# What to use for writing a _simple_ backup solution?



## fryke (Aug 13, 2002)

I normally backup my user folder like that:

sudo ditto -rsrc /Users/myname /Volumes/largeharddrive/backups/myname

in Terminal. It's okay and does what I want, but I want a graphical user interface for it, which lets me choose my target and show me the progress perhaps.

I'm not a programmer at all, but I thought that this could maybe easily be done with AppleScript Studio, which I have installed. Can anybody help a bit?


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## DavidBaker (Aug 13, 2002)

You can also use psync (which I recommend over ditto as it just copies files that have been changed).  You can read my article here: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20020711091017747

I'm working on a GUI for psync right now (and it isn't very easy).

I'll let everyone know when it is ready! 

David


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## samad_lotia (Aug 13, 2002)

You could use the standard Unix utility, cron. Even though it is not GUI-based, it does exactly what you want. It's very easy to set up. Here's a great, short guide to cron:
http://www.itworld.com/Comp/2378/swol-0825-unix101/
I used this guide before and it is very helpful. You will not need to know much about Unix to understand the guide.
Samad


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## iconara (Aug 15, 2002)

There's an article at MacDevCenter about ditto and rsync in combination with cron: http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/07/02/terminal_5.html

theo


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## fryke (Aug 15, 2002)

That's all nice, but not at all what I wanted. 

I know of cron, but for my TiBook, this is nothing, as it probably won't be on at the time I set cron to do my backups. All I really want is a front end to ditto (or psync, good tip!) the way I described it. Nobody doing Project Builder stuff who could give some hints?


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## DavidBaker (Aug 15, 2002)

Yeah man, if you can wait another two days I will have a psync GUI for you! 

David


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## fryke (Aug 15, 2002)

I've tried to get psync to install/run on my machine (see specs below), but the MacOSX File thingie never gets installed cleanly... Too bad. What I have now is a shell script that I invoke from an AppleScript application (not done with project builder, just the Script Editor).

So will your app _include_ the psync library/perl stuff - and be standalone - or will I be unable to run it, because it's depending on it?


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## DavidBaker (Aug 15, 2002)

My app is going to include a compiled version of psync.  It will use the basic Apple Installer and install psync into /usr/local/bin/  The GUI I'm writing is basically an interface.  It will allow people to test out psync, but I'm writing it mainly to allow people to schedule a cronjob that runs as root that runs psync.

If you are interested, send me a PM and I will email PsyncX to you when I get it finished.

Also, I don't know if it will run under Jaguar, but it is working (or will work) fine on my computer (running 10.1.5).

David


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## DavidBaker (Sep 3, 2002)

Hi Guys,
I just finished PsyncX.  You can download it from http://www.VersionTracker.com or from my website http://sourceforge.net/projects/psyncx

Let me know what you think,

David


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