I know some of the readers of this blog in person (and of those, a good deal of them I have fixed computers for) and I can honestly say that every single person that I have pulled out of the mud when their computer has crashed, has promised me that they will start backing up their data from now on. I’d wager that the most recent backup any of them have is the last time I did it for them (except for my parents that I now run a weekly backup on an external drive). Hmmm… external drive…. this leads me to my next point.
I’d be willing to wager that all of you who do backup, backup to an external drive, and store it somewhere near your computer. If you are doing this, well done, a good start BUT… ask yourself why you are running backups. I would suggest it is to protect against:
- Accidental failure on your computer (hardware or software)
- Viruses
- Mishaps (water comes through your ceiling, fire, flood etc)
- Theft (someone breaks in and takes your machine)
- Deletions/lost files
Now consider, if your backup is next to your machine (or sometimes even in the same house), will your backups be lost too?
- Accidental failure – Probably OK
- Viruses – No, many viruses will be on your backups too (they sit around before dropping their payload)
- Mishaps (water comes through your ceiling, fire, flood etc) – Backup probably lost too
- Theft (someone breaks in and takes your machine) – Backup will be stolen too
- Deletions/lost files – Probably safe
OK, so not so great so far! Don’t worry, there is a pretty simple solution and you CAN DO IT RIGHT NOW.
You’ve probably heard of “the cloud” in one way or another. The concept that things happen out there on the interweb and you don’t have to worry about how they happen you can just use them, well this is the perfect solution for backup.
If you want the details of HOW to backup to the cloud, ping me and I’ll write and article on the how, but essentially, it’s a hassle free way to make sure that not only are your files safe, but that you can access them anywhere.Being the tech head I am, I have gone one step further…
Many of you will know that I love my Windows Home Server (I have just increased it to 4Tb), but not many will know the INCREDIBLE WHS Add-inn I have been using. It’s called “CloudBerry Backup for Windows Home Server” and is a simple Snap in for WHS. Installation and setup is an absolute breeze and the real kicker is that IT BACKS UP TO AMAZON S3! Anyone that has used Amazon S3 will know just how many ways you can browse your files on it (I can connect to it from any desktop, as well as browse with my Andoroid Phone). One of the advantages of S3 is that once it’s been uploaded, you are not tied to any proprietary interface, you can use anyone you like (including the free S3 browser). I think the best way to show you how good CloudBerry is is to show you….
(Excuse the voice over!)
It will backup shares, you can make exclusions, schedule it, compress it, encrypt etc etc. It will do everything you like, including purge old backups, give file reversions etc etc.
I can’t recomend the WHS S3 version enough and I have read very good things about the desktop S3 version too.
Interested? Head over to Cloudberry Backup and have a look around. If you want to set it up, give me a shout and I’ll help you out.
Structured Query Language (SQL) is a beautiful, uniform language designed and used to provide a suitable way of accesing and manipulating data from a relational database. Correctly stored data can be quickly and efficiently created read, updated and deleted in a way that everyone understands. Well nearly eaveryone. Well sometimes nobody.
One of the most difficult things to get your head around in SQL is “joins” (essentially set theory) but really they’re pretty easy. I haven’t had call to use SQL for a while (note there are many forms of SQL (T-SQL for example)) but Coding Horror provides this beautiful explanation of joins.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/10/a-visual-explanation-of-sql-joins.html
Enjoy it everybody…. Ahhh, bask in the glow of enlightenment.
(p.s. SQL really is very good and it REALLY is pretty easy to understand)
This post wont mean much to regular readers (?! as if I was even a regular blogger!) but it serves as a page to help other who have been suffering from the same issue as me.
This Christmas the family was struggling with trying to make an old webcam work. Unfortunately it was a VERY old cam, with no marking that gave you a clue as to what it was or where it came from (memory tells me it was an old Safeway thing!) Anyway, the marking on it led me to http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids which persuaded me it was based on the OmniVision OV511+ chipsets. I FINALLY came across the following website http://www.downloadwindowsdrivers.info/usb/vid_05a9/pid_a511/ which provided me with the following files:
If you need some help, just post a comment.
Enjoy.
Having worked in a very interesting industry for a while now, I find it fascinating when I see very advanced technology that has been developed through collaboration. The story of Stuxnet is truly mesmerizing for a number of reasons, not least of all for the fact that it was developed by more than once person (or organisation) and THAT is amazing. It’s VERY difficult to successfully develop systems or software across company (or department) boundaries because very quickly the management overhead suffocates the ability of the individuals to perform at their best. I love the idea of a team being the “greater than the sum of the parts” but most often, when management “does its stuff”, more time is spent in overhead (reporting, restructuring, specifying etc) than on actually developing a good product.
Anyhow, </rant> and enjoy the link. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you you….. Stuxnet.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/26/secret-agent-crippled-irans-nuclear-ambitions/
A number of months ago (about 8 months ago to be precise) I started writing an article on Linux and why I just couldn’t get used to it.
This is not the first time I’ve tried Linux. It’s not the second, or the third. It’s not even the fourth, fifth or sixth time I’ve tried an install of Linux in an effort to love it and join the ranks of evangelical Linux lovers. To be perfectly honest I have lost count, but I would imagine that this latest install of Linux (Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) is between the tenth and fifteenth install.
