to an operating system upgrade in the future. If the shareware you're considering only requires a drag from a disk image file to your Applications folder you're less likely to have problems.
By the way, OS X expects that certain files will be in certain places. In the old Mac OS (6.x to 9.2.2) you had more freedom to put applications in different places on your hard disk: on the desktop, in document folders, etc. OS X expects a bit more rigor. Applications go in the Applications folder if they are OS X native, or in the Applications (Mac OS 9) folder if they're not. Your personal files should be put under your home directory somewhere; don't go putting things in the root directory of the hard disk, or in the application folders. Sometimes an upgrade will overwrite areas like the root of the disk or an application folder.
11. Never give out an email address that you aren't prepared to burn
Some estimate that spam accounts for more than half of all email today. There is tremendous interest by commercial entities in obtaining your email address, and correlating it to your activities and interests. It is a good idea to have multiple email addresses, and group your email correspondents into different categories. Your trusted friends and relatives should get one email address, while commercial entities get another address. This segregation concept compartmentalizes your email recipients so that you insulate them from one another; if one address is compromised, and you start receiving endless spam on it, you can get rid of that address and only have to notify a subset of your contacts of a new email address.
There are commercial services that make this easier. I use Emailias , which allows me to create an unlimited number of email addresses on the fly. In essence, nearly everyone I correspond with has a unique email address for me. For someone less fanatical about spam, you could use a simple, free service called SpamGourmet . Both make it possible to control your email addresses very completely. Never give out a true email address to something like a mailing list or discussion board - always use Emailias or SpamGourmet. Spammers employ robotic "spiders" to read through web pages and harvest email addresses, and any address you allow to appear statically on a web page will eventually be compromised.
A related email tip: always use plain text ascii for your emails, and be sure to turn off Load Images in your email program. Images in spam that you receive will alert the spammer's server that you actually exist and opened the spam email. They help spammers zero in on who you are, and what your interests are.
Jack had a little ritual he did every Friday. About 15 minutes before it was time to go home, he would get out his box of disks, and fire up the backup program (the name of which escapes me, but it was the one that was built around Smart Sets). Then he would feed his disks into the computer and back the whole thing up before going home for the weekend. Thus did I learn Sane Computing Tip #1: Back up your data regularly!
With time, I have developed other practices of my own. Mostly they are little pro-active actions to take against the inevitable computer gremlins that creep into your life. I list them for your edification below. Some of them are generic, but most are tied to the operating system I use most often, the Mac OS X operating system.
1. Back up your data regularly
You've heard it a million times... but do you do it? Most people don't, as a matter of fact. But, inevitably, sometime you'll wish that you had backup, and probably not because of outright hardware failure. Backups are handy for restoring your computer after other mysterious software glitches as well. Recently I found that the SmartMedia card reader that I use to transfer photos from my camera to the computer had stopped working. A little sleuthing on the internet led to a posting where someone experienced the same kind of failure; the solution was to restore a certain kernel extension file directory. I went to my backups, and copied the directory over, and sure enough, the reader was working again.
I think that the key is to make your backup strategy simple enough that you actually do it. My strategy is to use Carbon Copy Cloner, a shareware program, to make a complete disk image of my computer on a hard disk once a month. It's not the fastest backup, but it is simple to initiate, and very complete.
2. Save and organize your downloads
You can designate a default folder for your Internet browser to use for all your downloaded files. Periodically, I clean out this folder by transferring and burning the compressed files to a CD. That way, if I need to go back to a previous version, or need to progress through installing all the previous versions on a new computer, I have what I need. Sometimes someone else needs a specific version of something that has since progressed beyond, and you can supply it from your CD.
3. Make a pdf file of important receipts and software codes that you are given electronically, and store them in a folder within your Documents folder.
I like shareware. Under OS X, much of the shareware is quite polished and capable. However, shareware is useless if you have lost the activation key, so take a moment to print to pdf the browser screen or the email that you received with the key for a program. Store it in a folder called Receipts somewhere where you will know to look for it in your home directory.
4. Use Keychain Access to store passwords
So many sites require passwords, how do you keep track of them all? I classify my passwords in two categories: those that I don't care whether they are compromised, and those that I do care. For the ones that I don't care, like the New York Times password for reading the on-line version of the newspaper, I use the same password everywhere. What do I care if someone impersonates me on the New York Times web site? I don't care. So keep your life simple there.
For the ones that I do care about, it's another matter. I use different passwords for each banking site and each email account, and I make an entry in the Keychain for each one, regardless of whether the browser will automatically look it up for me. It's a little more work, but I always know that I can look up a password, and I also know that no one can access those passwords without the master password for my computer.
5. Use a bookmark organizer for your browser
No single browser is perfect for all things, and so we often use different browsers for different purposes. I myself use iCab (www.icab.de) for most browsing tasks because it is fast and has excellent security control features, but there are times when only Internet Explorer (www.mactopia.com) will do for compatibility. If you use more than one browser you are familiar with the bookmark coherence problem: you'd like to visit some site, but the bookmark to it is stored by your other browser.
