The Hopp Stop

I just posted a Gizmodo review of an onsite/offsite backup solution to my del.icio.us bookmarks (should show up in tomorrow morning’s daily links) and posted a little blurb alongside the link about my plans for offsite backup. Del.icio.us limits your character count when posting a link, so I’ll go into more detail here.

Onsite backup is what most people think of for backup, and it is the first step in making sure your data is protected. However, offsite backup is also important in case of fire, theft or other catastrophe that wipes out your local backups. There are a number of options for offsite backup, depending on the amount of data at issue. I posted in December about CrashPlan and Mozy, two leading options. Take a look at that link for an overview.

I currently use CrashPlan on my MacBook to back up that computer up to my Mac Pro desktop. So long as both computers are awake and online, the MacBook automatically backs up to the Mac Pro. I also have a Mozy monthly subscription to back up certain files on my Mac Pro, such as digital photos. The problem with Mozy is that restoring backups solely over the Web will take forever, so I haven’t extended the backup to include, say, my 300GB iTunes library (lots of music and movies).

I’m now planning to buy a Drobo storage appliance and use it in conjunction with CrashPlan to back up my Mac Pro offsite. Drobo is basically a multi-bay USB storage device that lets you add up to 4 drives at a time and replace drives when broken or more storage is needed, while handling all drive formatting, configuration, etc. automatically. The user doesn’t have to worry about anything. It’s a RAID array without any tech headaches for the user. A RAID array is the only way I’m going to get enough storage capacity to back up my main Mac Pro hard drive (1 terabyte) and the iTunes volume (750GB). CrashPlan + Drobo + work computer means I’ll have offsite backups under my control and able to be directly connected if restores are needed.

Borders started an interesting e-mail thread on the recent Costas Now show on blogs v. the mainstream media (MSM). DeadSpin.com has the video up here. Short story: Costas and sports book author Buzz Bissinger (“Friday Night Lights” among others) HATE bloggers and assume that blogs exist only to provide vitriol and snark in a glib fashion, with no value add compared to the MSM. I don’t agree. Trying to put sports blogs in a box and assign one label to them is like trying to do that with hedge funds. They come in all kinds, serve many different audiences and some don’t even have audiences. I get more value from the blogs I read than from Sports Illustrated, ESPN the Mag, NY Times, Detroit Free Press, etc. I’d rather keep the blogs and give up reading MSM. So here’s a listing of my favorite blogs.

• MGoBlog. My mainstay for Michigan (U. of) sports news, esp. for football.
• Sunday Morning Quarterback. Great, serious college football site.
• Every Day Should Be Saturday. Hilarious college football blog. Maintains the Fulmer Cup in the offseason, which tracks the criminal infractions of college football programs. I think Missouri is currently leading. Here’s a recent post covering headbutts. I learned from EDSBS that an Oregon player was arrested last year for stealing livestock to have sex with it. Love it.
• Detroit Tigers Weblog. Provides pitchFX analysis of Tigers pitchers and minor league reports, as well as a reasoned take on Tigers’ happenings.
• Detroit Bad Boys, a Pistons blog.
• Baseball Prospectus feed 1 and feed 2. Great stats-focused baseball site. Not sure if this is a blog, but the lines are blurred. Some Baseball Prospectus stories are premium, requiring a membership.
• Buster Olney’s blog at ESPN.com, part of their Insider feature. Hmm, Buster Olney was the Yankees beat writer at the NY Times and wrote a real book published in hardcover format. Crazy Buzz B., where does Buster fit into your world view?
• Rob Neyer’s blog at ESPN.com Insider.
• Hardball Times. Another baseball site. Similar focus to Baseball Prospectus.
• James Mirtle’s hockey blog. He’s the hockey guy at the Toronto Globe & Mail paper.
• TrueHoop blog, which Borders reads. Henry Abbott aggregates a lot of links and provides some insight. I learned about the fascinating William Wesley here.

Walt Mossberg put out his twice-yearly computer buying guide this week. (Link is here, but likely to be pay-only because Wall Street Journal.) It’s a solid overview for the consumer, but for the fact that he limits his mention of the virtualization options available for the Mac to one short sentence. Here’s the relevant paragraph:

“Windows vs. Mac: This is the eternal question. In my view, Apple’s Leopard operating system is faster, better and far less prone to malicious software than Microsoft’s Vista operating system. And the Mac laptops also come with better built-in software. The $1,099 MacBook is a solid, fairly priced machine, and the $1,999 MacBook Pro is even better. Both also can run Windows.”

