I pitched MozyPro a few posts back as a viable back-up tool for field workers.  Everything was running smoothly until I closed the account it was charging to and opened a new one.  That is when the trouble began.  Every time I called the (877)MozyPro I actually received an "All circuits are busy" recording.  (I don't think I have heard that recording in quite a while.)  Rather than flip me into a loop they just stopped me cold.  I finally wrote tech support and a very nice guy named Josh called back.  However, he could not help me with billing as he was on the wrong side of the office...

To make a long story short MozyPro fails on the customer service side and if you are stuck in the bush making satellite phone calls to a overloaded number you are going to lose patience a lot faster than I did.  Great software, lousy execution.

UPDATE: Mozy got back to me with an apology.  Take a look at the comments.

Proprio qualche giorno fa ho avuto la neccessità di inizializzare il disco rigido del mio iMac, dopo 3 anni di incessanti servigi.

Appena inizializzato ed installato nuovamente Mac OS X Leopard, il sistama mi ha chiesto se volevo trasferire i dati da un back up di Time Machine. Prontamente ho collegato il mio disco di back up adibito a Time Machine e, in pochi minuti, tutti i file erano ripristinati esattamente come prima sul mio Mac.

Tutto con semplicità d'uso e senza alcun intoppo.

Sicuramente Time Machine vale da solo l'acquisto di Leopard, il software ideale per mantenere al sicuro tutti i proprio dati, magari accumulati nel corso di anni.

But last week, my 10-month old MacBook crashed. And died. And now I'm slowly uncovering the depth and breadth of my arrogance. Because, my dear readers, I had not backed up my computer for 10 months. And the only reason I had a 10-month old backup of my data is because it occurred as I was getting my files from my old G4 laptop to my MacBook last Fall.

This is a cautionary tale for anyone out there who is still finding every excuse in the book not to back up their computer. And I had many.

My biggest excuse for not backing up was that I just couldn't wrap my head around how to get it set up and how to make it happen. I think I also had a secret fear that I would set it up incorrectly and somehow save my files in the wrong place causing the disappearance of everything on my computer. I'm not sure how I got it into my head that backing up was going to be hard, but I avoided it like the Plague.

Today, less than a week after the Big Computer Meltdown (and my own tearful personal meltdown), I am assessing the business impact of lost data. My tears last week weren't actually about my work files but about losing 10 months worth of photos and videos of my 2-year-old daughter. This week, I can't muster up tears, but can see some dollars spinning down the drain as I have to:

1. rewrite half a dozen proposals that I was readying to send out to new and existing clients.
2. rewrite a new book proposal that was almost ready to send to my agent to shop around.
3. do a salvage expedition through my Gmail Sent Box to find any documents I sent to clients so I still have some semblance of a business record.
4. upload any documents I can find to Google Docs - the only other place where I had put some critical documents as part of my "experiment" with using Google Docs.
5. rewrite my long list of sites that I use to market my various projects and client projects that took me over a year to compile.

And for backups?

I left my local Mac store last week with red eyes from crying, a black MacBook, and an Apple Time Capsule. I charged the owner of the store to make sure I walked out with everything I needed to be up and working immediately as well as to be able to back up my files without any effort or thought on my part.

Now, every hour on the hour, when I am within range of my wifi connection (via the Time Capsule), my files are backed up (the Time Capsule has 500 GB of space). I don't have to do anything more since configuring it. I don't have to think about it. And I don't have to wait until the end of the day or the weekend to do it. It happens behind-the-scenes while I'm still getting my work done.

My list of important files I have lost continues to grow. Each item I add to that list means another 1-3 hours of rewriting, recompiling, recreating. That is lost time. Lost income. I think if I had thought of backing up my computer in pure business terms - in dollars - I may have been motivated to do something sooner. For now, I just have to bite the bullet.

When was the last time you backed up your computer? And what is your backup set up like? Please share so anyone out there who is still making excuses can potentially find a solution that is right for them.

