Skip to content

Crashplan is good

I’ve recently signed up for a couple years of crashplan.com‘s central backup service. Currently 50 GB of data stored there and it’s got a nice front-end application to use. One of my favorite parts is that the client works equally well on Linux as on the usual Mac and Windows varieties. A fun kicker is the ability to run a “headless” client for Crashplan. Meaning, you can have it all running on a Linux server, yet open the user interface on your desktop to configure the backup. This is nice for people that have large backups already being automated from desktops to a file server.

At the time of my signup, they were the cheapest, unlimited backup provider I could find. Other unlimited sources like Mozy or Carbonite charged a bit more per month. I would have to say that Mozy and Carbonite might win a user interface or usability contest. Crashplan really could use a designer’s touch on many aspects of their application and process.

Lastly, I must say, it costs a mite to get started and takes a couple weeks of uploading over consumer internet connection speeds, but it’s nice to have all data I’d rather not lose stashed away remotely.

2010 07 12 Bryan S. General Comments (0) Permalink

Automated backup system (works well so far)

Requirements

  • A desktop or laptop of any kind
  • A linux server

Applications used

  • Backuppc on the linux server (there’s a package for it on most distributions)
  • DeltaCopy on Windows XP (you can use rsync directly on Mac and Linux desktops)

Basically, install both, and configure to taste. Consult the documentation on both sites.

However, there are some tricks that made life easier. For example, you might want to configure DeltaCopy to be the rsync server on the Windows computer. If you use Mac or Linux, you can do it any way you like. I found making DeltaCopy the rsync server on Windows to be easiest. This way, you can use the ‘rsyncd’ option in backuppc to “pull” files from “shares” you create using DeltaCopy. The other way around didn’t seem to work as smoothly as I’d liked.

By default, backuppc “wakes up” every hour, on the hour, and looks for changes on it’s hosts. Making this faster definitely makes it easier to catch a laptop user online for a backup. The real beauty of backuppc is that it works similarly to rsync (even moreso when it’s using rsync). Incremental backups save large amounts of space.

Tagged ,
2009 06 06 Bryan S. General
Nerdiness Comments (3) Permalink

When you get a text message like this from your wife…

You know you have scored a good one for life. :-)

Chuck norris doesn’t wear a watch because he decides what time it is.

Love you baby!

(Feel free to search the web for “chuck norris jokes.” Please don’t tell me what you find, but you might get the idea as to why I find this humorous and fantastic.)

Tagged ,
2009 05 27 Bryan S. Humor Comments (0) Permalink

It’s one thing to name your business this…

Oh look! He's coming!

What kind of consulting would you happen to do?

But really, don’t paint it on your company trucks. Oh, and camera phones are awesome.

Tagged ,
2009 05 07 Bryan S. General
Humor Comments (0) Permalink

As if space wasn’t cluttered enough

warning-sign

Cool, I won’t hop out of the ship to touch the sign now. Thanks.

(Thanks to Jeff for the screenshot)

Tagged , , ,
2009 04 30 Bryan S. General Comments (0) Permalink

How everyone should sleep….

My seven month old son is sleeping with his face planted on the bed and his butt happily saluting the ceiling fan.

That’s my boy!

Tagged
2009 04 17 Bryan S. Humor Comments (0) Permalink

Government will soon be seizing a local financial business near you…

In a recent article I read, I discovered that the U.S. Treasury department is asking congress for the power to seize non-bank financial institutions. Here’s a quote that would make any sensible person cry:

“We need to give somebody, somewhere in the federal government. . . the power to do what the FDIC can do with banks.”

Really? As if we need to give the government any more power!

Tagged , ,
2009 04 15 Bryan S. Politics Comments (0) Permalink

Ahh, nostalgia…

macosbomb

Aren’t you all glad errors like this are much less common? Oh, and notice you DON’T have any option other than rebooting the computer. Wait a second, that sounds like installing “updates” on Windows….

Tagged , ,
2009 04 14 Bryan S. Humor
Nerdiness Comments (0) Permalink

Billions and billions!

nope, you can't have any

nope, you can't have any

Tagged ,
2009 04 13 Bryan S. Humor
Nerdiness Comments (0) Permalink

Preview your screenshot before you send….

I can’t say anything about where this screenshot came from, but here it is, enjoy. I highlighted the key items.

I find Seamonkey humorous as a software developer, if you don’t, feel free to enjoy the bookmark link in the toolbar. ;-)

interesting screenshot

Don’t ever send or post screenshots like this, to anyone or anywhere, ever. Least of all post it to somewhere public.

Tagged ,
2009 04 10 Bryan S. Humor Comments (0) Permalink