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How to Backup your (digital) Life

cspiegl — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:00:06 +0000

Just recently a someone who just found about my homepage via his daughter, asked me a question about how to backup pictures and other data nowadays. The question mainly was what to use: DVD? CD? HDD? Online? Or something completely different?

If you have the need — and I think that is one absolute must — to save your data in case something bad happens it is a combination of all the different systems (redundancy).

DVD and CD

I think that is one old method which should not be used because the safety provided by DVD’s and CD’s is not that great. You need to store them somewhere not to hot and not in sunlight in addition to that many other cases can cause harm to the data. In the end it is just a redundant method (to save your data a second time if you really feel the need to).

HDD — Hard-Drives

I would say that is most common nowadays. Hard-Drives are very cheap and come with many many GB / TB to store your files at. If you are lucky enough to own a Mac with OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard you also have the program TimeMachine.app which makes backing up your Mac and other external drives work like a charm. For Windows I would need to search something simple to use but I am sure there is something (maybe not as simple and shiny as TimeMachine.app.

Online Backup

There is a problem with online backup. Right, it has become very cheap nowadays and it also is save because you give the files to experts who do nothing else. They developed a system — and hopefully go on developing it — to store files safely and redundant. The problem with online backups is that you give your data to someone who you do not know. With some family pictures that may not be a big deal but for business it may be. I would say that most of the companies who provide that kind of online backup like for example CrashPlan.com should be trust worthy but you never know.

What I Use

First of I use a 1000 GB external HDD to backup my MacBook via TimeMachine.app. Also I have several external drives to mirror some data and to store some data externally. First there is one 60GB 1.8″ external HDD which I use as an mirror of important data to carry around. Secondly there is one 250GB 2.5″ external HDD which is used to save some data I do not need all the time on my MacBook (for example downloaded programs, movies and other purchases I do not need available all the time). Third there are two 3.5″ HDD one 300GB and one 160GB to again mirror some of my files (not the system and not on a regular basis but the important stuff on occasion. As an addition I use DropBox (free) for crucial files (mostly documents and some creative work). Also I just started to use CrashPlan.com about one month ago (the trial is near to its end) and am pretty happy with it. I seriously think about purchasing that service cause it makes it easy to backup (you do not even notice it) and are save to go.

And last but not least, I still use DVD/CD as a backup system but just in one particular case: client project is done => the data is burned to hand it — mostly in DVD/CD format — to the client and a copy of that is stored on DVD/CD in my archive (still the data is stored on my HDD’s but just in case).

Conclusion

In the end it depends on your needs and your wallet. If you travel all the time you may not be that well with online backup but still I would say you should backup some things online (important documents and works). But if you are at one place (like most of us) you can run a combination of the things named above. For example TimeMachine.app to an HDD plus online backup to CrashPlan or some other place. I think than you are pretty save that nothing happens and if something happens, at least you have your files on hand than.

Posted at CSPIEGL.com - My life at the Cloud, what I learn and what I do
How to Backup your (digital) Life

LSC: Possibilities of Change

cspiegl — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:00:17 +0000

Forth post of the series about my a life-style change.

The problem is identified — it is manly the time spend procrastinating and the time spend online or in front of my MacBooks screen. But how can that be changed? I have some different approaches to get this done.

Projects

Smaller Projects: One thing I do as a passion is to start projects. Many of which need way to much time and do not prove to be as great ideas in the end. One thing I think can be done is to focus the project passion on projects which are finishable in a few weeks and do not need 24/7 attention!

Not to many projects at a time: One more thing about my project passion is that I like to start different projects at the same time. Mostly the reason is because I have a new ideas for a project while working on an other one — so it is kinda the same problem. If a project is finished fast, I can start a new project fast.

Finishing Projects: One more thing about the project passion is that a long term project does not end and it seems like a never ending story. So finish the projects. Get them done and of your list.

Focus on Projects which are worth it: The best about this one is that the amount of projects decreases rapidly if you just think about the worth of a project. Many times it is a great idea but if you think about it for a bit longer you come to the conclusion that you either can not do it because you do not have the abilities or you find out that someone else already did the very same thing.

School Life

It should be the most important right now to finish school. And that is also the main reason why I keep thinking about the topic of the life-style-change. I need to study and the how is the question. Focus on school projects rather than on other-projects. If I still want to do a project, I should just focus on school-related projects

Conclusion

I still need to get on focus. I still need to stop much procrastination — right now my main procrastination is to research stuff to buy someday, which feels like making me happy but in the end I end up not buying anything so the research is not worth it.