NOTE: I also blogged about the more "personal" side of this topic at Entrepreneur Mom on WorkItMom.

(photo by Apple; bullethole courtesy of clipart)

Behalve drivers back-uppen en terugzetten kun je DriverMax ook inschakelen bij het zoeken naar updates van geïnstalleerde drivers, waarbij er een webpagina wordt geopend met een overzicht van al je drivers. Eventuele updates dien je dan vanaf deze pagina te sleuren. Tijdens de installatie is een geldig e-mailadres vereist voor de gratis registratieprocedure; zonder die code werkt het programma 30 dagen. Als het allemaal zo goed werkt als het klinkt, dan lijkt mij dit een no-brainer.

Oznacza to, że wystarczy wsunąć dysk DVD do napędu i zaczekać, aż program wyszuka pliki. Do ich przeniesienia na płytę trzeba tylko jednego kliknięcia. Preinstalowana aplikacja uruchamia się automatycznie. SimpleSave może także powiadomić użytkowników, którzy wykonują dużo zdjęć ,ilu płyt potrzeba do nagrania całości. Oprogramowanie umożliwia wybór rodzaju plików, które mają zostać zlokalizowane. Program rozpoznaje ponad 40 formatów obrazu oraz 50 formatów wideo.

Płyty Memorex SimpleSave Photo & Video Back-Up będą sprzedawane w opakowaniach po 5 sztuk, w cenie 15$ za opakowanie.

Źródło: 4press.pl

Continuando con esta serie, relato un episodio que me ocurrió recientemente en una compañia telefónica.

Hace poco, ´perdí´ mi celular. Se imaginarán el caos que he estado pasando por recuperar todos mi números anteriores. Muchos contactos perdidos.
Al fidelizar mi cuenta para obtener un nuevo aparato, pido la opción de un nuevo chip de back up. Excelente!.
Cada 10 contactos, se actualiza automáticamente, y no tengo el temor de que si vuelvo a perder el aparato, no pierdo los contactos.

La chica que me atendió me explica todo lo referente al susodicho back up automático.
- Viva Dios! O sea, que tendré todo al día! - exclamo ante la sorpresa.
La chica me mira con cara de sorpresa, ya que mencioné la competencia.
- Claro! con Orange! - digo, para ´arreglar´ el asunto.
- Pero caballero! - me dice la bella joven.
- O sea, 24/7 - digo, sin saber que más decir.

Al retirarme, pienso que en verdad, en el campo telefónico, el pais ´Evoluciona´.

pb

Created my 2nd mini-application for my company today.  This time, it was done to achieve a very simple goal... backing up files to a portable drive.  So why did I need a mini application for that? Why can't I just use a simple batch file to transfer the stupid .bak files over?  Believe me, I appreciate simple solutions as well...

The problem was quite simple actually.  The directory, which itself existed on a ANOTHER backup harddrive stored a few weeks worth of backup files (Complete Backups mind yer...), with a timestamp-suffix attached to each file.  So, a simple batch command would have backed up ALL the damn files ( each file worth about 5GB), into the poor lil 80GB portable hard drive.

So this was where Java came in to save the day.  The jar executable, would extract the Source and Destination directory through a Config.txt, and selectively COPY ONLY the day's back up into the hard drive.  I had a few ways to approach it.  One was using the File.lastModified(), and then followed by comparing the current system date.  But I took the short cut...

I took the System date, and manipulated it into a CCYYMMDD format that the timestamp was using, turned it into a String type, and simply selected the files that contained the current CCYYMMDD in their file names.  I then took ANOTHER shortcut, by looping all the selected filenames in a DOS-Copy Command String, and threw it into a java runtime.  (Screw cross platform operability, my company ONLY uses Microsoft stuff)

And that was all! A mini-backup utility within a day!

