For font management, I’ve abandoned FontBook in favor of FontExplorer X (http://www.linotype.com/fontexplorerX). It’s pretty awesome, and the price is definitely right (read FREE). One of the things I like best about it, is that you can have it move all your fonts to a ~/FontExplorer X/Font Library folder that’s organized alphabetically. Other stuff includes automatic creation of dmg or zip files of fonts just by dragging from the preview pane to your desktop, etc. Def. worth checking out.

Sorry for getting sidetracked and not really answering the question at hand – but the fact is, I’m still looking for ways of increasing my productivity and organizing things after a clean install.

If nothing else, it gives you a chance to re-evaluate what you really use and what your really don’t….which can reduce clutter (at least the way I see it).

Aside from forgetting to backup her address book (oops), and not properly backing up her mail (double oops–I copied her entire library/mail folder and then imported it back into Mail, but the import said “there is nothing to import” when I selected the mailboxes), it went fine. I did learn that 10.3 wont initialize and create an HFS partition over USB…

Based on some reading I did during that Safari “open safe files by default” thing I also created an Admin account for me and a non-Admin user account for my wife, and that I’m glad for (as my only use on the computer is tech support).

So if I can figure out how to not loose all her Mail and Address, I might be OK next time. Or am I wrong to be so scared of Archive and Install on an OS upgrade?

I use another app called ChronoSync to keep my Clients directory containing design elements actually bi-directionally synced with the directory on my NAS. This means I can hop over to my Windows workstation if I need to work in CS2 or 3DSMAX, save files on the NAS, and then sync them very easily back to the local dir on my MacBook. Deletions, folder naming – everything is always mirrored perfectly in both places. Also another form of backup, but useful in certain workflows as well.

But like most everyone else who has replied, I’ve diverted into talking about my own setup and back-up /restore procedures – not really to the point of your question about what I would do differently.

I can say without a doubt it would be better font management. I have some fonts living in the system font folder, some in my local lib’s fonts folder….and well, it’s disconcerting. I really would do a better job of making sure my fonts were collected in my own user directory, along with my font collections. I would like to have a very organized backup of this that I could get up and running with on another Mac very quickly.

Anyone have any tips about organizing fonts? Specifically, where best to install them and how to back them up.

Another thing I did differently this time around was to turn off FileVault. Sometimes I get hooked on being super-secure but then realise later on that it’s overkill. FileVault was just taking up extra space (and time) and was getting in the way of cloning my HD without having to mount the disk image every time I wanted to get at something. Anyway, I am now a firm believer that a lot of security is not necessarily a good thing!

So that’s what I did with my fresh install.