These are some points were I would like to change something for the better and to focus my time on. The next post will be what I changed till now (since september 2009).

Posted at CSPIEGL.com - My life at the Cloud, what I learn and what I do
LSC: Possibilities of Change

BYE-BYE, FACEBOOK: What I Think

cspiegl — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:00:40 +0000

Some days ago a big weekly-paper-newspaper here in Germany called “DIE ZEIT — ZEIT MAGAZIN” wrote one headline which forced me to read the article: “BYE-BYE, FACEBOOK — DIE ERSTEN AUSSTEIGER HABEN DIE AERA DER SOZIALEN NETZWERKE HINTER SICH” (eng: BYE-BYE, FACEBOOK — THE FIRST DROPOUTS HAVE LEFT THE ERA OF SOCIAL NETWORKS BEHIND”. One thought which immediately came to my mind was that I already wrote about my dropout from some social-networks over half a year ago in a post called Why I left many Social-Networks.

Now the topic is up again. I question some things:

Do we need social-networks and if how many?
Do we use social-networks they are supposed to be used?
How is a social-network intended to be used?
Are people not organized in a social-network happier?
Why do we not use just email to communicate (if it needs to be electronical)?
Why do they help some people in some situations?

That are many questions and I am not going to answer them because I think everybody needs to answer them for him or her self. I just try to describe my thoughts:

I think we need social-networks. But many of them are not very useful to me. They need to much time to maintain and they are often overloaded with mysterious apps which send annoying status-updates to all friends who do not care what you job may be (found out by some kind of crapy quiz!). I think they are great to stay in contact with friends far away. Or to get status updates about friends overseas. I do not have a chance to see these people but I would like to know something about them, take part in their lives and see what they are doing. But I do not want to know useless stuff.

I think a social-network should be in some ways other than the most are now. I think they should solve problems and not to create problems!

Some ideas are:

No gadgets / useless apps inside a social-network
Messages send in the network should just show up as a new email just like it was sent to me directly (not over a network). This way the communication focus is set to the email which is much less time consuming because everybody registered in a social-network also needs a email account just to register so he can use it for the messaging (which email is intended to be fore)!
Just data about the friends, links to other web activities, one / two pictures (photo sharing sites are enough out there)
The ability to subscrib to status messages via RSS and that way you do not need to find the last message you read and than read, instead you can just read the new items. Alternative: a unread count for status updates but one that does not need that you click at each message to mark it as read!

That are some thoughts about social-networks and how they could be improved! I still sink about leaving some of the networks I am currently registered to (Facebook, MySpace, Deviantart, Flickr, Twitter to name a few). But I think I will stay there but I think I will change my settings and ‘about informations’ that everybody who searches me there will see that I am not really active and that everybody who wants to tell me something should send me an email instead of a message inside the network. But some others I will use active cause I think they do something right: especially Twitter and Flickr.

I would like to hear thoughts if you have read this article! Please let me know what you think about social-networks and maybe the way you think they should change / be.

CSPIEGL.com - My life at the Cloud, what I learn and what I do

BYE-BYE, FACEBOOK: What I Think

LSC: Where is the Problem about my Lifestyle

cspiegl — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:00:16 +0000

Third post of the series about my a life-style change.

What is an alternative Lifestyle? Maybe I need to get rid of the ‘all and everything online’ thoughts? Maybe the whole internet is not that great as it seems to be? Maybe I need to search for a new profession, which I can make a living of in the future? What are the alternatives?

I would say that one alternative would be just finishing school, not thinking about other things than school and doing that one thing — school — the best possible. But there are two aspect why that is not possible for me. One is the fact, that all I do on the side is my passion which I trained over the past year — and years — and I do not want to through all that effort into the trash. I am serious that it needs to be possible that I can dig my own whole. The second is the problem with my mind, that I have to many ideas which I would like to work on ideally all at once. Ideas to change something. Ideas for a new Service or Product. Ideas about our earth, globalization, climatic changes and ideas about every thing else what happens around me.

That being sad, I am not able to just switch focus to not do what I currently want. But I need to specify what I want, need to watch out to not do the wrong thing, need to learn something about my projects and in the end should be able to adapt some habits of other peoples lifestyle.

