The method I’ve used is to create a single tar file of everything you’re looking to backup and then split that file into chunks which fit onto a single DVD.

Install GNU Core Utilities

Before we start, you’re going to need gsplit installed. This comes as part of the GNU Core Utilities package, so you can either download it from there or use your favourite package management software.

You can either build from source,

wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-6.9.tar.gz
tar xzvf coreutils-6.9.tar.gz
cd coreutils-6.9
./configure
make && make install

Or use a package management tool like MacPorts.

sudo port install coreutils

Split your content into chunks

Put all the files you want to backup into one folder, create the tar achive and then split that into chunks.

mkdir archive
# … add some content to the archive/ folder …
cd archive
tar -cvf archive.tar *
gsplit -b4500m archive.tar

After you’ve burned each generated file to a DVD, delete both those and the source archive.tar file as they’ll be using quite a lot of space on your drive.

Restoring

Should the worst happen and you need to get your content back, copy all the files from across your DVDs to a folder on your machine and run the following.

cat x* > archive.tar
tar -xvf archive.tar

The few I’ve found in the past have always had their problems, from terrible interfaces to being overly intrusive – think alarm calls and locking the computer. Thankfully I’ve found the perfect app for the task – AntiRSI.

As well as reminding you to take breaks, it’s small, unobtrusive and highly configurable. As an added bonus it even takes idle time into account so if you’ve told it you want to take 5 minute breaks each hour and leave the machine idle, the counter for your next break will adjust appropriately, clever!

If you’re having the same problems, chances are you’re sharing a sub-folder whose parent isn’t configured for sharing. In my case, I was trying to share the iTunes Music folder (full path from home directory Music/iTunes/iTunes Music) but in this case, both the Music/ and Music/iTunes/ folders didn’t have the appropriate permissions for sharing, so OS X was correctly preventing anyone else from accessing it.

Solution is simple – I shared the Music/ folder instead.

Merge-tracking is when your version control system keeps track of how lines of development (branches) diverge and re-form together.

…

While Subversion 1.5 doesn’t make merging as easy as a system like Git or Mercurial, it certainly solves common points of pain. 

It’s no surprise that they mention Git, as it’s starting to gain some serious traction (notably within the Ruby/Rails community)  thanks to it’s superior branch handling.

I haven’t been entirely convinced that the switch to Git would make sense for me. Branching an entire project is something I need to do only occasionally (one of those times being this week, coincidentally) and the other benefits Git offers, while appealing, aren’t enough to make me think I can’t live without it.

Now with SVN improving one of the two flaws I think it has (the other being it leaving .svn directories littered throughout your project, something which I believe is also going to be fixed), I think I may well stick with what I know for the time being!

Compared to writing my own blogging software, which is what I’d done previously using Rails, everything is easier. The admin interface is superb, with the post, media and plugin management all top notch. Check this evaluation of the WordPress 2.5 interface (which was designed by Happy Cog no less).

Still using the default theme at the moment but I’ll create a custom one soon, if only just to get rid of the horrible justified text!

Discovered a handy open–source application for OS X on Sourceforge last night called Grand Perspective, which allows you to create a visualisation of the relative size of your files. You can specify a specific folder or your entire disk and the program will scan all your files and create an interactive graphic that lets you identify what’s using the most space – great for finding things you’ve forgotten!