We recently talked about emails and how much we are surrounded,
overwhelmed and drowning under our emails. There come the questions about
archiving, sorting and finding the particular emails you need at different
points in time. How do you do it? This becomes a nightmare when people
“carbon-copy” you for anything in the office, when the sizes of the files
you receive are constantly increasing and when the number of messages you
receive is hitting the roof!

At the same time, your company is facing the same challenge and is
reducing the size of your mailbox! This ends up in a situation where most
probably, you do not sort anymore; you just archive by date.

The same problem is now happening for your personal files and I am not
talking about emails. If you moved, like I did, from one country to
another, chances are that you have folders by years, dates or themes.
Then, in addition to that, you have your music, pictures, movies… and you
might have changed your computer from time to time.

I realize it is too painful and troublesome to do the “shoe box action”
every year. You remember about it? All your pictures, thrown in a shoe box
and every year you put your sleeves up and take the time, effort and
energy to sort them. FORGET IT!

This is impossible given the amount of information we are facing currently.

The question is: Does it matter?

The answer: Yes! In case you need to look for something…

My advice: GET ORGANIZED! Do backups regularly and keep them in a safe
place. DO NOT leave any of your files not copied or you expose yourself to
serious risks.

I suggest you keep your latest documents on a server or hard disc that is
always connected to your router or server or wireless network. Get a
second copy of this one and store it in a different location.

You’ll never know…

I recently purchased a Time Capsule from Apple (apple link). I used to backup through an external Hard Disk and was not satisfied with this solution.

The promise is simple : Easily backup all your files over the network.

What it does not tell you is that there are small tips you should know before you start your backup.

After a full week end of tries, internet searches, I finally found the solution with the help of Apple Care this morning. I decided to call them when my TC had only backed up 18GB out of 130GB in 20 hours using a wired cable!

So here are the tips:

1) Do the first backup on a cable. DO NOT USE WIRELESS. The speed will be much faster

2) Use Ethernet. Disconnect your Mac and TC from the network and plug an Ethernet cable directly to the LAN port of TC (not the WAN port)

3) Turn Airport OFF on the Mac and make sure you keep a minimum of activity on the Mac

4) DO NOT INTERRUPT THE FIRST BACKUP. If you do so, you would have to restart right from scratch

5) The most important thing is to select the right Ethernet cable. It should be a 1GB cable to optimize the transfer speed. You need to buy a CAT 6 Ethernet cable! (I wish I knew that before starting the long process)

6) Check the speed in Network Utility. It should say 1GB/s

7) Deactivate your anti-virus to reduce the computer activity

You can expect a speed of around 1.1GB/5mn. It means that a 130GB backup should not go beyond 6 hours. If you experience anything drastically different then you are having problems.

Subsequent backups can be run on Wireless directly. With a N network, you can expect to reach up to 300Mbs/s (up to…) :=)

There is only one limitation on TC. There is no way to start over from your old TM file you have on previous Hard Discs. That’s just too bad. Tried to copy, make a disk image, copy back to TC and mount it, this is painful and seems not to be worth it for non-techy guys like me.

I wish the Apple sales team would have told me at the point of sales about those tips.

This is something easy to explain, easy to train. Apple just have to create a small memory card for such situations and distribute it to the sales team.

Maybe next time… :=)

Singaporean will finally have the privilege to legally buy the iPhone from Year end. Agreement has been sealed with one of the major Telco, Singtel. It seems as well other Telcos are about to sell the iPhone too, changing in that case the current Apple distribution pattern.

Anyway, I do not expect to see lots of additional iPhone popping up in Singapore…The launch will certainly be a success but Hypes, Tech addicted people, technofreak…all already got a non sim locked iPhone.

The best of it is that everyone will tell you they are very happy with it ! No one will dare telling you they do not like it ! So the question is : Do you really like your iPhone…?

People who know me are very surprised to still see me around with my old Samsung i300 and i680. They are even surprised when they realize I do not carry the iPhone, representing the ultimate geek gadget !

Well, let’s put it this way, for me the iPhone is a GREAT gadget but a louzy phone…too bad for a phone is it not ? Why is that ? This is based on my personal usages of phones.

I need a phone to …TALK and SMS…(basic isn’t it ?). For that , the P308 is perfect, small, convenient, pocketsized , perfectly fit my suit or jean pocket. Ok it is a bit old and retro, but I love it !

I need a phone to email when I am on the road. i680 (a bit old as well, oops) is perfect with its qwerty keyboard, 3.5G connection, small foot print.

I do not need a camera or a an MP3 player in my phone nor a GPS not a coffee machine…for this I use my iPod Touch, the best geek gadget on earth…lol….

I know this is carrying multiple devices at the same time. I agree, actually more than 2, depending on the occasion. PSP, Phone, Camera, iPod touch or nano…But I prefer to have the right device for the right usage instead of compromising features..

The iPhone is a great iPod touch but miss some critical elements to be the ultimate phone :
- 3G connection for traveling around Asia
- real keyboard : typing SMS or email is a nightmare (except for short ones)
- Size is too big or too small and it is too fragile for me

If u are looking for a nice good looking device with multimedia features and you want to mix it with a great phone, GO for the iPhone. Should you just want to talk or email, wait for next round .