Gadget’s Airstream Chronicles

I didn’t get to post a lot about the weekend’s events. Busy one! I’m wondering if my server is working well enough to even post this now…..we’ll see.

Early in the a.m. on Saturday I decided to take a run into town. The trees are flowering, and they’re really a site! Very pretty indeed. Of course, you’ve got to have the right lighting, and the morning seems to be the right time.

After taking a few photos near the town square I returned to Point of Rocks to play tech support for Gunny. The mission, as I noted last night, was to get his VHS tapes onto his computer so they are not lost and gone forever. We’ve gotten him a long way too!

Like me, Gunny is a Mac user. After reading the second edition of the Digital RV Gunny decided he wanted a PVR for his Macintosh. He wanted to copy a collection of VHS tapes to his computer.

Unfortunately nobody in the area carries Elgato’s equipment (the Mac PVR company). But several stores carry Pinnacle’s PVR’s. After researching Elgato’s software I found that Pinnacle equipment could be used. So, for $99 Gunny picked up a Pinnacle USB converter, and the Elgato software for $79. In the end, a little more expensive than buying a device direct from Elgato.

So, Gunny spent part of Saturday & Sunday copying VHS tapes! And he was pretty happy with how the copies came out.

While Gunny played tech person, I went into domestic mode. Airstream cleaning. Reorganizing once again. 2 years full-timing. You collect a lot of stuff. In my case, BOOKS.

Why did I get on the reorganization kick? Gunny’s trailer. After a few years of ownership he’s finally happy with it. Many initial problems including a severe leak that messed up his insulation when he first bought it.

Over this past winter Gunny ripped out his dinette, put in a new corner table, and re-did the counters with Corian. Really cool. He also change his shower door and put a porcelain toilet in (really cool looking).

After seeing his interior upgrades I found a few new ideas for organizing in my trailer. Honestly, I wish his cabinet guy lived nearby, as I’d rip my dinette out tomorrow and make that wrap around computer desk I’ve been wanting.

Someday……someday…….

As I’d mentioned the other day (when I could post) we decided to head out for some photos in the Dells Saturday night. Fun walk out with Gunny, Lars, & Sadira.

Gunny’s new pup Natchez came along for the hike. For those who remember reading about Gunny in 06′ you know he had a dog named Nana. Well, Nana passed away this winter. Now Natchez travels with Gunny. He’s a good pup, and spent some time with Nana.

Our hike was to a usual spot. Natchez dragged Gunny along, and was difficult at times. An 8 month old Shepard can be a little high strung!

We all had a good time in the Dells watching the sun drop below the mountains. We also got a little cold with 30 - 40mph winds blasting us on the top of the rocks. My hat popped off a few times.

There’s the wrap for Saturday……

I’m tired of typing now…. Go figure. I wish the site had been functional this weekend. Good to see it’s working now!

Sunday was another trip to Skull Valley, and some extra rest. For a weekend off, it didn’t feel like it.

I’ll catch up on Skull Valley later. Promise. Oh, and by the way…… Bert and Janie will be coming in this week! Wow, lot’s of visitors. Let’s see if I can get a day or two off to visit with them too!

Well all, the web hosting company sent me an e-mail stating the server move was a whopping success. Unfortunately on my end, pages aren’t loading properly, pages hang, and my access to Wordpress is limited.

I’ve been trying to post since service was “restored”.

As soon as things get back to normal I’ll create a catchup post. It’s been a busy weekend to say the least!

Well, the blog was down for a while. Fortunately not due to hackers.

Instead my hosting company is currently relocating their server farm from one state to another. I’ve been receiving e-mails about the move for quite a while, but I’d never noted that there would be complete downtime. I assumed the cut would be a tandem operation with the original farm up, sync the new one, and then redirect traffic from old to new.

That’s how we used to do it in wireless. I planned a cut from Memphis TN to Little Rock, AR years ago. The new facility was built while the old one functioned away. Long Distance carriers were notified, code administrators, our database vendors, etc. Then one night everything came together. In a 6 hour window all traffic was repointed to the new switch, voicemail & prepaid cut over, SS7 networks, and pointers from the Long Distance folks were changed in one night (a hot cut). Ah, how I miss those days.

