Mac Hacks

Chapter 1. Before You Hack

Hacking is fun and productive, but it can also introduce an element of danger (perhaps that’s part of the fun). You want to minimize that danger, and the best way to minimize the bad stuff that can happen is to back up your data and know what to do when something goes wrong. This is why this chapter is here. You’ll discover some basic hacking techniques but, before you try them, you’ll learn how to protect your precious data. If something does go wrong, you’ll have the tools to fix the problem very quickly. The interesting world of hacking awaits!

Hack 1. Create a Great Backup

Even if you never plan to perform a single hack in this book, you’ll still want a reliable backup. This hack explains different methods you can use to back up your Mac so you can be confident that you’ll be able to recover quickly when things go wrong.

If you’re ever asked what the most important part of a computer is (and that’s a question companies sometimes ask employment seekers), you could do much worse than saying, “A good backup.” Why not, say, the CPU or graphics card instead? Because a good backup is where all your work, toil, pictures, movies, and other accumulated data is preserved for that inevitable moment when everything stops working. With a good backup, you don’t start over, you simply restore. Without a good backup, well, good luck getting that loved one to put on a prom outfit 5 years later.

The point is that some things can’t be re-created (and even the ones that ...