The 4 absolutely essential apps every professional needs.
I want to share with you the 4 most critical apps that every household and every professional absolutely needs. It doesn’t matter if you’re a die-hard Apple fan or you’re a Google pro, and it doesn’t matter if you run a family or a Fortune 100 company. These four apps (technically they count as “apps”, but more on that shortly) are indispensable tools that will get you to a state of zen with your technology you never imagined possible. But first, some context:
For all of us, the purpose and expected results of all our devices and tech is the same. The purpose of our devices is to get access to, process and share information. The results we expect when our devices work well are:
Stay connected
Communicate with ease
Save time
Be successful in work
Enjoy life
Devices like our iPhones, iPads and our computers connect us to the information we want and need, including the photos, videos and documents we own, and to the infinitely scaleable Internet with its billions of sites.
For decades, many technologists and futurists thought the holy grail of tech was a kind of terminal that would connect us to the Internet where all of our data would live. We wouldn’t have hard drives, they said. Instead, we would be always connected to the Internet via a “thin client,” basically just an interface to the big computer in the sky where all of our private and public data would live.
Things didn’t quite work out that way. Steve Jobs democratized the Cloud, starting with the App Store. Since then, this is how new device ownership goes:
Open the box
Download your apps.
Organize your apps.
Login to your apps.
Start working and creating files, pictures, videos and more.
Steve’s vision changed the entire world. All our devices have more local storage than ever. My iPad has 1TB. My iPhone has 500GB. I imagine that “thin client” technologists are probably at a bar somewhere commiserating with flying car technologists.
To many people, the Cloud is an app, like iCloud or DropBox or some other space you buy on a server. And many people also automatically assume that the Cloud is a backup, when it’s not. The Cloud is not a backup.
I spent two years consulting for one of the world’s top data recovery companies. During that time, I witnessed first hand thousands of people losing everything because they assumed the Cloud is a backup. The Cloud is not a backup. All it takes is one incorrect swipe of a finger, and POOF, all your photos are gone. Make one mistake when you’re tired, and all your professional documents - your resume, your Master’s or PhD thesis, and more - all gone, in an instant. To make matters much worse, and to the surprise of nearly everyone I talk with, recovery is becoming less and less of an option because most of today’s internal storage is designed to prevent unerase.
So most people still keep the majority of their files on the hard drives inside their computers, their photos on their phone or in iCloud - which doesn’t back them up - and they never know how dangerous it is until they are talking with AppleCare or standing at a Genius Bar, discovering it’s too late. When that happens, the hours or days or even weeks you invested setting it up are lost. All the passwords, serial numbers and other credentials you created while setting up accounts and logging things in is often lost, and the usual ad-hoc process of recovering each of these can cost a lot of time.
I call these kinds of losses “bounceables,” because you can bounce back from it. Of course, it costs time and money, but you can ultimately get back to a functional state. Even losing historical work and other documents is usually something you can bounce back from. But the economics of data loss are harsh. Being unable to find a prior work, being unable to revise it, draw from it, be inspired by it, all of this costs in terms of time and what could have been.
Still, these are recoverable situations. What really breaks my heart is when I hear about the “breakables.” Losing photos of your child, or a loved one lost. Or simply losing chunks of time measured in a roll of photos that we cherished. The photos and videos we captured remind us of how we felt. You can’t reconstruct that; You just live with the loss.
When I share any of the above with someone, I have learned that there are only three possible responses.
I didn’t know that. I need to back up now. Can you help me? (the answer is yes)
I don’t care.
I don’t believe that can happen to me. I’ve never had a computer (or phone) fail on me in 15 years. If it did, I could find everything in the cloud, I’m sure of it. If I lost data, I would have a hard talk with Apple! The customer is always right!
The first response is the best response. It’s a positive response to learning new information and applying it to one’s current situation.
The second response is curious to me, but I have met some people who never take photos or don’t care about the photos they do have. I have also met many executives who come from an age where computing (and typing) was entirely delegated to executive and personal assistants. I presently work for several executives who, when I met them, had never used a computer prior to hiring me.
The third response is a rather big, bright red flag. After 25 years in tech service, I can attest to the power of statistics. Each person in the third category is simply waiting for their statistic to be satisfied. Then, maybe if they are lucky, they can get something back through data recovery. Of course, it will be very, very costly in terms of money and time lost.
If you self-identify with response #1, this article was written for you. And I have some great news for you. I am going to share with you the 4 most indispensable apps for professionals that, once in place, can eliminate breakables and put down pillows under all your bounceables.
1. iCloud backup for iOS devices
We live in a mobile world. My iPhone is the most important camera in my arsenal of 18 cameras, all of which are higher performing than my iPhone, because my iPhone is the one that is with me all the time.