Now, for the record, I REALLY REALLY hate programming. I'm not good at it, and thats why I took a day to do this. =(

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

\windows\system32\config\system

A quick Google suggested that the registry had been corrupted. I tried various things to recover the OS, including using the XP recovery console to manually restore a backup of the registry. It didn't work.

No problem. I have a fairly paranoid back-up regime. All the important information on my laptop is also stored on my subversion server. I could just reformat the laptop, reinstall the applications (including subversion) and check out all the files again. Except that I hadn't thought to include my wife's files on the laptop in my back-up plans. Oops. After hours of making no progress recovering the data. I tried Knoppix. I got access to the data in not much longer than it took to download Knoppix.

Knoppix is a Linux distribution that can run from a CD (i.e. it doesn't require installation on your harddisk). It is also capable of understanding Windows file systems. To use it:

1. Download the latest Knoppix CD .iso file (approx 700MB). Note - The DVD version is much larger.
2. Burn the .iso to a CD, for example using the free Active ISO Burner.
3. Boot the stricken machine from the Knoppix CD. You may need to change your system to BIOS to boot from the CD first. How you access the BIOS varies between machines. On my Toshiba laptop you press F2 as the system boots.
4. Drag and drop data from the stricken machine to a USB harddisk or memory stick. Or copy to another machine using FTP from Knoppix. The Knoppix user interface is easy enough to use, even if you haven't used Linux before.

Note that you don't have to enter your Windows password to recover the files. This brings homw how easy it is to get data off a password protected Windows machine, if you have physical access to the machine. Another good reason to encrypt sensitive data on your laptop, for example using the free Truecrypt.

Thanks Knoppix! I've added you to my mental list of worthy software causes to make a small donation to one day. Obviously you need access to a functioning machine to do the above. So why not make a Knoppix CD now, while everything is fine? You never know when you might need it.

Further reading:

Life hacker: Rescue files with a boot CD

So aside from my other two other external SeaGate branded hard drives enclosed in generic and cheapo enclosures that are connected to my PC, i recently bought (which is roughly 2 months ago!) a 500GB My Book Home Edition to back-up my Mac which has became my main work machine since i bought it last year.

Aside from having extra storage, i can now use Leopard's TIME MACHINE! What i did was partition the hard drive (300GB for Time Machine so it can freely do all its back-ups and incremental back-ups and the remaining 200GB for my other storage needs). I know it may not be the best back-up system but its a good start as i plan to buy another 1TB My Book Studio Edition and daisy chain it to my existing one. That will be coming soon, very soon i hope.

Nothing.

It was at that moment I realized it wasn't going to be a good day.

My mind started racing backwards...what did I do?

• Downloaded and installed anti-virus software
• Installed a new 10/100 ethernet switch
• Installed a new uninterruptible power supply (UPS)
• Installed and configured a new video card
• Installation and configured dual monitors

After determining my internal power supply and hard drive were OK it had to be a software conflict.   Rather than spend too many hours trying to figure out what the conflict was I took my machine to the local shop for repairs.  Rather than work off a small notebook computer I decided to configure a hot spare to work from ( I just happened to have an old Windows machine in the house).  So ultimately my solution to my computer crash was to configure and hook up another computer.

Can your remote underwriters do this?  If your company uses remotes and you are the manager responsible for their production, what does your remote technology support plan look like?  Do you have a remote tech support plan? Does your IT area have a remote support plan?

I am still working off my hot spare five days after my initial crash.  When I picked up my main box, disconnected the spare, reconnected my main, and powered up it still didn't boot up.  I took it back to the shop and I await its return.

But I can work.