So, my web host did not do a hot cut. More like a warmed butter knife slowly sinking into a pat of butter, rather than a hot knife right through it. Wish they’d called me in, I would have helped plan a hot cut, and had fun doing it.

Since I haven’t had e-mail access or site access for more than 24 hours I had time available. But I still got to do tech stuff with my friend Gunny. Oh, by the way, Gunny pulled into town! Good to see him!

Today I set Gunny up with a PVR for his Macintosh. He’s busily copying old VHS tapes to his computer now. I just called him, and he’s 20 minutes away from finishing another one. It doesn’t help that he’s watching each one as he converts it!

Once Gunny is completed and my friend Lars finishes with a file transfer (everyone is playing with tech today), we’ll head up into the Dells to take some more dusk photos (Lars just got his new Rebel XTi). Sadira has popped over, so it will be a good group walking out into the rocks once more.

You’ll be happy to know the driving public is much safer this morning.  I took a driving class last night.

Recall, several weeks ago I received a ticket in the mail.  I was doing 65 in a 55 zone.  Unfortunately for me, I didn’t see the sign dropping to 55 on a 4 lane road well outside of a busy area (miles out).  Ah well, I now know where that speed trap is.  14 years without a ticket, but ah well, I took the class.

So, you as a driver are safer today.  I’ve learned my lesson.  I NEVER WANT TO END UP IN A CLASS LIKE THAT AGAIN!  Yes, that’s the lesson.

Let’s talk about the class for a few minutes, shall we?

Weeks ago I called to schedule my class.  There are several classes offered per week, and the earliest I could get was March 27th.  All others up to last night’s course were booked.

How many students were in the class?  54.  It was a full house, and seating for 54 folks.  The seating cost $130 per person.  That’s $7,020 in revenue generated.  The school even told me the breakdown of the funds from the class when they sent my confirmation letter.  State fees $20, Court fees $80, Class fees $30.

Here’s the interesting part.  We were asked who was in for speeding.  90% of the hands in the room went up.  We were then asked who was gotten with a camera setup.  More than 60% of the hands went up.  You wouldn’t believe how many people have told me they were ticketed outside of Prescott Valley.  Sure sounds like a wonderful cash machine to me!

As far as the class goes……I was amazed at the questions several people asked over and over.  A big one was on DUI, open containers, etc.  People were really sincere in their questions about drinking and driving.  One person noted that it’s a hard choice and he’s made the wrong one several times (which is why he was in the class hoping to get rid of some points).  I was stunned.  More than 10 people out of 54 had serious questions about driving and alcohol.  There’s a simple answer.  NO, DON’T DO IT.  Jeesh!

Well, with 4.5 hours of my life spent in class, plus the $130 I can never get back, I’ll always watch for the cameras in AZ., and I’ll scan wide open roads closely to ensure I’m not missing stealth speed limit changes and cameras around the corner.  :)  I’ve learned my lesson well!

So, last night right before bed I found out that the Digital RV’s forum site was hacked.  The main page was replaced by a page letting me know who hacked it.  Really nice.  My site was “tagged”.  How “creative”.

Apparently the hacker in question is well known for these hacks, and I found so many other sites that have been hit by the hacker as well.  Wonderful, I’m not alone.

The end result.  The Digital RV’s Forum will be down for a while.  I’ll need to re-upload the database, the program that runs it, etc.  And I don’t have a ton of available time to fight with it right now.  Sorry all.

The good part is the hack wasn’t designed to do anything beyond change the site.  Data wasn’t lost, but the forum itself was damaged.

Thought I’d repeat the issue, as last night’s post was written by a tired and grumpy guy!  :)  And it was a little cryptic if you ask me.

Well all, the Digital RV Forum has been toasted. Sorry. IXWebhosting is currently being assaulted by hackers, and my site was part of it all.

The Digital RV Forums was compromised, and I dropped the site rather than allowing it to be abused. User data is safe, no worries. But restoring the data will take time.

