Time to reformat/reinstall OSX, what and how to backup?

Bod

Bod

Soldato
Joined
17 Oct 2002
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Black Pudding Land
I've had my mac now for 2 months now, and now I've found my feet with it, I'd like to reformat and start again from scratch.

A number of reasons....one being that during this 2 months I've installed and uninstalled many bits of software trying to find versions etc that I like and can be comfortable with. I've tweaked and tinkered etc, and despite the claim that to uninstall software you just delete the stuff from the Applications folder :p (Ive got software thats left stuff behind etc, even when using AppZapper).

Secondly, and this may seem trivial, but its annoying the hell out of me.
When I first started up the mac, it asked me for a username. "Oh" i thought, "It'll just be for internal purposes like Linux", so I put it in lowercase.
Now looking through all my folders, they start with a capital, except my home which is in lowercase.
Changing it is possible, but its a lot of fannying around, and I want to start afresh.

Anyway, my question is, what do I need to backup?
I had a list of things in Windows that I used to do.

All my music is on external so I can recreate the itunes library
All my pics are on external so same with iphoto.
Here's what I have so far, anything else I may have forgotten?

Address Book : Contents
Mail : Mails, Accounts + Preferences
Transmit : Bookmarks + Preferences
Firefox : Bookmarks
Transmission : Preferences
1Password : Contents
Adobe Lightroom : Metadata and Export Presets
Adobe Photoshop CS3 : Preferences
Adobe Bridge CS3 : Metadata Presets + Preferences
Colloquy : Server details
ImageIngesterPro : Preferences
VMWare Fusion : Virtual Machines
 
I'm not long back on iSam. Just before I went to do it, I realised I had two drives I wanted to backup first, to my backup drive....so what with it being about 150 gigs worth of data, that took a while.

I used to use a program on Windows, BeyondCompare...which basically compared the original drive, with the backup, and highlighted differences...very quick and easy to use. I had to use Finder this time round, comparing folder by folder, the file amounts etc...which was a pain..

Anyway, I digress. All went swimmingly. My mac is now running nice and fast, all defaults..my username/short name now has a capital letter too :p

Just installed Firefox and 1password, and I'm slowly installing software that I plan to use..currently looking to see if theres any decent alternatives to Adium (Dont think there is really)
 
Bod I be interested to know what software your installing on you mac what software you have settled just to install..

As I am always installing allsorts and then getting rid of them..
 
Depends what for.

I'm using the following

1Password
Betterzip
Adobe Lightroom / Photoshop
Firefox
Growl
iWork
Limewire
Photomatix Pro
Skitch
Adium
Textmate
Toast
Transmit
Transmission
VLC
VMWare Fusion
VNC Viewer

I'm giving Snak a try instead of Colloquy (IRC Client)
Thats pretty much it besides the default mac software (itunes etc)
 
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