Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

[Updated] Calling for backup

I'm very good about backing up my laptop (I regularly use Norton Ghost to do full and incremental image backups to removable hard drives). At home, I tried a similar routine to back up my wife's computer using a SimpleTech NAS drive attached to my wireless router. The drive is awesome, and I still use it to store data, but I just couldn't seem to keep a consistent backup routine going.

My wife takes a lot of pictures, and also stores a lot of important data on her computer relating to her very active involvement in Girl Scouts. She would wring my neck if her computer crashed and her data was lost.

Mozy to the rescue

For the last couple of months, I can tell you without hesitation that her computer is backed up every day no matter where I am.

You see, I discovered an online backup solution called Mozy that automatically backs up her entire computer to a remote backup facility every day. Mozy is very simple - you install it on your computer, select the files you want to backup (there are some presets, or you can select them yourself). Mozy then begins to back up the fill set of files you've selected.

One thing you need to know up front: Mozy is designed for users with broadband connections - moving large amounts of data over anything less than broadband is not practical. There are clients for Windows Vista, XP, 2000, and Mac OS X 10.4.

Mozy is efficient and secure

Mozy has built-in bandwidth throttling and uses secure transport and storage (128-bit SSL for data transfers, and your data is encrypted with 448-bit Blowfish encryption before it's sent over the wire).

As efficient as Mozy is, the first backup can still take a while - our first backup of around 13 Gigabytes of data took 4 days to complete over our broadband connection. However, once the first complete backup is done, Mozy performs an incremental backup each day (incremental backups back up everything that is new or changed since the last backup). My incremental backups only take a few minutes each day.

Mozy also handles file versioning (it can store multiple iterations of frequently-changing files), and can back up open files.

Restoring is easy, too

A backup is only as good as your ability to get your files back if you really need to. Mozy shines in this department. You have quite a few options - here are some of them:

  • You can right-click a file and select "Restore Previous Version" and Mozy will show you a list of the previous versions available so you can pick the one you want to restore.
  • You can right-click anywhere in a folder and select "Restore Files in Folder" and you'll get a list of the files in the folder that are available for restore and you can select any combination of them for restore.
  • You can log into the Mozy site and restore from there using their web UI (this allows you to restore to the original location or another location).
  • You can use the Mozy web site to create a ZIP file of selected files so you can download the file and unzip them wherever you want.

Free or fee, depending on your needs

For personal use, Mozy offers a free subscription option, as well as a fee one - here are the differences:

  • Mozy's free option is limited to 2 gigabytes of data storage, but is otherwise fully functional.
  • Mozy's fee option runs $4.95 per month for unlimited data storage - this is the option I chose, and I recommend it for most people. It doesn't take much for your data to grow larger than 2 gigabytes. Incidentally, you can go month-to-month, but a 1- or 2-year subscription is a better deal since you get 1 or 2 months free.
    • Note: I bought my copy at my local CompUSA in a box and it only cost $50 for the product with an activation key for unlimited backup for one year. That's a sweet deal since that comes in at $4.16 per month since Oregon has no sales tax.

For business, there is a "MozyPro" option with different pricing plans (along with additional features and broader platform support).

Outsourcing your backups

In summary, if you're one of those procrastinators that doesn't ever seem to get around to backing up your computer, why not outsource the task to Mozy?

I, for one, am quite pleased with this service.

Updates: Some additional thoughts

Since I posted this yesterday, a few questions have come up in comments - I'll address them here, as well as in the comments.

  • I had a typo in the monthly price - I've corrected it above.
  • Restore speed - will it be too slow?
    • My broadband ISP (and most others from my informal research) provides me with much faster speeds for downloads than uploads. This means that the restores will be several times faster than the backups.
  • Can I trust an online backup service?
    • There is, of course, always the possibility of a problem. However, I have used online backup services in the past (Connected Online Backup - I used it for business) and never had a problem.
    • For many reasons (don't put all your eggs in one basket, etc.), I suggest you have a mix of backup methods - a periodic local backup (I use Norton Ghost for this - I got a copy as part of Norton Systemworks), along with the online backup for more frequent data backups.
    • Mozy has gotten some good reviews from some people I trust (like Mossberg from the Wall Street Journal, and a lot of leading computer tech publications)

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Jott a note to yourself

In my last post, I talked about using "notes to yourself" as a means to build fodder for status reports, track completed activities, etc.

Another tool in the arsenal for this is "Jott" - a free service I found out about a couple of months ago through Big Wes when he commented about it in response to one of my posts.

Jott is a service that allows you to call a phone number and leave a voice message to yourself or any number of predefined recipients (or groups of recipients via a Jottcast). After you leave your "Jott," the service converts it to text and sends it to you or your chosen recipient via email. Very cool. They even provide a link to listen to the original audio recording in case you suspect something's gone awry in the translation.

As with the method of sending an email to yourself, this just becomes a part of your inbox processing workflow (a la GTD) and you can act on or file the email as appropriate.

I have a speed dial key on my Blackberry to make it easier to use this - I just hold down J, and it connects me to Jott. Simple as can be, and easy to incorporate into my habits.