The rest of the Digital RV is fine. A vulnerability was exposed in an e-mail to me moments before the hack (and before bed), and I’m sitting here at 11:15 fighting the issue. No data was lost.  I eradicated the database before the hack was able to get that far.
The bummer is that discussions over the past two weeks have been lost, and I apologize. I’ll restore the information as soon as possible. Can’t say I’m pleased with Turkish hackers. Bottom line, and over seas hack job. Hmmmm….. I’ll leave it to readers to ponder.

I’ve got the hackers names, and originating sites. We’ll work on it here and try to secure further. Big hack across the net tonight.  No compromise to Hikenbike, just the digitalrv’s forum.  Sucks.  Reconstruction will start in a few days.  Not worth it while the hacks continue.  Welcome to the information age!

As you may know, I look back at my blog to see what was going on last year, and sometimes the year before as well.  Did you know I’ve been a full timer for 2 years now?  Yeah, spooky, eh?

So, I looked back to last year and found that I’d skipped my entry on March 26th.  Well, yesterday I skipped an entry too!  :)  Funny, but true.  Take a look at the link from the 27th (linked two sentences ago), and you’ll see, I was the Prodigal Blogger!

I did look through photos and posts from that week, and I’ve got to say I did a lot of exploring and job hunting after I arrived here in Prescott.  Amazing one year later I’m still doing much of the same!!!

The other amazing and encouraging part is that I still like Prescott.  I really like Prescott a lot.  Last night after I finished dinner I rounded up my camera case and tripod, then I headed out into the rocks once again.  No long hikes, just a short jaunt up to the high point in the park.  Tons of sunset photos?  Nope.  Just one panoramic that has worked out to 80 inches wide by 20 inches high.  Can you see it?  Sure.  But not at that size……

I promise, the shot is much more dramatic when viewing it full size!  Sorry you can’t see the real file.  It’s 280MB!  Yup, a big picture.

So, I wandered out into the Dells and didn’t shoot photos like a nut.  Instead I set up one series, and then I sat there for quite a while.  Nothing more.  And it was so nice to sit out and look at the amazing landscape.  It reminded me why I stopped here, and why I continue to stay.

Glad to say I did find a place that feels like home. 

Normally I’d post strictly tech columns over at the Digital RV. Today I’m bending the rules. Why? Well, I want this post in more than one place as it’s really important.

A friend recently made an interesting request. They asked that I put together a full post on making backups. Why did they ask me to do that? Simple. One of their friends had a computer go totally south on them. Photos, music, personal documents, financial data, and everything else that finds its way on to a system was lost. Unfortunately for that poor soul, no backup was ever created.

The person who lost their data is a blogger, like me. And they’re a a little more popular (higher traffic). When they lost their data they posted about it, and here’s where it gets interesting. Many readers commented they too don’t backup, don’t know how, etc.

Alright, when folks who regularly play on the Internet don’t backup, or don’t know how to, I guess it’s worth a sizable tutorial post. And that post can take space here as well as the Digital RV. So, let’s get to it.

A Basic View of Computers

First, let’s over simplify what our computers are. They do a lot, but I’m going to reduce the “computer” to a one trick pony (it has many tricks, but I think you’ll get this one). The most basic function of our computers is data storage. Let’s put that another way.

Your computer is a glorified file cabinet. There, I said it. Engineers across the nation are weeping because that doesn’t sound complex at all. Such a revelation could put them out of work. “Hey, Mr. Tech guy, you’re nothing more than a file cabinet specialist.”

For those who never thought about it that way I bet a light bulb went off just now. Seriously, your computer stores your data. Go back to the 60’s…..what did you store your documents in then? Uh, file cabinets. Today you store documents, music, photos, etc., in your computer. Previously when we weren’t working digital we stored all of those things in file cabinets too. They were physical, and now those documents are digital. Pretty cool.

Now, in the old days if you had a fire in the building where your file cabinet was, you’d loose everything. Unless you made copies (backups) of the contents of the cabinet, and put it somewhere else (a different cabinet). I bet you can see where this is going…….

In order to truly back up your digital data you need a different cabinet. And you need to make copies of your documents in the original cabinet and put those copies in the new cabinet. Fortunately making copies is much easier with digital files (no standing over a copy machine for hours on end).

