The Vent and Rant Thread

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

If my experience prompts just one person to begin backing up, it will have been worth it.

I just tell folks "There are two kinds of hard drive users. Those who have had a hard drive failure, and those who will. Have you done a backup lately?"

Hard drives contain moving parts. Things with moving parts break. Corruption that requires reformatting the drive and reinstalling the OS and your programs isn't the worst failure, as the drive is still usable.

I helped out a friend a while back who bought a new machine to replace her existing desktop. The desktop was in good working order, but slow. She said "How do I preserve and transfer my data?", and I said "I come over, you feed me, and I pull the drive from your old machine and mount it as a second drive in the new one. Then you transfer stuff across at your leisure."

Well, it didn't quite work that way. I discovered that the old machine, which had been a cast off from an office that upgraded, used SCSI drives, which is not what you normally expect in a desktop. Her old drive could not be mounted in her new machine. Fortunately, the data transfer was easy. Everything she was concerned with was in the My Documents fold, and that could be copied to a flash drive, then copied over to the new machine.

But I don't believe in wasting resources, so the old machine was left in place, and I set up the new machine to be able to connect to the old one over her home network with remote desktop software. The next stop, which remains to be done, is to set up the new machine to back up automatically across the network to the old machine. The old machine may be slow, but it's built like a tank, and unlikely to fail. It can also be the firewall machine and gateway to the outside world, with the router connected to it, and traffic forwarded through it, providing an additional layer of insulation for her work.

And because she can back up to thumb drive and the critical stuff (writing projects in progress) is small enough to fit, she'll have copies on her desktop, old machine, and netbook. Redundancy rules.
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Dennis

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Redundancy rules.
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Dennis

Truer words.......I used to think I was okay with my books on my K and on my laptop........then i got lazy and stopped putting them on the K.........

Now........I need to start buying some of them there little stick thingys to go along with the external drive....

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

I never said it was a sensible reason

<chuckle>

True. And if it keeps folks from trusting the only copy of critical data to one, it's a good reason.

I do wonder a bit about the use of flash media as the only drive in things like laptops, where I/d expect the write/erase cycle limit to bite rather sooner.
Hitachi, among others, has been experimenting with hybrid systems using flash for boot files and core OS modules, and standard hard drives for data. That makes sense, ans the flash drive will be mostly read from but not written to.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

is the general consensus that flash drives are the way to go? I just bought a scanner to take to my folks to go through old photographs. I was thinking about sending out disks, but should it be the drives?

Whether they are the way to go depends upon what you are doing. Will what you want to send out fit on the flash drive?

The advantage to disks, as in CD or DVD, is cost. The media is cheap. You still face the question of "Will everything fit?", especially with CDs.

Flash drives are more expensive but quicker. I can copy data to a USB 2.0 flash drive a fair bit faster than I can burn it to a CD or DVD.

And if what you are scanning is photos, you need to think about data format. Scanners I'm familiar with store scans as TIFF files. TIFF is a lossless format, and good for raw data, but for stuff you want to send out or upload to a web site, conversion to something like JPG is advisable. TIFF files are big. JPGs are compressed as part of the format, and a lot smaller. And while it's a "lossy" format, the decrease in picture quality will likely not be visible.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Truer words.......I used to think I was okay with my books on my K and on my laptop........then i got lazy and stopped putting them on the K.........

My master library is on my desktop. Copies of files I've converted for reading are on my PDA and netbook. A copy of the entire ebooks directory tree got compressed into an archive, and backed up to an old, small IDE drive. The drive is too small to be really usable in the desktop, but it's fine as a backup drive for specific stuff like that, and sits on a shelf. Another drive like that holds a copy of my digital photos.

Now........I need to start buying some of them there little stick thingys to go along with the external drive....

They're getting steadily cheaper and higher in capacity.

A friend has been doing some volunteer tech work for the U.S.S.Constitution, helping out with interactive displays. He was bemused when his boss bought a bunch of cheap USB thumb drives to be used in the displays. They were Hannah Montana branded drives. Not keeping current on pop culture, he had to Google to discover who Hannah Montana was.

I gather they'd been gotten at close out prices because Hannah Montana's audience wasn't big users of USB drives, and they would be buried in the equipment where they wouldn't be seen in any case, but it was still amusing.
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Dennis

[wodin]

Originally Posted by nomesque

GAH! Just growled at someone on their own blog, and wondering if I'm too easily irritated. Does anyone else find this blog post pretentious?

There is an old adage among musicians; "Don't quit your day job!" that would seem apropos to Mr. Moore.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

<chuckle>

True. And if it keeps folks from trusting the only copy of critical data to one, it's a good reason.

I do wonder a bit about the use of flash media as the only drive in things like laptops, where I/d expect the write/erase cycle limit to bite rather sooner.
Hitachi, among others, has been experimenting with hybrid systems using flash for boot files and core OS modules, and standard hard drives for data. That makes sense, ans the flash drive will be mostly read from but not written to.
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Dennis

Why experiment? The technology exists and is proven. I'm just amazed that someone hasn't deployed it.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by wodin

There is an old adage among musicians; "Don't quit your day job!" that would seem apropos to Mr. Moore.