Obviously, Walt faces space constraints, but if I were to write the overview, I’d make clear the point that you should get a Mac unless you find a Windows PC with better hardware specs for the price (somewhat unlikely because Macs are now pretty good values), or a unique hardware profile that you can’t get on a Mac (such as that new small ThinkPad or a super-cheapie machine), AND that hardware advantage and/or difference outweighs the advantages of Mac OS X over Windows Vista (acknowledged by Mossberg in his story, but likely to be a subjective call for many longtime Windows users).

With a Mac, you can have it both ways, so in my view the default purchase position should be: “I’m going to get a Mac. Do I need to install Windows on there as well? Is there a reason I should get a Windows machine instead?” One little sentence from Mossberg doesn’t communicate that very well.

On Friday, I purchased a hiking-focused GPS handheld, Garmin’s top-of-the line Colorado 400t, and evaluated it on Saturday during our hike at Pinnacles National Mount. Verdict: I’m returning it. I was disappointed in the Colorado’s inability to replace paper maps, as the device only had a limited number of trails shown on its topographical maps, with poor labeling of the trails that are on the device. Also, the battery life was total crap (died after 4 hours on brand-new batteries), although I downloaded a firmware update when I got home that supposedly addresses that issue, among others. The screen was a letdown–it was very difficult to show a map to my fellow hikers, as the viewable angle in sunlight is limited.

On Sunday, I connected it to my computer to see if there was some useful software that would let me download trail routes to the GPS device and log my trips. Both the Garmin software and software from a third party affiliated with Backpacker magazine are Windows only (which I got around by using my VMWare Fusion program that lets me run Windows XP on my Macs) and are pretty crappy.

The Colorado does offer some utility. It shows you exactly where you are, which you can use in conjunction with paper maps to figure out a route. It tracks how far you’ve hiked and the elevation you’ve gone, good for those that like to track stats on a hike (although if you’re going on an established hike, you can just check your guidebook for that). You can place waypoint markers at points along your route, such as where you saw a California condor (yep, saw one on Saturday, very cool to see and a very, very ugly bird–no hair on its head). And you can use it for geocaching, a GPS-linked treasure hunt for adults. But I don’t geocache. And the other features aren’t compelling enough to make me buy a $300 device. Given that the Colorado costs $600, goodbye.

I’ve recently mentioned some online backup solutions to a couple friends. One is CrashPlan. The quick summary is that it is an online backup solution that uses a software program on your Mac or PC to back up to any combination of the CrashPlan server (monthly storage charge associated), another of your computers (e.g., you could back up your personal computer to your work computer and vice versa) or a friend’s computer. Key advantages over other backup solutions (the average one being an external USB drive) are 1) you have the advantage of offsite storage, so a fire wouldn’t wipe out your onsite backup, and 2) assuming you can put the backed-up computer and backup destination computer on the same network when restoring, you could restore files many times faster than over the Internet.

I had a few questions on the software, as my 30 day trial is coming to an end, so I e-mailed their support e-mail on Wednesday morning and got a reply back within a couple hours. Scan below if you want to learn a few nuances. My summary: I decided to buy the $20 version rather than the $60, as features of $60 aren’t that compelling, you can upgrade later for $40 and you need a license for each computer you are backing up (but no license needed for a computer serving as backup destination). Second summary point: Ideally you could back up to a USB drive connected to a remote computer and then just connect that to the computer you are restoring files to make the process even faster than over a LAN. The software doesn’t yet support that feature, but an update with it should be released shortly.

I’ve also used Mozy, a purely online backup solution that costs a flat $5/month per computer, regardless of how much you are backing up (a big advantage over other online services, which charge by the gigabyte). Mozy is a nice fail-safe, but restoring 200GB over the web would take forever, so not as appealing as a good CrashPlan setup.

——– Original Message ——–

Hi Michael,

Comments below.
On Dec 12, 2007, at 1:35 PM, Michael Hopp wrote:

One thing that’s potentially appealing to me about CrashPlan v. Mozy or other remote-only backup solutions is that it looks like you can back up to a computer that you have access to physically, such as your computer at work, so that if you need to restore, it can be done locally to go much faster (rather than dealing with web download speeds).

Exactly!

I assume you can do so over a LAN just by putting both computers on the same network, but can you also do so by connecting an external drive containing the backup to the machine to be restored?

Yes! Just need another week or so. It’s done here, we’re testing. For now, LAN only.