By the way….it’s an easy leap to conceptualize your computer as a big file cabinet. The manufacturers make it simple really. Ever notice on both Windows and Macintosh that all of your data is stored in cute little FILE FOLDERS? Take a look at the picture to the left…..those little icons look like folders. And what do you put in folders? Files, documents, photos, etc. Yup, it’s a file cabinet alrighty!

I hope this over simplification regarding your computer’s primary function puts things a little more in perspective. If not, feel free to leave comments for clarification. But let’s move on and talk about “file cabinet” options that you can put copies into……

Storage Media for your Backups…in other words, “Your new file cabinets”

Now that we’ve established the need to copy what is in one file cabinet and put those copies in another cabinet (our backup) we need to figure out what type of cabinet to use. There are a few options available, and I think that might be one point of confusion for folks. “What should I use???”

Today we have many ways to store data, and most readers will be familiar with the backup media. Maybe not all of it, but most of it. Currently I personally back my data up in a number of ways. CDs, DVDs, Flash Cards, my IPod, and External Hard Drives. All of these items are in essence new file cabinets, although a few work differently, and we’ll talk about that.

CDs & DVDs

At this point I’m willing to bet everyone knows about CDs and DVDs. Our music and movies come on these little disks. New programs for our computers come on them, fun video games, and more. And all these disks really do is store data (files) for you to use on your computer. When you pop a CD or DVD into a computer the computer can read the files, replay them, or install new programs. They can also be used to store and backup your data if you buy the right types.

Both CDs and DVDs are available as Writable or Re-Writable at this point in time. And if you have a newer computer chances are it has a CD and DVD Burner. That means if you get blank CDs and DVDs you can write files to the disks. And if you make copies from your hard drive (file cabinet), put the copies on the CD or DVD and then burn the disk, you now have a backup of those files.

About CDs…..

CDs have been around for a while. They were great for making backups in the 90’s, but not super now. Why? Not much storage space to be honest. CDs run up to about 700 mega bytes now. Sure, you can store a ton of photos, songs, or documents on them, but not as much as you can on other media. If you have smaller files, few songs, or few files, CDs might be a good backup solution for you.

About DVDs…..

DVDs, specifically writable DVDs, haven’t been around as long as CDs. They can store more data, even though they look just like a CD. How can they do that? Why can’t a CD store as much. Hey, let’s not get bogged down here and pretend we’re engineers…..DVD’s can store more than a CD. Accept it and be happy.

Actually, DVDs can store about 4.5 Giga Bytes. One Giga Byte is the same as 1000 Mega Bytes. Remember, CDs can store about 700 Mega Bytes. So, you can see pretty quickly that a DVD can store about 6 times as much as a CD. If you’re looking to store a sizable amount of data, a DVD will beat a CD.

Burning Questions…..

So, once you’ve selected the documents you want to copy, and decided between a CD or DVD, you simply copy the files to the disk. But you’re not done. See, if you pop the disk out immediately it won’t work. You must BURN the data to the disk. Burning a disk is the process where the data is committed to the disk, written to it, and forever imprinted on the disk (unless you use a re-writable, which does what the name implies).

Mostly, when you use a CD or DVD you’re looking to make a permanent, unalterable copy of your data. Once a disk is burned it cannot be undone. You can’t add to it afterward, edit the file, delete the file, etc. It is there for all time (or until someone tosses the disk into one of those cool new shredders that eats credit cards and disks).

So, if you want a permanent unchangeable copy of your data (files), a CD or DVD might be the way to go.

Other Media Options….Flash Drives, and External Hard Drives

Like CDs and DVDs, I’m willing to bet you’re familiar with flash drives too. Even if you think you’re not. External Hard Drives are another story, and I’ll bet about 50% of the readers have seen them, but probably not everyone knows all about them.

Flash Drives

Do you own a Digital Camera? If so you’re already familiar with Flash Drive technology. The memory cards that go into your camera are “flash memory”. There are many different types of cards, but they all do the same thing. Basically, they’re portable file cabinets that know how to talk to your camera. And when you take a picture your camera creates a document (photo) on the card. It has stored a file in the portable file cabinet!