All that could also be refereed to as GTD — Getting Things Done — but in a slightly other view than the normal GTD which I see as focused on the ‘work needs to get finished’. My view is the aspect of life time needs to get scheduled.

These are the ideas about what are the problems, what I could do. Next will be about the ideas how I can realize this.

Posted at CSPIEGL.com - My life at the Cloud, what I learn and what I do
LSC: Where is the Problem about my Lifestyle

LSC: My Style of Life

cspiegl — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:00:16 +0000

Second post of the series about my a life-style change.

Some weeks ago, I have had a life style which I considered a bad work life balance. Most of the time I spend in front of my MacBook either sorting or editing pictures, coding some websites or writing stuff plus — worst — way to much procrastination — for example Twitter!

I considered that evil because I did not spend enough time on learning for school, doing sports and I did not spend enough time with friends!

First to the learning: I need to spend more time on learning this year. This year I attend 12th grade of a so called ‘BerufsOberschule’ (eng: College of Further Education) which will give me the right to study at a College (in Germany a ‘Fachhochschule’). But that kind of school is just a 3rd of a year long and I consider it hard to finish with great marks — to add: I attended a spanish foundation course as well. So I need to concentrate on learning to get of that school with a great examination!

Second about the Friends: Friends are crucial for everybody. I had just a few of which I really was able to talk to over the past years but that has changed now. I am happy about having people / friends around me. But sometimes I would like to spend some more time with them.

One last fact is sport: I would like to do more sport. Not just for my body but also for my mind. I would like to get more fresh air and to build some muscle power. All that can just be done by investing some time into it which I need to cut somewhere else.

These three things and some others are the main reasons for me writing this series. I have thought about my style-of-life a lot lately and that way I reconsider my style very often. The things I consider worth fighting for as well as the things I need to stop doing, reduce or the things I need to spend more time on.

Maybe it is just not possible to change everything. But hopefully it is possible to change as much as needed! I am also sure that I may do reconsider all of this very soon but for now I think this will be interesting for me to remember and share for someone who finds him self in the same situation.

This is my overview. This is the thing I would like to change. Next is the part where I see the problems.

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LSC: My Style of Life

A change in life-style: Lifet-Style-Design

cspiegl — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:00:03 +0000

What can change a live-style? What should change a live-style? What is a live-style? And if how, how should be a life-style designed?

All that are just a couple of questions I asked my self over the past month over and over again. Mostly inspired by great movies or books like ‘My Blueberry Nights’, ‘Into the Wild’ or ‘Seven Pounds’ — just to name a few, there are much more I watched.

I will be writing a series of posts on this topic, cause I think there is plenty to write about and that is part of the reason for me to write this down. I wrote earlier that I write this blog mainly for me to practice my english as well as for me to think about stuff and to try to express the thoughts I think which does not mean that I would not appreciate some comments.

I try to express — and maybe clear for me — the thoughts about life a little bit, even though I do not consider this series to be finished sometime near. The topic is a topic which changes over time. It changes with the situations I or you life in, with the people around me or you and every other factor which is changeable around you and me. That also means that the series may be out of date very soon — or at least some posts of it.

I try to keep everything organized and link the whole series up here to keep a point to of start.

LSC: My Style of Life (2009-10-30)
LSC: Where is the Problem about my Lifestyle (2009-11-13)
LSC: Possibilities of Change (2009-12-29)

Posted at CSPIEGL.com - My life at the Cloud, what I learn and what I do
A change in life-style: Lifet-Style-Design

Punctual Internet-Connection

cspiegl — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:00:02 +0000

I have been on vacation for 2 weeks in Greece — which have been awesome to chill out, think about some stuff and get a little skinny at the beach. But one more thing I experienced was the grace of not having a constant connection to the internet.

Normally at my desk I connect to the wifi and have internet access almost every day and all day long — excluding the connection problems my ISP sometimes has. With this punctual connection I was able to focus on things I never knew I could get so much productivity out of, like writing posts or editing pictures.

I already was pretty good at disconnecting from sources of distraction before I experienced this, by closing instant messaging, twitter and mail clients but this need to walk somewhere to gain internet access made it even clearer. And it is not as easy as easy to just open the application to gain access but you need to walk somewhere and spend the time compressed, get back and again have no internet.

I do not call not having a constant internet connection good. I think it really is needed sometimes — like with web-development I almost every time use forums or other sources to get information about how to get rid of a problem — but it really is unnecessary other times.

