Restore an iPhone Backup

While iTunes automatically backs up your iPhone each time it is synced, restoring the backup is just a few clicks away. To restore your iPhone to a backup version:

1. Open iTunes with your iPhone connected to your Mac
2. Right Click on your iPhone

3. Select Restore From Backup
4. Select your backup from the drop down and click restore

From here iTunes will restore your contacts, calendars, text messages, and settings.

Restoring old versions of your Backup

Restoring backups of your iPhone takes just a few clicks, but iTunes often only shows your most recent backup as an option to restore from. If you ever want to restore your Older backups then you’ll need the assistance of Time Machine.

Itunes stores your backup files in a folder at this location: /Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/MobileSynce/Backup. In this folder will be an additional folder or two. These folders contain all the data on your iPhone settings.

If you want to restore your iPhone to a backup you created 3 months ago, navigate to the location listed above, select the folder and open Time Machine. Navigate back 3 months and then click restore.

After Time Machine has finished restoring your Backup Folder, follow the steps listed above to Restore your iPhone Backup.

Related posts:

1. Restore Safari History With Time Machine for additional help and discussion, please visit our Forums. Like...
2. Restoring Files from Other Time Machines OS X Leopard includes a wonderful backup tool, Time Machine,...
3. Two Macs and Keeping Things Together I have the pleasure of working with two macs. One...

Luckily, you can have the same technologies and easy setup on your Mac. While OS X does come with its own native versions of Apache, MySql, and PHP setting them all up to work together can take some time. To help make this process quick and easy living e has provided individuals with a one-click-soultion to setup and manage your web servers locally.

LAMP for Macs

MAMP (Mac, Apache, Mysql, and PHP) is available in a free and PRO version. The product is easily installed (drag to your Applications folder) and is setup simply by launching the MAMP app and clicking the Start Server button.

MAMP Configuration

After MAMP has been started, you can create your website files, establish your database, and share your site with friends and family. When the server starts, MAMP launches its management page in Safari that allows you to find details needed to connect to your mysql servers as well as assist you in using the tool.

If you do not have your own mysql database client tools installed, MAMP includes a version of phpmyadmin to help you create databases, tables, new users, and enter data. This can also be found through the MAMP management page.

Changing the ports in use, the php version, and other settings can be accessed through the MAMP app preferences.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a quick one-click-solution, to getting a web environment setup. Its a great tool if you want to practice working with databases and creating your own sites. Its strongest benefit is that you can do it without any other configuration to your system.

Related posts:

1. Time Capsule’s Hitachi “Server Grade” Drive? The folks over at AppleInsider couldn't resist opening up their...
2. How To: Import your iWeb Blog to Wordpress For additional help with iWeb, please visit our Forums and...
3. Make your iWeb Blog iPhone Ready Since the release of the iPhone 3G more and more...

1. Time Machine Synchronization

Apple created Time Machine so you would never lose a file, which makes it a good candidate to keep files in sync. In this case, You use your external drive with Time Machine to keep backups of each machine. When you switch machines you would then restore from the Time Machine backup of the other machine. There are two ways to access Time Machine backups of different machines (on the same drive). The first is to hold down the option key after you have clicked on the Time Machine menu icon

The other way is to right click the Time Machine icon in the doc:

Clicking on either option will bring up a dialog where you can choose which Time Machine Backup to use. After that point, Time Machine behaves just as before and you can restore any file or folders as you normally would.

In my case, all of my important files are in my Documents folder and each morning when I changed machines, I would restore the Documents folder from the other machine’s Time Machine backup. Time Machine is effective, but not the brightest program when it comes to restoring files. Time Machine copies over everything, even files that that are identical on the machine and the backup. My Documents folder was just over 4 gigabytes in size and this took Time Machine about 10 minutes to restore on my macbook pro using a USB cable. The Mac Pro was faster as it has firewire 800.

Because Time Machine copies over everything from the backup to the new machine, that meant that every file in my Documents Folder had changed and Time Machine would then backup the entire Documents folder again. Backuping up the same data over and over each day quickly filled up my external drive.