My guess is that’s a no, given that a future To Do on the main support page is “Local restore from a USB drive that was once remote.” What’s the time frame for adding that feature? Without it, some of the differentiators v. Mozy et al are diminished and the product is less appealing.

Oh c’mon now.. restoring over 1Gbit/ethernet is still pretty darn appealing compared to internet at 500mbit at best.. Trust me, my laptop was stolen, it was a God send!

But I agree 100%. I’m just making a small point as someone that’s benefited.

Also, I was looking at the comparison chart for CrashPlan and CrashPlan Pro and am wondering what “Continous protection” means–does Pro constantly look for changed files to be backed up, whereas regular only does at intervals?

Both products use OS to “tell us” when files change, so we don’t have to scan. PRO sends it right away (you define interval, 1 minute, every 15, etc.) Default is 15 minutes: It’s here in settings:

[image showing settings]

Mine is set to 15 minutes.

If so, what are those intervals? Also, what is the scope encompassed by free upgrades? If I get regular instead of Pro, does that mean I won’t be able to take advantage of software updates without paying again?

You’ll get bug fixes, but if we come out with a really neat new feature, you may not. That said, you can always upgrade / pay the difference later.

Finally, if I have two computers I want to back up using CrashPlan, do I have to buy 2 licenses, or just 1?

two! You must purchase one license for each computer.

Best regards,

~Matthew

Thanks,
Michael Hopp

TiVo has started enabling some sharing features on the TiVo Series 3 and HD models. I’m waiting for the software update to come through on my Series 3. Once it does, I will confirm whether I can transfer programs to my Mac for archiving and viewing. See PVR Blog story here for an overview.

So far, I can see the programs on my TiVo using TiVo Decode Manager, but can’t copy them (presumably because I need the latest software upgrade). If I can copy the video files and save them as the raw MPEG-2 files for later compression to iPhone/etc. format, that will be very, very cool. E.g., archive an HD version of all Michigan football games. I’ll keep you updated, but this could be a major arrow in the quiver for TiVo compared to Comcast/etc. if the functionality works as described by PVR Blog.

Also, I have had Leopard installed on my two Macs since Saturday. So far, I’m enjoying the upgrade. Some enhanced functionality with Spaces, much-improved Finder, and the new sharing features (remote access and .Mac, especially) are very welcome. On the debit side, I ran into the boot blue screen issue with my MacBook (as linked to today in my daily links) but was able to resolve. More importantly, I haven’t been able to take advantage of Apple Mail’s new functionality, because it crashes EVERY TIME I open it within 5 minutes of being open. Not sure whether it is something to do with one of my e-mail accounts or maybe a residual hack from before, but I have to use Thunderbird until Apple releases an update to Mail.

Time Machine is probably the best feature for the average Mac user who doesn’t back up regularly for a variety of reasons. Although I already back up once a week using SuperDuper!, Time Machine has the advantage of integration with the OS and hourly back-ups, so there is some benefit for me. I’ve got my mom and sister set up with SuperDuper! on their Macs (bought them each a program license and an external hard drive over the last couple years), but I worry that if something goes wrong with their backup setups while I’m away from Michigan, they’ll be “naked” during that time. The screen sharing feature of Leopard will allow me to control their Macs remotely and confirm that everything is set up properly, whether via SuperDuper! or Time Machine.

Final note for the post: I used iFuntastic on Saturday to try to upgrade my jailbroken iPhone (meaning that I can install 3rd-party apps) from the old software version to the latest to add a little functionality while retaining the jailbroken status. I won’t link to iFuntastic because the damn thing didn’t work. I wound up with an iPhone that functioned fine but was no longer jailbroken. Argh. Luckily, the iPhone community released a slick hack method last night: just visit jailbreakme.com from your up-to-date iPhone’s web browser and follow the directions. Next thing you know, you have 3rd-party apps back on your iPhone. Good stuff.

I used the voice recorder app on Friday night to record the crazy cabbie that drove Vanessa and I home. This was by far the craziest cabbie I’ve ever had. Here’s a link to a ZIP of the audio file, which should play in RealPlayer or Quicktime: crazy-cabbie-1.zip Who’s the baddest motherfucker in this cab! By the way, the profanity from our cabbie at around the 3 minute mark is when he was turning right on 15th at Valencia and almost hit a biker going by him. Here’s the other audio file that I was able to grab (major bummer that I missed his initial diatribe about Schwarzenegger requiring that every woman in California wear a bunny suit, every day, and various off-color comments about how conservatively every woman dresses nowadays compared to the early ’80s): crazy-cabbie-2.zip