วันนี้อ่านๆเวปอยู่ก็เจอตัวนี้ครับ DriverMax คุณสมบัติง่ายๆคือ ทำ back up driver ให้เราได้ครับ ประมาณว่า ลง windows ใหม่เเล้ว ไม่ต้องใช้เเผ่น driver ลงทีละตัวเสียเวลาตายเลยยย คลิกเดียวลงให้หมดทุกตัว ตัวนี้เเน่นอนครับฟรีอีกเเล้ว เเต่ต้องไปลงทะเบียนกับเวปเขาก่อนนะครับ ที่เเจกฟรีคงเพราะว่าทางเวปเขาจะเก็บสถิติของ driver เครื่องเราไว้ใน server เขาครับ เก็บเเบบนี้มันก็สามารถ update driver เเละหา driver ที่เครื่องเราไม่มี ได้เเน่นอนครับผ่านเวปของเขาเอง เสียดายที่ใช้เเต่ ie ผมไม่ค่อยชอบเลยน่าใช้กับ firefox ได้อ่ะ

หลังจากลงเเล้ว drivermax จะทำการหา driver ทุกอย่างที่เรามีในเครื่องครับใช้เวลาไม่เกิน 5 นาทีเอง เวลาการทำ back up ก็ประมาณ 15-20 นาทีเองครับ(ขึ้นอยู่กับความเร็วเครื่องครับ) download drivermax

I've also managed to get some back-ups going with my external LaCie hard drive, just in case this year is the year for The Great Hard Drive Disaster. I've been thinking alot of the subject of backing-up, and I read an interesting article on the web a while ago that contemplates (and it has already been done) on-line back-up (Backing up to a hard drive that's offered a service over the net) . I thought that this was really useful, although it's useless to me as I live in South Africa and my internet connection(s) would be way to slow to even contemplate moving about 30 GB across the net! But I just remember thinking how useful this would be if better internet connection came to South Africa, (I mean heck, internet in Mozambique is FREE!) as I'm sure many South Africans would actually make use of the service and actually would back up. But that's enough from this crazy teenager.

I've also been enjoying the gaming delights of Halo 3 this holiday, and I've managed to finish the campaign on normal difficulty (which wasn't too much of a challenge, and let's remember I took a run through on Easy to get a feel for the game, this is how I play after all) and I feel I've gotten so used to the controls I don't think I'll ever be able to play another '360 game again! (Not that this is a bad thing - I love playing Halo!) and I'm starting to play again on Heroic. I don't think I'll ever play through on Legendary, as I have tried Sierra 117 a few times and got ridiculously irritated form dying so many times... haha. Apparently Bungie is releasing a new Multiplayer map called Cold Storage today (for free!) But it's a torment and dissapointment for me because in SA we don't have Xbox LIVE and so there's no way I'll be able to downloand it... tis such a sad, sad life...

Anyway, I better finish up here, before my cup of tea that's waiting for me gets cold!

If you are interested please leave a comment on the USERS message by following the intructions.

This is for UK only and only PAL games will be accepted.

Moderator

It turns out I am not liking it so much. I thought it would be something I would enjoy doing but boy is there work to do. Every other occurence almost seems like a reason to be upset. People don't do things the same way or in the manner that one would expect them.

Take for example, our BEST example, customer care/public service in this nation. Whether you are in a restaurant, at a store doing something so simple like groceries, or calling a customer care call centre, there is going to be something said or done or for that matter not done that will itch your last calm nerve.

Two weeks ago I called the customer care centre for one of the telecom companies and this lady asked me all the necessary questions and then said my airtime would be loaded shortly since I was having issues with doing it on my own. I was more than delighted that she was so much help because I desperately wanted to talk to my boyfriend that night. I then went on to ask in the most grateful voice the time frame I should wait before I called. Shock and awe on me, her answer was TOMORROW EVENING! WHAT??? If the serial number is correct and all those numbers I read to you are entering your computer system why would it take 24 hours to load my minutes??? I was frustrated and decided I wanted to make a complaint in the same call.