By the way - Jott continues to improve the service and make it even more user-friendly. They've already done a "version 2" upgrade since I've been using it.

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Keeping a running tab of what you’ve done

Some people are "score keepers" and others are not. I'm not. What I mean by this is that I am not very good at keeping track of all the specific things I've done, helped with, written, etc. - it's something about the way I'm wired (I also don't easily hold grudges, either, so there is an upside to not being a "score keeper").

However, this tendency can make it difficult when it's time to write a monthly status report / recap - I often find myself having a difficult time retracing my steps and creating a list of the things I've done for the past month, quarter, etc.

Archaeology is not easy

In the past when I sat down to hammer out a status report, I relied on my "Sent Items" in Outlook, a scan of completed items on my Task list, and other artifacts of my work. However, I often engage in things that aren't on my Task list, or don't involve email.

Recently, I've adopted a new technique (and am on my way to developing a new habit) that makes the bookkeeping a bit easier.

Note to self...

Now, when I do something significant (a phone conversation, a meeting, completing a project, making a significant contribution to a project, etc.) I send myself an email to create an artifact of that activity or milestone. I almost always have the means to send myself a note, either via my Blackberry or through Outlook.

When I process my Inbox, I file them in a time-labeled Status subfolder. For example, I do monthly status reports so I have folders under status called Apr07, May07, etc.

As I process my inbox, I can use ClearContext to file it by assigning "Status/Apr07" as the message's topic, or simply hit [Ctrl]+[Shift]+V, and typing "Apr07" and letting Speedfiler drop it into the appropriate folder.

Then, when I sit down to write my status report, I simply go to that folder and use the data there to complete my status report.

I can imagine variations on this theme that would be helpful, as well - you could create subfolders under Status for Projects, Clients, or other target audiences to help create an easy recap.

A nuance when dealing with support material

One subtelty about this is you sometimes have "support material" in your email inbox - do you file the support material in your Status folder, or do you just send a note?

As a die-hard GTD'er I favor leaving the support material in a Topic-based reference folder (Articles/Change Management), and sending yourself a note that you've completed something ("Completed article on Change Management for IT Auditor Magazine").

The hardest part

The hardest part of this (as with any system-based trick) is to develop the habit of sending these status notes. You can remind yourself by putting a calendar entry or a reminder into your system to say "Hey - did you do anything worthy of a status note today?"

Got any tricks that work for you? Let me know.

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Fresh Gear: The flattest wallet ever

For the past several years, I've been a "front pocket wallet" kind of guy. However, I found that my front pocket wallet was growing thicker, and that I couldn't significantly downsize it because I have a need for more cards of various kinds.

I also don't like a big, thick back pocket wallet because I find them uncomfortable and unsightly. If you've ever seen the Seinfeld episode where George's wallet explodes because he puts in just one too many receipts, you'll know what I mean.

Thin is in (my pocket)

I recently found just the solution: the "All-ett" wallet, which claims to be the world's thinnest wallet. I've been using it for a little more than a month and I am so happy with this wallet!

It's made out of spinnaker sail cloth, which is a very thin and strong material (you can choose from a variety of colors - I went with black). In the picture at right (from the All-Ett site), both wallets contain exactly the same things. You can clearly see that the All-Ett, on the left, would be much more comfortable to have in your back pocket.

Curious how it works? Check out the demo at their site to see the flat wallet in action. There are also some good testimonials posted there.

Something for everyone

Check out the variety of products they offer - in addition to several types of wallets, they carry card cases, checkbook covers, and travel wallets.

Give it a try - there is a 30-day, unconditional money back guarantee, but I don't think you'll be sending this one back!

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Resources for the curious

Life's been busy this past week (include a complete rebuild of my laptop due to a bad memory chip, of all things), but I wanted to share a couple of useful resources I've been introduced to recently. Both are research-related, and definitely worth sampling.

  • The first is a Squidoo lens on internet research. I do a lot of internet research in the course of work and life, and I found some tremendous tidbits of wisdom here. You'll also find a list of "11 Search Tips" - I already knew some from the list, and learned some new things. One of my favorites is on there:
    • "Take advantage of "type of document" searches. For opinions search for PDF and Word Docs and for statistics look for XLS documents (include chart or graph in your search terms)."
I do this all the time, to great benefit - for example, you can do a search for '<person's name> ppt' to get any posted presentations they've done. You can find out a lot about what business people are up to by doing this - tremendously valuable for networking.
  • The next is a gadget/service called Clipmarks. Clipmarks is a great (free) way to catalog tidbits from your research. Plenty of other tools let you bookmark pages - this one is different. Sure, you can save a whole page, but the coolest thing is it allows you to grab portions of a web page so you can keep only the parts you care about. You can create public or private collections, and there are some built-in features to facilitate sharing.
You can use the Clipmarks web site, but I recommend installing the Clipmarks browser integration for maximum effect (IE and Firefox plugins are available, and the social browser Flock is supported).

Coming soon - I'm beta testing a site that will be an awesome resource to get good prices on airfare. More to come when it emerges from beta.

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