The fun thing with flash drives is that they’re not relegated to being for photos only. They can be used for any file type. So, when you hook that flash card to your computer you could in theory copy documents to it rather than just downloading your photos. When you copy documents to the card you’ve in essence created a backup once again.

Unfortunately, flash cards, flash drives, etc., can’t store too much data. Right now on the market we’re seeing flash cards and USB flash drives going up to about 8Giga Bytes. So, almost twice the storage space of a DVD. Not bad if you’re backing up personal documents, but lousy if you’re backing up an ITunes Library or giant photo collection. So, let’s say you’ve got huge amounts of files you want to backup…..what’s the option?

External Hard Drives

External Hard Drives are the holy grail of backup in my opinion. Why?

• New external hard drives offer hundreds of Giga Bytes in storage.
• External hard drives are portable.
• They’re dirt cheap at this point in time.
• You can treat them just like your computer’s hard drive.
• You can use them between multiple computers, making it easy to copy large amounts of data between computers.

Only a few years ago I paid $350 for an 80GB external drive. Recently I paid $149 for a 500 GB external drive (more than 6 times the capacity at half the cost). Currently my computer’s hard drive is only 80 GB (older model), and my portable drives are much larger than the computer’s internal file cabinet.

Not only are external hard drives great for making backups, they’re also fantastic for expanding your computer’s storage capacity. As I noted above, my computer’s drive is 80GB. I take about 5 GB of photos per month. As you can see, it wouldn’t take long to fill my computer’s drive…..so I started getting external drives to store my data, as well as make backups.

The latest screen shot shows part of my Macintosh’s desktop. As you can see, there’s a device named “Macintosh HD”. That’s the original hard drive on my computer. There’s also a little folder “webgifs” where I put photos that are going up on to the internet (like all the pictures in this post). Finally there are two more devices, “500GiG” and “LaciePortable”. These are 2 of my many external hard drives. One is used as a regular hard drive (the LaciePortable) and the other is used to back up EVERYTHING else!

See, my computer’s original hard drive is only 80GB, and the external drive “LaciePortable” is 320GB. Totaled, that’s 400GB of storage over all. The 500GiG drive is 500GB. More than enough room to copy everything on my original hard drive and my external that I use for new files!

So, what do I need?

That really depends on what you’re doing. CDs and DVDs will work great if you’re only storing a little at a time, and you don’t want to alter the backed up files (once you burn it, it’s permanent). Flash drives will work well if you’re only storing a little, and if you want to change the files on the drive over and over again. And external drives are great if you want to keep writing to them, and altering the files as you go (just like your current hard drive).

In my case, I do the following backup plan:

1. ITunes Library (music, movies, everything): This library grows and changes. I make incremental backups of the library as it grows to DVDs (ITunes helps me do this). I also backup the entire library to an external drive (500GiG). I’ve got two copies then. One on an easy to access backup drive, the other on a permanent set of DVDs.
2. Photo Libraries: If you’ve followed my site for a while you know I take a lot of pictures. A LOT! My main photo library from August through today has 35.8 GBs of photos in it. Way too much to store on my regular hard drive since it has so many programs on it. My main photo library lives on the external drive “LaciePortable”. It is backed up once a week to the drive “500GiG”. Also, about once a month I copy the latest photo folders to DVDs as well. That way if I have a real disaster (2 drives dying….nearly impossible, but it could happen) I can always restore from my DVDs.
3. The Mac Hard Drive: I have backed up my entire Macintosh hard drive to the external drive “500GiG”. Once a month I back it up again, that way any new files that have been added will also show up on my backup. All of my personal documents, financial stuff, etc., get caught in this backup.

There’s my personal backup plan. In most cases, I copy incrementally to DVD. But mostly I use external hard drives to store backups. Having backups in more than one place is useful. Backing up to DVD is more of a pain, which is why I do it only when I’ve added enough data to make it worth my time. Backing up to the external hard drive is simple and easy. Copy from your main drive and paste to the backup drive. Done.