I do not know what led me to believe that the call would actually be monitored or that my notes of complaint would be noted down but I went ahead and expressed my discontent. The lady listened or put her headset down until I was done and when I was finished, SHE LAUGHED!!!!! Can you understand how mad I was? I didn't know what else to do so I hung up. I am still mad at said telecom company but two days ago I called to inquire about that same airtime that was never loaded and a certain Joy at customer care was so polite I couldn't help but give her an extra thank you after the whole transaction was through in about five minutes. She even called me back to let me know that it had indeed been loaded on my phone and I could make my calls.

I guess it's life. Some days are better than others but I am not loving home so much lately. I want order, respect, and professionality... and oh my goodness do I miss my space!!

Having recently launched a Windows Virtual Server range to compliment its existing Linux VPS range, followed by the release of Remote Desktop Protocol service allowing access via Terminal Services, Easyspace has now launched a Burstable RAM service on its Linux Packages and an Automated Backup services for both Windows and Linux based servers.

Burstable RAM will allow customers to take advantage of additional RAM resources, particularly handy when installing additional applications or running large scripts, while the Automated Backup service will allow you to roll back to any version of your server from the previous 7 days.

Both add-on services are available to new and existing customers at low monthly cost and both services come with monthly or annual payment options.

"Easyspace are already one of the leading providers of Virtual Private Servers in the UK, but we realise that to keep competitive in the market we have to continually improve our offering." commented Errol Vanderhorst, Sales and Marketing Director for Easyspace.

"I think we've shown in recent months with the launch of Windows VPS and RDP, and now the launch of the Burstable RAM and Automated Backup add-on services, that we are responding to the requirements of the market, and we will continue to do so."

Easyspace Virtual Servers are available in two packages, Standard or Premium, and both can be Windows or Linux based.

Visit Easyspace.com for more information.

MORE VIDEOS HERE

I ran across a talk about cloud computing from Paul Slakey from Google.

The fun starts when Jason Calacanis tries to trip him up for some more information in the Q&A section.

Jason: "Hey Paul, when is Google going to release the Google Back Up product?"

Paul: "Pardon me, please repeat the question?"

Jason: "You know, the Google Back Up product."

Unfortunately it didn't work, Paul had no new news to disclose at that stage.

Fun to watch.

It is a logical next step.

JA

Intalando Remastersys
Para ello necesitaremos editar el fichero sources.list y añadir el repositorio necesario para realizar la instalación. Para ello abriremos el terminal y escribiremos:

$ sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Nos situaremos en la última linea y añadiremos la siguiente linea:

# Remastersys
deb http://www.remastersys.klikit.org/repository remastersys/

NOTA: Si teneis problemas con el repositorio indicado, provad con el siguiente:

deb http://www.linuxmint.com/repository romeo/

Grabaremos los cambios y cerraremos el editor. Tras ello, de nuevo en el terminal, actualizaremos el indice de repositorios, tecleando:

$ sudo apt-get update

Y una vez terminado realizaremos la instalación del software específico:

$ sudo apt-get install remastersys

Usando Remastersys

Para usar remastersys usaremos la cuenta de root. Su sintaxis es la siguiente:

sudo remastersys backup|clean|dist [cdfs|iso] [fichero.iso]

Ejemplos:

- Si queremos hacer un live CD/DVD que sea una copia de nuestro sistema teclearemos: (siempre en el terminal)

$ sudo remastersys backup

- Si queremos realizar lo mismo, pero queremos que el fichero .iso tenga un nombre específico, escribiremos:

$ sudo remastersys backup nombre_iso.iso

- Si lo que deseamos es limpiar los ficheros temporales creados por remastersys, teclearemos:

$ sudo remastersys clean

- Que lo que queremos hacer es una LiveCD que tome como base nuestro sistema pero que no guarde los datos críticos (cuentas, ficheros, etc) haremos lo siguiente:

$ sudo remastersys dist

- Ahora nos lo hemos pensado mejor, y queremos hacer un liveCD pero que solo contenga el sistema de ficheros tal y como lo tenemos:

$ sudo remastersys dist cdfs

NOTAS: