Want to establish an organized plan and checklist for setup from scratch, whenever it’s required. Here’s an initial stab at a Checklist:
- First-use basic config (enable internet access but don’t browse or update or download anything)
- Back-up (Time Machine, requires exclusive use of a volume unless using TimeCapsule (or does that create multiple (machine-specific) volumes as partitions?)
- Ideally would like to backup this and other stages permamently, but TimeMachine backups can get overwritten and need to install other apps to backup from OSX. Maybe a linux LiveCD block-copy (to a linux rather than Mac formatted disk, but that doesn’t matter)? )
- Time Machine backup failures can occur but sometimes just a retry works http://www.davidalison.com/2008/06/now-daily-time-machine-error.html
- Time Capsule http://www.apple.com/timecapsule/backup.html
- Time Capsule includes a wireless 1TB or 2TB hard drive1 designed to work with Time Machine in Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard.
- It can back up and store files for each Leopard– and Snow Leopard-based Mac on your wireless network.
- Does that mean it can act as common (shared) backup medium for more than one Time Machine (on more than one Mac or Mac instance)
- It can act as a Wifi and USB-connected resource (e.g. printer or hard disk) sharing node, where it prefers to be the main node (not a client), e.g. connected (Ethernet) to an ADSL model.
- What if I already have a router? http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1178
- Just plug it in to a router port and disable the router’s own WiFi?
- What if I already have a router? http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1178
- For more information about Time Machine, choose Help > Mac Help from the Finder
menu on a computer using Mac OS X Leopard, and then type Time Machine in the
search field. http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/TimeCapsule_SetupGuide.pdf
- Set up a “Default Everything” account (admin) – useful if get into trouble later
- Drivers (No need for printer driver – see below – but what about graphic card drivers?)
- But maybe see what works out-of-the box first?
- Snow Leopard does auto download & update of printer drivers http://www.apple.com/macosx/refinements
- Update (check what’s compatible with FCP etc. at this time?)
- Further configs of user account (e.g. side-oriented dock).
- Can these be automated e.g. by AppleScript,for any future machines I might want similarly configured?
- Some suggestions & tips:
- “Tweak Checklist For a Clean Install of OS X” http://macmembrane.com/tweak-checklist-for-a-clean-install-of-os-x
- “MacMembrane” http://macmembrane.com
- Utils (some from : http://www.macupdate.com)
- QuickSilver
- iPartition
- CarbonCopyCloner / SuperDuper (for cloning or backing-up (as stanalone image) the Mac OS system disk)
- WinClone (for backing-up images of BootCamp-Windows partitions)
- VideoSpec
- A cross-platform file-sync & backup util
- A remote-access & mgt util.
- Parallels
- AppDelete ?
- GoogleNotifier (indicates when new GMail received)
- Handbrake (DVD ripper ?)
- BitTorrent (eg Transmission (tips at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PyfcjMxyd0) or some people consider uTorrent easier)
- Generic Apps
- FireFox etc.
- An “Explorer-like” alternative to Finder
- An Office Suite (probably NeoOffice – is a Mac-specific fork of OpenOffice, though how compatible is it eg interchanging “.odt” files with it?)
- Skype
- Twitter (http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac)
- ScreenFlow? KeyNote?
- Specific Apps
- FCS
- Avid
- Gimp http://www.gimp.org/macintosh
- FCP enhancements
- FCP Versioner http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/33200/fcp-versioner
- Automatically creates a backup every time you save your Final Cut Pro project
- Each backup has a changelog listing exactly what changed between revisions
- Backups are in XML format which has durability and compatibility advantages over FCP project files
- Flexible backup management options to fully customize how older backups are purged
- Autosaves your project file at specified intervals.
- x
- FCP Versioner http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/33200/fcp-versioner
- x