Topic Tuesday #78 2014/01/14 - "Factory Reset"

Topic Tuesday #78 2014/01/14 - "Factory Reset"

I try to keep things as topical as possible and usually try to impart some bit of knowledge to discuss the merits of, but today is not really a great day for that. My cell phone, aka communication lifeline to the world at large, ceased to have internet access for many hours today. I don't even really know what the error was, beyond failing to connect to the data network properly. In my search for answers I came to a conclusion that I would simply have to invoke the "Factory Reset" option. I am reminded of Carl Sagan who brought to the table how we live in a world that is increasingly dependent on technology to function and yet, as a people have become ignorant of how it all works.

All I really know at this point is I will have to chack last pass for all my login information and am thankful for high speed internet and Google keeping track of what is installed on my devices and keeping that part of the process a breeze to reload.
SO- HOMEWORK!
Go take something apart, and try to put it back together.

Topic Tuesday #34 2013/03/12 - "Going Paperless"

Topic Tuesday #34 2013/03/12 - "Going Paperless"

The modern information age has presented a few problems our forebearers did not consider.
In a day (24 hour period):
If you read the newspapers you see around 30 headlines, with the attributing article.
If you then use the internet for news, you are likely to pass by over 300 news articles, with various links to other articles and source material and pictures and media and blah blah blah. 

Carry on to email and search and other various tasks; on average somewhere around 200 web pages will be encountered.
With all this, daily we encounter roughly 500,000 words. To put that in context; Leo Tulstoys's 'War & Peace' was only 460,000 words.
So we have a plethora of information at our fingertips and clouding our minds, our inboxes, and our desks.

What do we do with all this? How can we manage all this information?
The simplest way is filters. A way to index and search for what you want out of all your sources. The problem with this is that we can't index paper by much more than some basic keywords, like author, subject, date, etc. The full text remains hidden to us. Solution: Going paperless.

How do we do that?
It's a good question and one that is still very much in debate. I have seen in my daily work that most "paperless offices" actually generate MORE paper than they did before they were paperless. Doesn't make much sense, until you add the human quality of mistrust of new technology into the mix. In a few more years, the hard copies will start to become less and less. Until such time, they do have the advantage, at the end of the day, of being able to search all those papers virtually.

What does it take?
The Source Material, An imaging unit to make the source digital, A place to store the files it creates, A way to recognize the text and make it searchable and editable, Time, Effort, and An organizational plan.

You have the stuff you want to scan, that's easy to identify. Now what?
What will you use to make an image?
I have taken pictures with my phone, used a flatbed scanner, a digital copier, and sadly, hand transcription back into a document. Once you have the image then you need a program to turn the print into editable and searchable text. This is called OCR (Optical Character Recognition). Most scanners will come with one that will perform this task, like Abby Finereader. Some are better than others; you have been warned. Many also come with document management software, like PaperPort. Others will have complete package solutions that you will either love or hate, like NeatDesk. You need to be cognisant that you will be living with the imaging solutions for years to come. Many scanners outlive their computer counterparts by a decade. I recommend you select a manufacturer that has a good track record for updating drivers quickly and not abandoning products. Read the reviews. Think ahead. Think of what you would like to have the ability to do.

That said, I have some more genealogy documents to get scanned, and I'm going to buy one of these solutions and cross my fingers that the pile of papers I have, soon becomes a mass of easily indexed 1s and 0s.

What solution have you tried?

