Category: Technology

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It’s a good day!

Aside from the pain in the ass nature of losing data on my server. One of my major worries was that I was also going to lose a ton of original photos.

In general I don’t ever erase or overwrite an SD card from my camera. Instead I treat the card like film negatives and just store them away.

But… And this is a BIG but, I didn’t always do that. It wasn’t until almost a year after the house fire (Where I lost everything) that I realized SD cards where actually pretty cheap and that I should just store them like negatives. During that period, I took a lot of photos and some of those were published, others made up part of my portfolio.

With the data crash I was pretty sure that I’d lost a ton of the pictures in that category.

This morning, I plugged in a portable hard drive and started browsing the data it contained. There was a folder labeled “Pictures”. Innocuous, unassuming…. AND it was a full backup of the my photo library!

There was singing and dancing over my morning coffee.

Another folder was called “Creative Writing” it contained all the writing I’d done through March 2011. So I’m a happy camper today. Yes there was some information that was lost but it appears that two of the areas I was really bummed out about… I had backed up.

I even found scans of receipts, and paystub information covering the last 4 years.

I guess sometimes being a compulsive asshole is a good thing!

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Well I was worried about space…

I’ve reconciled myself to the loss of almost 6TB of data.

I’d been kinda worried that the drive was 80% full and was wondering what I was going to have to do to address that situation.

Should I buy another Array? Should I start dumping and backing up the stuff on this array that didn’t need to be out there?

Fate it seems had a far more direct solution.

After formatting and checking each drive preforming a variety of diagnostics and surface scans, some of them taking as long as 20 hours. The drive checks out fine. There is no explanation for the failure other than some act of the cyber gods.

So I’m waiting on the final check and then I’ll have a brand new clean drive to begin filling again. This time, I’m going to be a little less cavalier with the data and make sure that I have a better backup scheme.

On the negative side, I lost a lot of data. On the positive side I saved myself a lot of money. I’m not sure exactly how balanced the equation is. Since I’d gotten in the habit of scanning financial records and then shredding them. Most of that information was lost.

I’m also suspecting that I lost a lot of photos. I’m going to wait until the drive is done with it’s last check then start searching for the original files.

Lesson learned.

I think the CD/DVDRAM burner is going to be a busy little camper over the next few weeks.

Word of advice… have a couple of backups of your data. You’ll be glad you did.

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Mergerus Interruptus

I was reading this article about the AT&T, T-Mobile mess.

It turns out the T-Mobile is shedding customers on worries ABOUT the merger!

I can’t blame the customers.

If you’re trying to escape the tyranny of AT&T you’re not likely to sign a contract with T-Mobile until you know the outcome of the merger hearings. That leaves you as a customer heading to Sprint or Verizon.

Of course this means that all AT&T has to do to eliminate their competitors is threaten to merge with them.

This does not set a good precedent, there has to be a better system. Rampant mergers and acquisitions have demonstrated time and time again that the customers interests are a very very distant concern.

It’s exactly this kind of think that has sparked the Protests on Wall Street and in cities across the nation.

I’m all for capitalism. However, I’m beginning to wonder if we’ve slipped too far for simple legislation. The corruption goes too deep and reaches from the lowest echelons to the highest offices in the land.  So much is about greed, power, and “I’m going to get mine regardless of who it screws.”

The question is… is there any way to prevent monopolies without destroying capitalism and entrepreneurial spirit?  What’s it going to take for the American People to say stop?

A more interesting question is after we say stop!  How far are we as a people willing to go to enforce our will?

If you’ve been wrestling with these questions, you’re not alone.