A few questions
 

Hi

Dealing with "open with" duplicates on Snow Leopard
I've searched the forums and only found posts dating back to 2006 on how to deal with application duplicates showing up in the "open with" menu.

Have things changed with later versions of Mac OS X specifically Snow Leopard?

Do you recommend that external drives used exclusively with SuperDuper be added to the Spotlight Privacy tab?

Setting up SuperDuper on a family member's MacBook Air
The user is not very computer literate and I want to keep things simple. The MacBook Air has a 128GB SSD and an external USB 320GB drive. I'm thinking of partitioning the external drive, so 2x160GB and then schedule SuperDuper, so that:

- daily when the user connects the external drive a full clone is made to the "Daily" partition and

- weekly say when the user connects on Mondays, a full clone is made to the "Weekly" partition.

The thought behind this is so that there is an older clone if something goes terribly wrong with the daily one. What is your opinion on this setup?

Thanks for your help.

All you need to do is use Onyx/Cocktail/something similar to rebuild the "Launch Services" database. That will eliminate any duplicates.

I do recommend adding backup drive to the Spotlight privacy tab.

You can't make backup on connect "conditional" on a weekday: the time-based and connect-based options are entirely separate.

Thank you for your speedy reply!

With regards to rebuilding the "Launch Services" database I just want to see if I understand how this works. Say I connect an empty external drive and run a full backup. Once complete I guess this is when Mac OS X starts to create the app duplicate entries. If I disconnect the drive and reboot will this remove the duplicate entries? Basically, will I need to rebuild the LS database after every successive smart update?

Ah, so even if I schedule a backup to start say Monday 10pm and when the drive is connected, you are saying that even if I connect on a Tuesday a backup will take place? Sorry if I've misunderstood.

Thanks

If the drive isn't connected, LaunchServices shouldn't create the extra entries at all. They're only there because you have additional applications on other attached drives, of course.

There's no such thing as "backup on monday at 10 and when the drive is connected". It's an "or", not an "and".

Yeah, I got that the extra entries won't be created when no drive is connected, but once the drive has been connected and you then disconnect will the entries remain indefinitely until you manually rebuild the LaunchServices database?

Ok, I didn't mean at Monday at 10 and drive connected, but rather on Monday (no specific time) and drive connected. Doesn't it then mean that the way that you have these two independent options that if I have these two schedules:

- Monday through Friday @ 10pm or when connected full backup to "DAILY"
- Sunday @ 10pm or when connected full backup to "WEEKLY"

where "DAILY" and "WEEKLY" are partitions on same drive. I cannot distinguish to between the two destinations?

Basically, it seems that I will have to show the user how to start SuperDuper manually and then choose the correct partition and then initiate the backup and also remind them via iCal to do a daily backup.

You can have as many destination as you want. They can all be independent. But "on connect" and "on schedule" are entirely independent as well.

I don't know whether LS will remove entries when drives are unavailable. One would expect it to, since the applications aren't there to "Open With...", but that doesn't mean it does.

How do you personally deal with LS extra entries?

I don't generally get many of them, and leave my drives unmounted. If I notice some, I'll rebuild LaunchServices.