It is. Some of my friends used to be in a band called the Don't Quit Your Day Job Players. All were writers, but the lead singer/guitarist was a software QA guy and reform rabbi, the violist/violinist/vocalist was a teacher, classical musician, and orthodox Catholic priest (and married to the rabbi), and the other guitarist/vocalist was an adjunct music professor and composer. The percussionist/vocalist was the only full time writer, but his wife had a day job, and her income smoothed out the peaks and valleys while he waited for contracts to be signed/advances to be paid/royalties to be disbursed.

I know two people these days who are full time freelance writers, and a number more who are published authors for whom writing is a second job.

The late SF writer James Blish didn't go full time freelance till his income from royalties on published books equaled the salary he made as a publicist. SF writer Glen Cook asked his agent some years back "Can you guarantee the money will be there when I need to pay the mortgage, or write a check for the kid's college tuition?" The agent thought for a moment, and said "No", so Cook decided it wasn't time to quit as an auto worker for General Motors,l even though they had closed the plant he worked in, and transferred him to a different facility a lat farther away, in a new position that didn't let him put his hands on automatic while his mind worked on plotting the next book. (He subsequently accepted an early retirement buyout form GM, and is full time freelance these days.)

It's possible to make a living as a writer, but you shouldn't assume you'll be able to, and keeping the day job is the best move.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by wodin

Why experiment? The technology exists and is proven. I'm just amazed that someone hasn't deployed it.

It's being deployed, in things like netbooks. The issue in wider usage is cost. Flash memory in large enough sizes to be a hard drive substitute is still fairly expensive.
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Dennis

[kazbates]

Originally Posted by Patricia

Good luck with the search, Kaz.
Most recipes for Pound cake in the UK are very similar: the original versions called for a pound weight of all the ingredients. These days, we mostly make half-pound cakes: 8 oz of butter, sugar, flour, and 8 oz weight of eggs (approximately 4 eggs), with the option of 8 oz dried fruits.

(Or 6 oz of everything and 3 eggs, etc.)

I still occasionally use a version from an old English cookery book that says to weigh the eggs and add equal amounts of the other ingredients.

Thanks! The recipe I've been using is one of Paula Deen's:

Mama’s Pound Cake

Ingredients:
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
5 eggs
3 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
3 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 lb (2 sticks) butter, plus more for pan
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

With a mixer, cream butter and shortening together. Add sugar, a little at a time. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Stir dry ingredients together in a bowl and add to mixer alternately with milk, starting with the flour and ending with the flour. Mix in vanilla. Pour into a greased and floured tube pan and bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Recipe courtesy Paula Deen

Servings: 16-20 servings Episode: Paula to the Rescue
Prep Time: 15 min
Cook Time: 1 hour 30 min
Difficulty: Easy

It's almost as good as the recipe I lost.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Whether they are the way to go depends upon what you are doing. Will what you want to send out fit on the flash drive?

The advantage to disks, as in CD or DVD, is cost. The media is cheap. You still face the question of "Will everything fit?", especially with CDs.

Flash drives are more expensive but quicker. I can copy data to a USB 2.0 flash drive a fair bit faster than I can burn it to a CD or DVD.

And if what you are scanning is photos, you need to think about data format. Scanners I'm familiar with store scans as TIFF files. TIFF is a lossless format, and good for raw data, but for stuff you want to send out or upload to a web site, conversion to something like JPG is advisable. TIFF files are big. JPGs are compressed as part of the format, and a lot smaller. And while it's a "lossy" format, the decrease in picture quality will likely not be visible.
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Dennis

ok, you lost me. I want to send pictures to relatives that I am going to be scanning. is my best bet disks or thumb drives?

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Everything bad I have ever done or said or thought has just come back and bit me in the BUTT!!!

Laptop is with computer guy.

Corrupted something, couldn't download updates now its toast, and he has to wipe the hd and reinstall os.

I know, it's after the fact, but it's something to think about when your laptop gets reinstalled. Split your HD in two (aka, make two partitions). I learned that the hard way, way back when (I believe it was my 486), when I wanted to re-install windows and it had formatted my C-drive without me realising it. And when I did realise it, it was too late and I had lost all my data (which included a homework assignment...). Since then, I've always created two partitions. One for my OS and other applications, and one for my documents. Now, I only look at the C drive if I want to back up some settings. All other stuff that I want to keep, is on another partition. If my windows would crash, I can just re-install without much loss (though I might have to find some passwords and such, but that's it) (naturally, that's on my laptop, as my home pc has three HD's...)

[wodin]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

It's being deployed, in things like netbooks. The issue in wider usage is cost. Flash memory in large enough sizes to be a hard drive substitute is still fairly expensive.
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Dennis

Yes but I'm thinking in terms of a 32 GB flash partition for the OS and applications to allow for rapid boot up and application loading and a much larger mechanical data partition (>100 GB) for all those ebooks and pics and movies and music and ....

32 Gb flash is relatively inexpensive, and in fact was/is the only storage on some netbooks like the early Asus's and the Asus T91. Which, by the way, is why I'm not interested in a T91; not enough storage. Now if it had a second mechanical drive ...

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

ok, you lost me. I want to send pictures to relatives that I am going to be scanning. is my best bet disks or thumb drives?

I always use data cd (if there is enough room) or data dvd.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I always use data cd (if there is enough room) or data dvd.

Problem is, that is generally not enough for me... I mean, 20Gb+ of pictures...