Yet I found that keeping just the Documents folder in sync wasn’t quite enough. My iTunes folder was now scattered across two Macs along with photos and applications. Adding those folders to Time Machine would cause my drive to fill up even faster.

But this path had one final flaw which was human error. Time Machine gives you the sense of security that everything has been backed up. But that’s only true each time Time Machine successfully runs. So it does you no good to quit 1 minute before a scheduled backup. This leaves Time Machine without that last hour’s worth of work. So the flaw was forgetting to run Time Machine’s backup before quitting for the day which unfortunately is all too easy to do.

Bottom line: It does work but be sure to have lots of space and never forget to backup

2. Network Based Synchronization

While there are quite of few online places to keep files in sync, including drop.io, it’s not allowed at my company. In talking with one of our IT guys, he mentioned that I could use something called rsync. I learned that rsync is an app that comes with OS X, but you have to run it from the Terminal (i.e. command line). Some of us use Macs to get away from all that “Unix-y” stuff. On the other hand, rsync can copy only the files that have changed and it can do it over the net through a secure encrypted connection. rsync can also sync up local folders too but that’s not as interesting.

In order to get this to work, you first have to enable remote login from the Sharing section of system preferences.

The next part is determining whether or not you can connect to your Mac from your remote location. This might include talking to your IT staff, wrangling with your ISP and adjusting settings on your home router/DSL or cable modem. Those issues are beyond the scope of this article. Here’s an example of what using rsync looks like:

As you can see, there’s a lot of options for rsync, and this method by far is the most technical and detail oriented. You can easily sync up the wrong folder, or the right folder to the wrong location on the remote machine. However, when it is done right, rsync works fast and secure.

As with Time Machine above, keeping my Documents Folder in sync worked fairly well. But my iTunes library is even larger than my Documents folder and syncing changes would take too long especially after downloading a movie. Also, if the remote machine unexpectedly becomes unavailable before you are able to sync up the files you get to make an unplanned trip to the office.

Bottom line: It does work as long as you don’t mind getting through all the technical details and the net. Head on over to the forum if you want to know more.

3. Shared Home Folder

Back when Tiger first came out, there was talk that Apple would let people store their home folders on their ipods. That never quite happened. Again, with Leopard, there was talk that Apple would bring that back. While I don’t know about the iPod, you can move your Home folder to a remote drive. The idea of course, is to keep the home folder in sync between two machines because both machines use the same home folder. This eliminates the human error portion of remembering to backup or restore. Again, this has some technical steps, but the end result so far seems to be much better.

First, make sure your external drive is formatted properly. Apple uses the HFS+ filesystem, most external drives are formatted for use with PC’s. You can use the Disk Utility App to reformat your drive or a part of it to Apple’s filesystem.

Once you have the drive formatted and connected to your mac, then you’ll want to copy your home folder to it. To do that, you will need to use the Terminal and a command called ditto. Open Terminal and type: sudo ditto -rsrc “/Users/username” “/Volumes/new_home_folder_path”

where username is your account’s short name and new_home_folder_path is where you want your new home folder to be. For example, the caption below shows me copying my home folder to /Volumes/Users/aaron.

You will be prompted for your password (you have to do this logged in an administrator account) and the copying will commence. ditto will create the new folder if it doesn’t exist which is nice. This is the most techie part of the process.

Next you need to open System Preferences and click on Accounts. Then click the padlock at the bottom left and enter your password whem prompted. Now right-click on your account name and a menu “Advanced Options…” should appear.

Clicking on Advanced Options will take you to a screen where you can change your home folder’s location. Do note the giant warning at the top of the window. Changing these settings can really mess things up. As always, proceed with caution.

You can click the “Choose” and select the folder you want for your Home folder or if you’re really brave, you can just type it. Once you have chosen your new home folder’s location, log out and restart. If everything went well, logging in  will look like before. If everything didn’t go well, you’ll get an error. I set up a second administrator account so I could change things back in case something went horribly wrong. Luckily, it didn’t. Repeat the process for each machine.

Now I don’t have to synchronize anything anymore as it is all stored in one portable location. There have been a few quirks. Time Machine doesn’t like it and it causes backups to fail. So you should have some backup plan in mind when the external drive fails (and it will). Also, some apps behaved as if they were freshly installed and prompted me for their license keys. But all in all, it has worked out better than the other two options.

Bottom line: Most convenient option but also the easiest to completely mess up your Mac

Related posts:

1. Restore Your Old iPhone Backups If you've had trouble with your iPhone or accidently whipped...
2. Restoring Files from Other Time Machines OS X Leopard includes a wonderful backup tool, Time Machine,...
3. Keep Your Files In-Sync with DropBox As more and more households have additional computers in their...

By drawing lines and establishing paths, a player takes Bosh trough hills and valleys, loops and cliffs, and anything else that the creator may want to take them. Create a course and then see how friendly it is to Bosh by sending him through it. Because of the unique game play, Line Rider has been a huge success on the internet and is now available on your iPhone.

Gameplay

Line Rider is fun. It was fun on the internet and it is fun on the iPhone or iPod Touch. Like any game on a mobile platform, I gage its success on how re-playable it is. Line Rider passes the test. It is a game I can see myself playing randomly while waiting in lines, before bed, or just for kicks.

Controls

Line Rider on the iPhone has a unique interface compared to the flash based version of the game found on the internet. Instead of using a mouse to design the course, the iPhone version of the game was designed with touch controls. You literally create your course by dragging your finger around the screen.

The interface is fun at first as you see yourself drawing lines every which way you move your finger (I let me 3rd old son “draw” on line rider when he wants a turn). The interface shows its weaknesses when you’re working on precise setup for your course. The slightest miss step during course creation leads Bosh to destruction. This is difficult to correct with Line Rider for the iPhone.

Other Features

Line Rider includes save game features. This makes it easy to work on a course over a number of short periods of time. Without this feature Line Rider would be extremely frustrating as you’d have to “Master” the controls each time you decided to spend some time on a course.

Luckily, Line Rider does include the save feature. An Additional feature that Line Rider for the iPhone includes is the ability to share your courses with others. Create a linerider.com account and send off your courses to your friends.

Conclusion

Although Line Rider’s interface isn’t perfected for the iPhone, it is still a very enjoyable game. It has great re-playable, strong extra features, and is social. The combination of those three make it an easy buy if you have $2.99 to spare and you’re looking to add to your iPhone Game Collection.

Related posts:

1. Super Monkey Ball (iPhone) Apple's recently released iPhone 3g has been received by consumers...
2. iPhone vs. iPod Touch, Which Is Best For You? Now that the initial iPhone 3g craze has passed and...
3. 5 Must Have FREE Music Applications for the iPhone Since the release of the iPhone 3G thousands of applications...

In case you hadn’t heard, Netflix announced recently that they were releasing an upgrade to their Watch Instantly feature for both PC & Mac users. This was big news for us Mac fans because previously the only way we could take advantage of this Netflix feature was to do so through a Virtual Machine or booting directly into Windows.

Dropping Blockbuster

The news about streaming content from Netflix being available on my Mac, and the ever increasing price of online rentals through Blockbuster finally reached levels that made me decide to switch my movie rental service. I signed into my Blockbuster account, canceled it, and then directly signed up for Netflix.

Unfortunately, Netflix hasn’t turned on their upgraded and Mac ready streaming technology for all users. I was a bit surprised that they would announce the new feature and then tell people that they couldn’t yet take advantage of it. But it didn’t take long before Netflix announced on their blog how you can “Opt-In” to the new technology and watch video from their huge online catalog on your Mac.

Opt In to Netflix on your Mac

Thankfully, the process to Opt In to the new Mac ready features is quick and easy. Navigate to www.netflix.com/silverlightoptin , login to your account, and start watching streaming movies.

First Impressions

So far I’ve been impressed with the quality of video and how easy it is to navigate to find videos I may be interested in watching. I’ll keep you posted on the quality and added features that Mac users may see form their Netflix subscriptions. If you haven’t tried out Netflix, now may be the time.

Related posts:

1. Macbook Air: No Streaming DVDs?!? If you were planning on using your Macbook Air to...
2. March Madness on your Mac Last weekend I was very disappointed with the NCAA when...
3. Mac Gaming: Direct Downloads While PC game manufactures with available services from Valve Software's...