You might imagine that I’d have got pretty good at working with this alternative operating system, that somehow over the years I’d have worked out it’s nuances, found the shortcuts and the programs I like and be ready to settle down with Linux in anti Microsoft matrimony. I mean, what’s the big hold up? Why is it so difficult?
I can’t slate Linux, I just can’t. It is fantastic. For something that you don’t have to pay for (with anything other than time) it’s a marvel. What’s even better is that I’ve seen it get better with time. A LOT better, whereas in the Redmond camp I’ve seen it get… well… bigger? Microsoft has always worked in a certain way. Single user, single workspace, same forms engine etc, good HAL etc but linux has grown. I mean 10 years ago I remember wrestling with a 4 CD install of Slackware on an old 486 DX 4×100 and never even managing to get it to install (alright, in hindsight Slackware was NOT a good place to start!). My first working install was with Mandrake (now Mandriva) and then Red Hat (of which the “Open” part became Fedora Core). I’ve also tried Puppy Linux, DSL (Damn Small Linux) and some other more obscure distributions with equally as stupid names. So now I’m sitting here writing this on Ubuntu 9.04 (oddly it’s just updating itself to Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) and it’s doing a pretty good job!
There’s not a great deal I need out of an Operating System. In fact, the Operating System is rarely the problem for most users (me included). You don’t really spend al that much time interfacing directly with the Operating System, (and time that you do is not really “productive” time). Let’s be honest, we want to spend most of our time working with programs… actually doing things.
….
Well what do you know?! A few weeks later I took the plunge one last time and put 9.04 on a 40gig laptop drive and went to Linux. Eight months later and I’m sitting here typing this on Ubuntu 10.04 and absolutely in love with Linux. OK, so I’m not going to be one of those evangelical Linux to$$ers who tells you that everyone should use it, you do have to have a certain amount of techie in you, but if you’re will to undergo the small learning curve, I warrant that you wont turn back. I struggled at first because the thought kept cropping up “why am I doing this? I know exactly how to do this in Windows, and I can always VBA it if I need something new”. Most of the time though I realised that I wasn’t born with an understanding of Windows, I had to earn it and that’s just the same route I’m going to have to take with Linux.
There’ll be some more posts coming to tell you about some of the tools I’ve selected to help make the switch easier (and yes, sometimes I fire up a VirtualBox console with XP in it!) but really, I’m still having a great time!
Give it a shot. Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) is available here… completely free and a lot of fun.
It can’t have been very long ago that I started predicting the backlash against Apple but it appears to be gathering pace at an alarming rate. It seems that any company that gets big… gets hated. M$, Google, BP, McDonalds… you name it, they ended up being hated. Why? Well I’m not sure whether you could quantify whether it’s BECAUSE they are big, or because once they get big, strange things start to happen. Either way, Apple, who have become considerably more restrcitive that Microsoft, have started to enrage the people who have given them the power. The iPhone was a hit not so much because of the great stuff it offered out of the box… but because of the great stuff that developers made for it. Now Apple have been handcuffing the iPhone developers, expect to see many more of them flocking over to Android.
All that aside, this post (from an Adobeite) points out exactly why. (hint… it’s in the iPhone ADG and looks like this:)
3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).
This is one of those “geek only” jokes because if you get it will simultaneously snigger out loud and and be very ashamed of yourself….
… or at least you should be.
I’ve been having issues for a while with Evolution not syncing my calender appointments with my MS Exchange account. I’m currently using Karmic (9.10) but I’m fairly sure it’s been an issue since 8.04 as it’s most likely distro independent.
It looks like there’s two potential solutions for the issue:
The quick fix is to change the calender item to show as “Private”, this should make it sync correctly.
The more permenant fix is to grab the patch from here:
and a copy of the Evolution source code. Apply the patch and compile into a deb.
This should give you a much better fix but is obviously a bit more work.
Happy Syncing.
(Disclaimer… I’ve tried the first, it works in my case, the second is untested by me. As always, DYOR).
Recently I have been trying to install some plugins on the Eclipse IDE (I was installing the CDT (C++ toolchain)) and ran into some issues. If you have an issue that looks something like this:
Problem Occurred
An error occurred while installing the items
session context was:(profile=PlatformProfile, phase=org.eclipse.equinox.internal.provisional.p2.engine.phases.Install, operand=null –> [R]org.eclipse.ant.ui 3.4.1.v20090901_r351, action=org.eclipse.equinox.internal.p2.touchpoint.eclipse.actions.InstallBundleAction).
The artifact file for osgi.bundle,org.eclipse.ant.ui,3.4.1.v20090901_r351 was not found.
… then you probably want to look here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eclipse/+bug/477944
The short story is that you will want to install pde and jdt extensions first. Thankfully you’re in Linux so you can do it in one command:
sudo apt-get install eclipse-pde eclipse-jd
…bliss 
I know there’s been a lot of “stuff” put up here in the last few days but I’m slowly going through my mail box and clearing out all the old emails that have flown back and forward between me and some of the other guys. This one was from Ollie Gee… props bud!