This first app is the easiest one to configure, because you only need to do two things: 1) turn it on and 2) stop using iCloud Photos (aka Photos in the Cloud).
Turning iCloud backup on is easy. Just go to your iCloud settings and turn on iCloud backup.
The bigger challenge is what happens when you discover you - accidentally or otherwise - enabled iCloud Photos. When you realize how this happened, you may be a bit upset at Apple, and rightfully so. Any time you upgrade your OS on your phone, and during countless other random updates you may take for granted, you may be prompted as to where you want to store your photos. Apple’s goal, of course, is for you to store them in Apple’s Cloud (iCloud). The problem is, the moment you do, you automatically, and without notice, remove all your photos from your iCloud backup. If you’d like to verify this, check out Apple Support’s public-facing knowledge base article HT207428 (opens new window).
In the past 12 months, I have had three iPhone total failures in my home. The first was my old iPhone X. I loved that phone. I went to bed one night and the next morning my phone wouldn’t turn on. My phone was still under AppleCare, so I was able to swap it out at my local Apple Store. They apologized that I wouldn’t be able to recover my data (they could have referred me for Apple-Authorized data recovery, but did not). The good news is that I didn’t need it. I had iCloud photos turned off. When I restored my new iPhone, I had my photos restored up to the last one I had taken, a few hours before falling asleep.
My wife’s iPhone failure and my son’s iPhone failure were similar. My wife experienced the FATAL “Error 14” where an iPhone that is too full suddenly cannot boot up. Even the world’s best data recovery company has had little success recovering from this failure. But because my wife’s iPhone was set to NO iCloud, when I restored her data from her iPhone 6S Plus (she held out…) to a brand new iPhone 12 Pro Max, all of her photos restored flawlessly. Not one missing.
Now, had we been using iCloud Photos, it’s possible that signing into a new phone would have presented our photos. The problem here is a simple one. iCloud backup is ridiculously reliable. iCloud sync is not. I have two years of evidence, listening to the countless horror stories of mothers who lost all their child’s birth photos. Young couples who lost all their wedding party photos. Others who lost vacation photos. Years of photos, vacations, family events, pictures of loved ones lost. Loved ones lost because of the pandemic. The list goes on and on.
iCloud backup works well when the iPhone is plugged in and on WiFi. iCloud Photos is sketchy. I do not and will not recommend it.
If you are in a situation where you didn’t even realize your Photos library is entirely in Apple’s iCloud, there’s an elegant and foolproof process for getting it out. Once you do, you can not only turn off the extra iCloud storage, saving you money, but you can redirect that money to a better service and process for protecting all your photos, forever.
I recommend turning iCloud Photos off on both your iPhone and iPad, and enabling iCloud Backup for both. Be careful when you do this, and if you need help, find a professional who knows what she is doing. Feel free to contact me if you would like assistance.
2. Backblaze for Macs (and PCs)
Backblaze is an unlimited-data cloud-based backup service that works on Macs and PCs. MacSparky introduced me to Backblaze years and years ago. Since then, I fell in love with the service.
One of my clients had his briefcase and enclosed MacBook Pro stolen while he was in a meeting. I found out about this when he called me, standing with police officers and filing a break-in and theft report. I signed into BackBlaze while he explained to me in a panicked voice about what happened. I listened to him as he finished explaining the situation, the loss and the police report to me. After he finished, I replied, “I have good news. Your data backup is current from 3 hours ago, with no files missing. Even better, the machine and data is useless to the people who stole it. It’s locked and encrypted. No one will be able to use it, or any of the data, ever.”
I proceeded to let him know, “A full restore of your data is being shipped via Fedex and will be at your door tomorrow morning. If you need access to any files before that, we can sign on to BackBlaze and restore them immediately. I have a copy of your last MacBook Pro’s specs. May I order a comparable current unit for you and have it to your door in the AM so we can get you up and running in a few hours?”
It’s that simple. Backblaze is that brilliant and effective. And once we were done with the encrypted hard drive they shipped us via Fedex (actual signature required) from their data center, we were able to return the drive to them for a refund. The hard drive isn’t part of their business. Restoring the customer to whole is.
Another customer in another business called one day noticing that they were missing an important folder. The folder, their Personal Files folder, was missing. They didn’t know it was missing because it was only during tax time they were looking for prior tax returns. It turns out that the customer had accidentally deleted the files over a year ago prior. But the great news is that BackBlaze offers unlimited retention. Most companies default to 30 days, 60 days or 90 days. If a data loss wasn’t identified in that time frame, the old backups are lost and the data isn’t restorable. Not with BackBlaze. In the case of this customer, we could keep reaching back to identify the last known date the folder existed. All we needed was to know what file was missing. After that it took just minutes to locate.