Sometime three months ago the CEO at CodeWeavers promised to give away all of their software for free for one day if gas prices reached a low level before President Bush left office. Unfortunately for CodeWeavers, the sudden onslaught of recession fears and ever increasing drop in demand for oil has pushed gas prices below the level the CEO set.

And true to his word, CodeWeavers is allowing anyone to come and download free copies of their products TODAY Only (Oct 28th 2008).

Head over to CodeWeavers website now and download your Free copy of some of their products including:

CrossOver Mac Pro
CrossOver Games Mac

Be sure to provide your email address to receive the serial code for the applications you select.

*Both these applications allow you to run windows applications on OS X and outside of a virtual machine*

Related posts:

1. Crossover for Google Chrome After Google announced that they were entering the Browser Wars...
2. 5 Must Have FREE Music Applications for the iPhone Since the release of the iPhone 3G thousands of applications...
3. Mac Gaming: Direct Downloads While PC game manufactures with available services from Valve Software's...

The lack of gaming options on Apple computers has been reason enough for many potential buyers to stick with their PCs. Intel Based Macs combined with Boot Camp has allowed for many gamers to get their fix of entertainment by running Windows as a second OS but plenty of gamers still prefer to just manage one Operating System.

Although Apple hasn’t announced anything recently that suggests they’ll start bringing popular games to the Mac at release, they seem to be approaching mobile games with a much more aggressive plan.

Mobile Gaming with the iPhone & iPod Touch

The iPhone and iPod Touch have become the gaming focus for Apple. They recently updated the iPod Touch to include an external speaker and volume controls. This hardware adjustment appears to be specifically for games and other entertainment medias. It allows users to enjoy the experience without a headset and prompts the interest of others sitting by watching the Apple Gamers enjoy their product.

Apple is marketing their latest iPod Touch as “The Funnest iPod Ever” and the iPhone/iPod Touch application category with the most apps is Games.

Its clear that Apple is starting to understand the value of games. Many believe that with the hardware volume of sales that Apple has with the iPhone and iPod Touch that they soon will be a strong competitor to Nintendo and Sony in the Mobile Gaming market.

Game Prices

One great aspect of the mobile games for the iPhone is their price point. Often, the most popular titles on the platform cost only $9.99. Lets hope that price sticks if the device does become a true competitor in the Mobile Gaming market. Games for the DS and Sony PSP are priced considerably higher.

I believe that part of the reason that games are being priced as low as they are for the iPhone is that many developers are offering their games for Free. This automatically makes higher priced games seem, well, that much more expensive. Also, the ability for users to purchase their games anywhere, while on the go, may help bring the price down. If you’re targeting “spontaneous” purchases it often helps for the prices to be as low as possible. This helps eliminate consumers questioning the purchase because of price.

Game Reviews

As Apple continues to push into the Mobile Gaming market and more and more games are developed for their mobile platform people will want to know more about what games they should try out next. We here at Maciverse will be writing reviews of the iPhone & iPod Touch games we play. Be sure to check back here often to get the latest game and application reviews as well as information on other Mobile Apps for the iPhone & iPod Touch.

Lets hope that Apple sees the benefit of games on the iPhone and iPod Touch and starts to push for more game development for the Mac.

Don’t miss a single article, subscribe to our RSS feed. Share with us your favorite iPhone and iPod Touch games in our forums.

Related posts:

1. Super Monkey Ball (iPhone) Apple's recently released iPhone 3g has been received by consumers...
2. The Future With Apple Mobile Devices Many of you know that Apple recently announced their SDK...
3. Mac Gaming: Direct Downloads While PC game manufactures with available services from Valve Software's...

You can quickly print out a list of files in a folder by following these steps:

1. Open Terminal
2. Navigate to the folder that you’re working with (You can enter “cd” into terminal and then drag and drop the folder from Finder to the Terminal window)
3. After navigating to the folder, enter “li” and hit return to display a list of files
4. Select the files and then on the Menu Bar click Shell and Print Selection

To see what the print output will look like, preview the print or print to PDF. Following these steps will give you a quick hard copy of what ever folder you’re working with.