I think I will try to clear my mind about this and maybe I will start to disconnect my macbook completely from the wifi in the future if I need to get some — no internet required — work done.

Posted at CSPIEGL.com - My life at the Cloud, what I learn and what I do
Punctual Internet-Connection

Paperfree Office? Why and How?

cspiegl — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:00:16 +0000

Is it possible to manage work without paper? I would like to say it is but for me it is not. At least not with the equipment and budget I own. A scanner is available but the one I own does not scan both sides of a document — and that would be crucial for me! Mac.AppStorm describes one possibility of a paper free office which sounds awesome and I would love it.

Even though, sometimes paper is just easier to handle than digital files. Some things can be found much quicker. But I am on my way. Soon I will be scanning some important files so that I own a digital backup of my certifications and other things of importance!

One fact is that it is easier for travel! And thats the time I think it really becomes crucial for me!

Posted at CSPIEGL.com - My life at the Cloud, what I learn and what I do
Paperfree Office? Why and How?

Reading, Educating and using Spare-Time

cspiegl — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:00:42 +0000

I have a problem. The past weeks I was pretty busy but I had topics to write about. Now that has changed. I have lots of time — even though I need to get many things organized and done — cause I have no school any more till the 15th of September.

Now what to do with so much spare time? Well at first I have to say that it is not just spare time. I have some work to do plus getting things done which I was not able to get finalized in the past weeks. But still there are loots of moments I think about what I want to do with the next weeks.

One of the things I started doing, is to read books. I never read much — maybe I should use ‘many’ cause I can count my read books at about two hands — but that changed about one and a half week ago since when I started to read The 4 hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. That book — plus some other factors which massed up over the past month — inspired me to read more, teach my self other things besides that tech stuff and maybe head into an other direction with what I want to do in the future.

I am nearly finished with that book and have a couple more to read and hope that I am going to remember as much as possible, so that I can use that stuff in my life and enhance my personality and getting better organized.

For now, I just can refer the 4 hour Work Week to you. It is an awesome book teaching you how to get more stuff done, better organized, more free time and maybe even how to get a little — or much — richer. For me I just hope that I can someday do great in this world and that book already taught me some very important things, now I just need to get used to them!

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Reading, Educating and using Spare-Time

RSS feeds to delete if you need to get stuff done?

cspiegl — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:00:38 +0000

One short answer — for sure! I think that RSS is a great thing and when I heard from it first, it was a time saver for me! At the time — something like end 2006 — I was reading some sites regularly but not via RSS but instead via going to each of the sites and watching the news which arrived while I was not there.

That was in the past. After I got used to RSS and RSS-Readers, I was able to save about 3/4 of an hour — per day! That has changed! Now I spend about 1 hour per day skimming through my RSS Reader and saving long reads for later which take some more time to read! That — in fact — is exactly the opposite of what RSS was for me in the first place. Now it costs more time than before!

And that is what, why I thought about how to save time reading less but staying at the top of the news. And I found a way — which looks like it will work for me:

First of, I look through my RSS Subscriptions from time to time, searching ‘dead’ once and looking at each feed skimming through the headlines, looking if I found the posts interesting enough to read or if I just noticed that there was a new post but did not read it because I was not interested. After that, I — most of the time — have 10 subscriptions less and that is an great improvement in saved time per day.

The second thing I changed was the way I read. At first I wanted to read long posts the minute they arrive. That was an wrong attempt. Now I save longer posts to read them later when I have time. That can be 2 weeks later or just 2 days but either way, it is better than reading it if I need to get other stuff done — and longer posts most of the time have no reference to actual happenings.

The third thing is that I check my RSS in batch. I now more start NetNewsWire at computer startup rather than checking about twice a day — mostly short after I started to work and than short before I go to bed. Sometimes — if I have nothing else to get done — I tend to jump into the RSS reader to get time down, which I need to stop cause there is never nothing else to get done!

One more thing about which RSS subscriptions I deleted when I was under pressure. While I was at preparation for my final exams, I unsubscribed from blogs like NETTUTS, PSDTUTS and other tutorial blogs. If you not currently trying to actually do the things, you should not follow that blogs. I use these sites but not that regularly that I need to get each and every post right into my head. I use them if I have a problem to solve, than these sites are the go to resources to get tutorials.

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RSS feeds to delete if you need to get stuff done?