3. 1Password
1Password is a rare, extraordinary, bespoke app that will change your life. While the other apps in this article will dramatically reduce the risk of data loss and the time lost recovering from data loss, 1Password is the smallest app investment that can return hundreds of hours back to you, and potentially protect you from serious financial loss.
1Password is an app and a service that enables you to securely store all of your important passwords and more behind one master password. There are several password managers out there, but nearly all of them have been compromised (hacked) at some point. 1Password is worth your trust because it’s been designed for security from the ground up. It’s a closed system.
To get the most out of 1Password, you need to understand conceptually how the bad guys work.
The problem with passwords is that they’re hard to remember. So most people end up re-using the same password(s) over and over on various sites. The Bad Guys count on this, so once one web site gets hacked that contains your email address (login) and your password, then the Bad Guys use technology to try to gain access to other sites you may have used the same information for. And if they need additional information, like a mother’s maiden name, it’s publicly available info. Most people aren’t direct targets, but some are. For high-value targets, the Bad Guys will eventually put the puzzle together for whatever they want to get access to: Your credit card, your bank account, or even worse.
1Password makes it easy to create a “moat” around your castle, making it near impossible for someone to hack you, while simultaneously making it easier than you can imagine to access everything. 1Password makes it easy for you to generate new complex passwords for any new web site, and it makes it spectacularly easy to enter them when you need to. In my case, my average password is 32 characters long and completely random. In fact, my mother’s maiden name is also a random 32 character long password that is different at each banking institution I work with. Why? Because my mother’s maiden name is public information. How is that secure?
Do I need to remember any of these passwords? Not at all.
Do I worry if one of the institutions I work with is hacked and my login and password is stolen by the bad guys? Nope. I have no exposure at other sites, because all my passwords are different.
Even better, 1Password is set up for families and teams. This means I can set up my executive, business and residence clients with a multi-user 1Password account where their executive and personal assistants can constantly update and curate their passwords, giving the owner visibility while also ensuring that if the assistant ever needs to take leave, the owner is never without a single needed password. This also enables me as a Tech Concierge to create an account where I can help recovery my client’s 1Password account if needed. Because 1Password creates an audit log, it enables me to protect my client’s data while being able to help them if they ever run into a problem.
Beyond passwords, 1Password is where I store serial numbers for software, Passport and identification numbers, scanned images of these documents, membership accounts, bank accounts, credit card accounts, and secure notes of every type. 1Password even has extensions than you can install in your browser to auto-fill 1Password info instead of using the less secure autofill from Safari or Chrome or Firefox.
Finally, on both my iPhone and Mac, I can use my fingerprint to log into 1Password, making life utterly simple.
4. Carbon Copy Cloner
Carbon Copy Cloner is perhaps the best backup software for Mac that has existed since 2002. Mike Bombich, the founder and lead engineer, is sort of an expert on clones. He himself is actually an identical twin, and worked on cloning DNA in college before setting out to create the most powerful (and quality) cloning app for the Mac.
Carbon Copy Cloner is a difficult app to describe, because it does so much. In the 1990s individuals and small businesses would pay thousands of dollars for software that Carbon Copy Cloner can run circles around today. And today, Carbon Copy Cloner costs $39.99.
Carbon Copy Cloner uses powerful Apple tools under the hood of your Mac to make a perfect clone of the Mac’s hard drive. This means you could send your Mac off to service, have it come back erased, and then use your clone to restore it back to EXACTLY the condition it was in before sending it away. All the software settings, your application installs, the location of your files, EVERYTHING. Completely perfect.
At Tech Concierge, we use Carbon Copy Cloner to complement BackBlaze. BackBlaze cannot back up applications and settings and restore a Mac to a bootable backup. What BackBlaze does brilliantly well is backup your files every few minutes while you work. What Carbon Copy Cloner does well is preserve all the work that was invested in setting up your Mac in the first place. No more re-serialization. No more download and reinstalls. No grappling with different versions of software unless you want to.
Up above, under 2. BackBlaze, I described a client situation where a MacBook Pro was stolen, and we had a hard drive shipped in for restore. The only part of the service not described was using the Carbon Copy Clone we had from three months prior to restore the system, settings, apps and data as of that last clone time. Then with the BackBlaze drive, all current files were restored to the desktop, documents, downloads, pictures, movies, and more.
The end result was perfection, and instead of juggling apps and serial numbers for 6-8 hours, the clone restore took about 35 minutes.
Ok, there you have it. Those are the four apps that, regardless of what other cloud services you subscribe to, will make your life better. These four apps can transform “breakables” into “bounceables” and even provide a down-like cushion to reduce the impact of your bounceables. All four of these apps are part of my formula for tech success for Tech Concierge clients, including business owners, heads of household taking care of their various residences, and executives.
I hope you enjoyed this article. If what I shared with you here resonates with you and you’d like help making it part of your reality, just let me know by dropping me a line.