The solution to this is a bookmarking utility. I use Bookit, from Everyday Software . It is drag and drop simple to use, and it allows me to have a unified set of bookmarks across any browser I care to use. Its great for organizing even a single browser's bookmark system.
6. Be slightly paranoid about security
Although the Mac OS is arguable more secure than Windows, never let your guard down. Use passwords that are difficult to guess - never your spouse's name. Turn on security features like the OS X firewall (accessible from the Sharing pane of System Preferences). Turn off and leave off unused services like SMB sharing if you don't use them on a regular basis. If your wireless network has security features like WEP or WAP, turn them on and assign passwords to them. Just be sure to record the details in the Keychain Access database so that you don't lock yourself out.
7. Never jump on a brand new operating system release
The repair book "How to fix your VW rabbit" had some advice that I remember vividly to this day: if it don't stink, don't stir it. Meaning, if you don't have a compelling reason to perform an upgrade (to fix a bug or add a needed feature), wait a while. The first releases often have large changes and will quite easily make your life miserable until you figure them out. One thing in particular: device drivers for your hardware often need updates for new operating system upgrades, and they may not be available at the time of the new OS release. It is often wise to do a complete system back up before an operating system upgrade so that you have a clear downgrade path if you find out later that you're not happy with the new release.
8. Perform maintenance regularly
I recommend that you make a habit of performing maintenance on your computer. On an OS X system, you should boot into single-user mode about once a week, and run 'fsck -y' to check and repair your disk. Follow this up by typing 'reboot'. Once the system is up and running it is a good idea to repair permissions; you will find this as an option on the repair tab of the Disk Utility application.
Another type of maintenance is keeping up with security updates. I like to control exactly when my computer is updated, so I turn off the "check for updates automatically" feature of the Software Update pane of System Preferences. Instead, I perform a back up, and then manually check for updates.
9. Don't complicate your life if you don't have to
Everything one does with computers involves complexity. I try to stick with the adage that it is better to have a few tools that you know well than a hard disk full of stuff that you seldom use and hardly can navigate. You could buy a shareware program to keep track of recipes, but if you only use it once in a while why not just write up your recipes in a document processor like Appleworks?
10. Live within the recommended guidelines of OS X
This tip mostly applies to choosing shareware: some shareware programs use undocumented calls of the operating system to perform nifty actions like putting a menu on the Finder menu bar. While these can be quite handy, they are the most likely to break your system when you upgrade to a new version of OS X. Be very wary about installing programs that add onto to existing Apple functionality like the Dock or the Menu bar.
A related tip is to be careful about installing shareware that requires an administrator password for installation. This implies that the installer is putting code into protected spaces of the system; there may be good reasons for needing access to those protected spaces, but often you can find a similar application written to operate entirely within the user space, which is safer and less likely to break the system due to an operating system upgrade in the future. If the shareware you're considering only requires a drag from a disk image file to your Applications folder you're less likely to have problems.
By the way, OS X expects that certain files will be in certain places. In the old Mac OS (6.x to 9.2.2) you had more freedom to put applications in different places on your hard disk: on the desktop, in document folders, etc. OS X expects a bit more rigor. Applications go in the Applications folder if they are OS X native, or in the Applications (Mac OS 9) folder if they're not. Your personal files should be put under your home directory somewhere; don't go putting things in the root directory of the hard disk, or in the application folders. Sometimes an upgrade will overwrite areas like the root of the disk or an application folder.
11. Never give out an email address that you aren't prepared to burn
Some estimate that spam accounts for more than half of all email today. There is tremendous interest by commercial entities in obtaining your email address, and correlating it to your activities and interests. It is a good idea to have multiple email addresses, and group your email correspondents into different categories. Your trusted friends and relatives should get one email address, while commercial entities get another address. This segregation concept compartmentalizes your email recipients so that you insulate them from one another; if one address is compromised, and you start receiving endless spam on it, you can get rid of that address and only have to notify a subset of your contacts of a new email address.
There are commercial services that make this easier. I use Emailias , which allows me to create an unlimited number of email addresses on the fly. In essence, nearly everyone I correspond with has a unique email address for me. For someone less fanatical about spam, you could use a simple, free service called SpamGourmet . Both make it possible to control your email addresses very completely. Never give out a true email address to something like a mailing list or discussion board - always use Emailias or SpamGourmet. Spammers employ robotic "spiders" to read through web pages and harvest email addresses, and any address you allow to appear statically on a web page will eventually be compromised.
A related email tip: always use plain text ascii for your emails, and be sure to turn off Load Images in your email program. Images in spam that you receive will alert the spammer's server that you actually exist and opened the spam email. They help spammers zero in on who you are, and what your interests are.
Posted: Sat - March 20, 2004 at 12:06 PM
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