Automated Webserver Backup

Often the first step in working on a website is downloading the website to your computer so you can work on a local copy.  Websites can be fairly large (especially if they have video files) and these downloads can take some time.  What if the files for the website were already on your computer?  Problems could be fixed a lot faster and if there is a problem with the webserver you have a backup that can be used to restore the website.  This focus of this article is on the files on the webserver.  The database is another topic although the approach discussed could be

Removing MBR on a Mac

Setting up a dual boot Mac and Ubuntu requires using GPT for the Mac and MBR for Ubuntu. rEFIt is commonly used to sync these. The Ubuntu bootloader should be written to the first Ubuntu partition but occasionally it can get written to the MBR. In my case it appeared in both the MBR and the Ubuntu partition rendering Ubuntu unbootable. So how can this be fixed? Start with backing up everything just in case. If you have one hard disk the following is the command to use to remove the bootloader from the MBR:

fdisk -u /dev/disk0

Setting Up Subversion in Xcode 3.0

Using version control during software development allows experimentation without worrying about removing the experimental work when it does not pan out. Apple has gone a long way to integrating Subversion into Xcode but their instructions are oriented more towards groups of developers rather than a stand-alone version control for a single developer. There is a much easier and more secure way to use Subversion.