Fujitsu ScanSnap iX50

Epson WorkForce GTS50

Brother ADS2000

Xerox XDM1525-WU DocuMate 152

NeatDesk

Topic Tuesday #26 2013/01/15 - "Keeping Your Sanity & Your Files"

Topic Tuesday #26 2013/01/15 - "Keeping Your Sanity & Your Files"

About two years ago I suffered a RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) failure. This was a particularly large array, at 14TB, and I was grief stricken for quite some time. What really ate at me was that I wasn't even sure what I had lost. One might think that a blessing, but I am cursed with the unknown loss. I have grieved and moved on. I rebuilt my RAID and subsequently swore never to have such a catastrophe again. It was about this time that I was listening to one of the TWiT Podcasts, Macbreak Weekly and Alex Lindsey over at Pixel Corps was singing the praises of a Drobo disk array. That was nice and all, as Alex is known for buying the nicest and most expensive of toys, but there was a reason he was talking about backup. Photographers, in particular digital media artists, have a great deal of unique intellectual property that needs to be kept safe. Leo Laporte (of TWiT network, and of Screen Savers and Call for Help fame) mentioned the 3-2-1 backup strategy. Peter Krogh in his book The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers, came upon the notion and it goes like this:
3 – Your important files should exist in three different places. This could be your computer, your spouses computer, an external drive, a burned DVD, a remote backup, a friend’s house, whatever. Just three distinct copies of the files.
2 – Those files should be on at least two different types of media. Media can be hard drive, DVD, memory card or stick, or even original paper or film.
1 – At least one of those copies should be maintained off-site. That is away from the site of the original. Preferably in a different city or state. Think about common natural disasters. Off-site should be out of reach of those natural disasters.

Another way to look at it is, one copy of anything, might as well not exist.

FYI-Hard drive platters are made of glass.

So what do we do? Backing up is not as easy as we would like it to be. We don't want to think about it!
I took the approach of spending large amounts of money on a big expensive infrastructure of RAID drives and that still didn't help me. Anyone that backed up their data to an external hard drive and had it fail on them will feel my pain, to some degree. So I rebuilt my RAID, with better knowledge from the school of hard knocks under my belt. That takes care of some of it, since my RAID will survive drive failure.
My RAID will not survive a flood or other act of nature of vandalism or theft... So I need to have an offsite solution. In the old days we would burn copies of the important things on to optical storage (CD/DVD) or magnetic tape (DAT) and send them off to a friend or relative, safe deposit box, or secure storage facility like Iron Mountain or Recall.
Now thanks to high speed internet and cloud storage prices coming down we have more options, and new ones are popping up all the time. I looked at several, and the easiest to use is Carbonite.com. They have the simplest interface and reasonable rates, but they do not pass the Trust No One (TNO) security model. If you are not concerned with someone at the company being able to access your data for law enforcement, they are a great bet. I have many computers and wanted a more economical model to work with them. Crashplan.com has a family plan that will let you backup 10 computers for the same fee and works on Linux, Mac and PC. If you are not concerned with TNO, you can set the standard password and access your files on the go via your phones and tablets, just like Carbonite. If you are concerned, you can set a private key and then the data is encrypted before it leaves your computer, safe and sound. You can also backup to one of your other computers or a friend for free, which is a thing a beauty.
Another subscription based backup is Mozy. Mozy is cross platform, but I am not sure about its security model as I have no experience with it.
If you don't like to pay monthly for SaaS (Software as a Service), there are two that are buy once-use forever. On the Mac side there is ARQ Backup from Haystack software. On the PC side is Cloudberry. They both support Amazon S3 & Amazon's new very affordable Glacier long term storage product and are TNO compliant. They both have lots of other bells and whistles too so go check them out.
If security really is no concern, there are many more options. Google Drive, Microsoft Sky Drive, Box.com, Dropbox.com, and many more. These offer an amazing array of free and scalable storage sync option. Anything in one of their folders will go to their servers (which they have access to your files through) and whatever machines you choose to sync to. Great if you have low security things you want to work on in multiple places. Available in these services for affordable prices are things like undelete, multiple file versioning, and in the case of Google drive; simultaneous collaborative editing. The cloud is powerful, just watch your butt on the security you give up for all the cool features.