I thought there were backup programs out there…..more complex, right?

Yes, there are many backup programs out there. And you can get more complex. But let’s tone it down for a moment. All you really want to do is copy your important stuff from one cabinet to another. That’s all….breathe….there you go!

So, what’s up with backup software? Why the big deal? Why do people get paid tens of thousands of dollars to create complex backup plans for big companies??? Oh, I’m going to hyperventilate….

Backup programs can help make life easier. I use one. I know, I just told you copy and paste, that simple. Backup programs do the same thing. You tell them what to copy, and where to paste it. The nice thing about them is they can then do it automatically for you going forward.

My LaCie external drive came with a wonderful program called Silver Keeper. The program asks me what I want to backup (copy), and where I want to back it up to (paste). It then asks me when I want to do it. Once a week. Once a month. Daily? Only when I tell it to…..etc.

Look at the last screen shot. Pretty simple. On the left side I selected what I want to backup. I wanted to backup my music. On the right side I told it where to back up. The drive “500Gig” and into a folder called “Music”. Not so hard, right? The program does a few cool things though. Instead of recopying everything it checks to see what’s already in the backup, and what’s new. It only copies the new stuff, never touching the original stuff. All that does is save me time.

So, I could copy and paste entire folders every week, every day, every hour. Or I could let a simple backup program do it for me. By the way, all the external drives out there come with one form or other of backup software. For me, Silver Keeper meets my needs, and it’s not complex. Without it I’d simply copy and paste files, but that’s just me.

Wrapping up    

That’s about it for backing up.  Copy from one place, paste to another.  Basically, document copies in 2 file cabinets.  Not too hard.

If you want to see it in action, let me know.  Leave a comment.  I’d be happy to do a video podcast or two on backing up.  If I do it I’ll post it over at the Digital RV Podcast site.  :)  Be specific in your request on podcasts, as I don’t want to go too generic if I do them.

What’s your bottom line?  Here’s what you need to do before you run off to make your backups.

1. Determine what things you want to backup.
2. Once you’ve picked the files and folders you want to backup, find out how much space they take (right click in Windows and select properties…the file / folder size will be displayed….similar for Mac, but select Get Info instead of properties).  Total up your required backup space.
3. Select the best storage media (file cabinet) for your needs.  If you have under 8 GB of stuff to backup, a flash drive, DVD, or CD might work for you.  If you need to backup more, check out an external hard drive at your local computer shop.  Externals are cheap, run mostly on USB 2.0 connections (almost all new computers have USB connectors), and for under $200 you could backup your entire computer easily.

***Note:  If you do an external hard drive, I recommend LaCie’s drives and Western Digital’s “MyBook”.   I’m using both products, and I’ve had great success with each.

Another day where my stomach is working against me.  I’ve been having quite a few of these lately, and I’d hoped yesterday for improvement.  What can I say.  When you can’t sleep at night you know your stomach is in an uproar.

So, what to do with yourself on such days?  A little resting, hitting the Zantac and Mylanta, a movie, and some light reading.

Uh oh, what’s the latest reading?  More photo stuff…..geesh, of course…… (roll eyes here).

I’ve been toying with more flash work lately.  Sunsets with a well lit subject that doesn’t overpower the rest of the shot.  Nothing to share yet.  I’m still working on it.

Also, I’ve started playing with HDR images.  HDR stands for High Dynamic range.  It’s an interesting concept that I haven’t mastered yet by any means.  But I’ve started playing with the concepts.  Today’s photos are first attempts with HDR.  I need some better subjects, more expansive shots, etc.  Since I’m laying low though I work with what I’ve got.

Want to see what super successful HDR images look like?  Check out Ben Willmore’s web site!  Be ready to be stunned!

Ah, a day of rest and little else.  I’m still catching up on rest you know.  My reaction to food last week took a while to get over, and just being at rest afterward seems to be my best course.

I did take a few minutes to walk out into the Dells at sunset.  It’s nice to have the rock formations right in my back yard.  Just don’t have to go far at all.

Sadira popped by to take a few more sunset photos, and I got a few shots of her as well.  Silhouettes are always fun!