Related posts:

1. Quick Tip: Permanently Remove Files If for some reason you've been working with files that...
2. Automator Tip of the Week #4: Show & Hide Hidden Files in Finder In my recent efforts to get apache2 and mysql up...
3. Restoring Files from Other Time Machines OS X Leopard includes a wonderful backup tool, Time Machine,...

That problem doesn’t exist anymore. Free service DropBox allows users on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and even the iPhone access their files that are automatically synced across all platforms. But the best part about it, each file is also backed up when saved. This automatic backup feature allows users to look at previous versions of the files their working with and undo mistakes they may have made.

Share your Folders

In addition to keeping your own files synced, Dropbox also allows you to share files or folders with friends that use the service. Work on documents together with automatic backups of each saved file, send new music and other media files, or develop new applications with one file location with the help of DropBox.

DropBox in Finder

DropBox acts like all your other folders in Finder but it does a lot more. Any time you update or modify a file in your “DropBox” folder, a copy of it is saved to a free remote server and then updated on all you other computers with DropBox. This all happens on the back end so that the end user doesn’t know anything different.

To help users know when the sync process has completed, DropBox shows a green check mark on each folder and file that is in-sync. A spinning icon will let you know that the file is still being sent to your other DropBox folders on other computers.

Preferences

DropBox lets you customize a few settings after installation. In addition to letting you pick which folder will be synced, DropBox lets you customize your network settings. Limit your upload and download rates, or connect to DropBox through a proxy server.

These preferences can come in handy when you’re working with large files and don’t want the connection to hog up all your bandwidth.

Free, or paid version

While dropbox does offer a free service that will let you sync up to 2gb of data on multiple devices, they also offer Paid plans for individuals that need more space.

For $9.99 a month or $99 a year, individuals can sync up to 50gb across all their computers and mobile internet ready devices.

DropBox is a great tool that lets you keep in sync on each computer you use. Its mobile and web features let you grab the files you need while on the go. It is a great way to pass files from one location to another.

Related posts:

1. Quick Tip: How to Print a List of Files Although the world becomes more and more digital, every now...
2. Automator Tip of the Week #4: Show & Hide Hidden Files in Finder In my recent efforts to get apache2 and mysql up...
3. 4 Steps to Turn RSS Feeds Into Audio Files Over the past few years RSS feeds have been transforming...

It is true that Apple is now selling a notebook for $999. But, it looks like that Macbook will only be around for as long as Apple has a large inventory of White Macbook cases. The new and improved Notebooks are priced at $1,299 and $1,599 for Macbooks and $1,999, $2,499, and $2,799 for Macbook Pros. Its almost as if Apple failed to check the US economy when they were deciding on their new notebook prices. The higher price mark will make it difficult on many during hard economic times. Is Apple trying to keep their notebook marketshare below 5%?

The Apple Tax

In addition to these high prices, some people have started to point out that the Apple Tax for buying an Apple computer seems to be as high as ever. Getting similar systems from other computer manufactures often cost considerably less.

An argument I have used before is that despite paying the “Apple Tax” I often resell my notebooks and with Apple Computers I can sell the computer for very close to the original retail price I paid for it. I always believed that one thing true about Apple computers is that they keep their value. But do they?

What’s It Worth Today?

Below is a chart showing original prices for Apple Notebooks, their recently “Used” sale price on Ebay, and the percentage of their original value that the notebooks still hold today.

As you can see it seems that Apple notebooks stay close to 60% of their original value, even after 18 months of use. It is comforting to know that I can use a computer for almost two years and still get $.60 on each $1 that I originally spent.

But what I find a bit depressing is it seems that these same notebooks decrease to close 60% of their retail value within the first 6 months of use. Is the resale value of Apple Computers the price the notebooks should be minus the Apple tax? Does the computer I purchase drop 60% just by opening the box?

Have you checked to see what your notebook is worth?

Related posts:

1. ReInstalling OS X on Macbook Air When Apple released the Macbook Air many questioned their belief...
2. Macbook Air Reviews Here, There, Everywhere As the first Macbook Air's started making their way to...
3. Macbook Air: First Impressions Although we mentioned all the articles that reviewed the Macbook...