Bottom line, all of the services I mentioned will fix you up very well for a solid backup where your files are backed up automatically, off site and since you have a copy, and they have a copy (and a service level agreement to keep your files safe and backed up) you can consider their backup solutions for your data as part of your own. Just... Don't keep all those baby pictures on that portable drive on the edge of your desk and consider them "backed up" when the cat knocks it off onto the tile floor and it skids across the floor under the foot of someone that then trips and falls into the water cooler spilling 5 gallons of refreshing spring water all over your precious 1s and 0s. I want you to be able to buy me a beer when you remember that all of your eggs are not in that one soggy basket.

Topic Tuesday #11 2012/10/02 "Oh the Humanity?"

Topic Tuesday #11 2012/10/02 "Oh the Humanity???"

In todays world we continue to push the limits of science. What tends to follow the science - is the philosophy...
Today, I want to look at what it takes to be human.

March 2011: Enter a dying man, Craig Lewis, 55, Dying from amyloidosis. Craig had 12-24 hours to live when his wife Linda okayed an experimental procedure by two innovated doctors at the Texas Heart Institute. Dr. Billy Cohn and Dr. Bud Frazier, successfully replaced his heart with a continuous flow pump. Two venturi like pump motors served as a replacement for the failed muscle. There was a catch though; Craig no longer had a pulse. EKG was flatlined. Linda Lewis said, "I listened and it was a hum, which was amazing. He didn't have a pulse." The technology passed multiple animal trials and it certainly passed this test.

I've included the short documentary on it below.

Heart Stop Beating | Jeremiah Zagar from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo
As technology changes us, as we lose those telltale markers that we are alive, how will we adapt? Our minds are a series of electrical impulses and it's a trivial jump to reason that one day we will "backup" our consciousness, and perhaps be downloaded back into a new or greatly repaired body. How will humanity deal, with immortality? Will we still be human? With no need of an afterlife, will we need religion?

Topic Tuesday #4 2012/08/14 "Skills"

Topic Tuesday #4 2012/08/14

SKILLS. 

Do you know how to change a flat tire? Have you ever been camping? Hiking? Ever had to build your own fire?

Duct tape around a disposable lighter

For boys, there is the Boy Scouts to teach many of these skills, and they serve us well throughout life. You never know when a knot you learned for that merit badge will help out, strapping a mattress to a minivan.
For girl, there's been the girl scouts. From what I gather, the girl scouts has really slacked off over the decades in what they tea

ch our young women. My mother told me about having to jump into a lake and take her pants off, tie the legs together and inflate them to make a flotation device. That is certainly no where in sight today. PLEASE correct me if I am mistaken.
This brings me to the heart of the topic. What skills should we just know by the time we are 18 and "adults"? Are there any skills that should be taught that aren't or vice versa? Have at it!

Responses from Facebook (my wall is PUBLIC, so always remember that the world will see it.):

 

Jon Jimenez You should be taught about credit

Tuesday at 12:36pm via mobile · Unlike · 3

Selah Kat Cox not so much skills in my eyes as values... integrity and honesty would be the top two... in regards to skills i would say communication. just my humble opinion take or leave it as you will.

Tuesday at 12:46pm · Unlike · 1

Eva Gibson Girl Scouts was horrible. At least my troop was--the leaders ordered pizza on the camping trips, and nothing was said about knots or fire or anything else. All I learned was that I hated door to door cookie sales.

Tuesday at 12:51pm via mobile · Like · 1

Don Hopkinson The Boy Scouts are also great for teaching the bigotry skills so necessary in life.

Tuesday at 12:58pm · Like · 2

Andy Cowen I know Don... Churches are almost the sole sponsors of the scouts (Girl and Boy) and many of the tenants of the faith supporting them literally HAVE to be there for their continued support. For the most part, I have found them to be more beneficial for the roll they take in teaching teamwork and other important core values. Everything must be tempered, however, and temperance is something that is not taught very often.

Tuesday at 1:02pm · Like

Jon Jimenez Temperance is my answer!

Tuesday at 1:03pm via mobile · Like

Dawn Fox I never did scouts, but my dad made sure I knew basic car maintance before I could drive. I can change my own oil, do a tune up, Check and replace most of the fluids and change my own flat tire. Thanks dad. :)

Tuesday at 3:54pm via mobile · Unlike · 1

Ryan Wilhelm I think the two very basics are food/water and navigation, shelter and all that are a little easier to improvise. First suggestion from me is the book: "Hunt, Gather, Cook" by Hank Shaw. It's America-centric, but it would certainly get the thought process going so a person travelling would know to do their homework before ending up somewhere that it doesn't apply.

The second is a discourse in astronomy: knowing where the sun rises and sets, how to tell time by it, knowing how the phases of the moon relate to time, and of course knowing your basic constellations so you can find which way is north easily. "Turn Left at Orion" by Dan Davis is a good primer of the stars, the rest I'm not sure the best way to learn other than having someone walk you through it a few times.

I could give a pretty good list of what a person should and should not take with them if they are heading out in to the woods, some things might surprise (knife not really important, paracord on the other hand...)

for boy-scout type things anyway. I wasn't a scout for the record. We just liked that sort of thing. In real life I think knowing how to learn things is #1, and not being afraid to break something (and the lessons about fixing that go with) is pretty high up there too.

Tuesday at 7:03pm · Edited · Unlike · 1

Andy Cowen I was not a scout either. I just lived my days looking at how to live if I found myself stranded on a deserted isle. I was an asst scout master for a time. And I have slid down a few crags on my butt. Great advice, Ryan! I will be checking those books out soon.

Tuesday at 8:06pm via mobile · Like

Responses from Google+ (my wall is PUBLIC, so always remember that the world will see it.):

I forgot to post to Google Plus... Whoops!

Topic Tuesday #3 2012/08/07 "Sustainability: The future is at stake."

Topic Tuesday #3 2012/08/07

Sustainability: The future is at stake. 
Open your mind to the sustainability of our actions as a species.

• When we run out of oil, what will we do? 
• When we run out of coal, what will we do? 
• When we have contaminated the water, and can't drink it or eat the fish, what will we do? 
• When the air we breath is toxic and the plants (not factories) all die from the acid rain that falls though the soup, what will we do?

We are literally consuming the planet. I'm not making it up. Fossil fuels (you know from the dinosaurs that died millions of years ago) are not renewable. We can recycle some of it, but not the gasoline that is converted into toxic hydrocarbons that we pump into the atmosphere.
Now the question, given the above as a primer: 

If you were granted virtually unlimited financial resources and the best and brightest minds, what do you propose we do to ensure our species lives for the next 10,000 years and beyond?

Richard Feynman ♥

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgaw9qe7DEE

Fun To Imagine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pYRn5j7oI&feature=bf_

prev&list=PL04B3F5636096478C

Thanks to April for creating this and sending it our way.



Responses from Facebook (my wall is PUBLIC, so always remember that the world will see it.):

 Share · August 7 at 10:13am ·

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    Tom Houston The people in charge making these decisions will be dead long before it becomes an issue so they don't care as it will be someone else's problem. :P

    August 7 at 10:16am · Like
  • 
    

    EditDelete

    Andy Cowen But there is always someone to replace them. So what would you do? What would you hope that your children and grandchildren do to keep us going? The stock market punishes anything other than growth. We cannot grow infinitely (on this world). So how to we make sure humanity (such as it is at times) isn't a galactic flash in the pan?

    August 7 at 10:23am · Like · 1
  • 
    

    Jim Mathews Our civilization has been built on technology and abundant, convenient and cheap fuel. The infrastructure up till now has been very robust because we are still operating on much of that infrastructure. We are facing many challenges before we even try and tackle expensive, inefficient and so far not sustainable without major government involvement which is why industry has only taken only a research interest.....

    August 7 at 1:04pm · Like
  • 
    

    Andy Cowen 
    

    Again... What would you do if the limitations you specified were removed? Brainstorm with me. Science tells us some simple truths. As long as there is a difference, power can be generated. Take a fan that was still and put it into the flow ...See More

    August 7 at 2:08pm · Like
  • 
    

    Andy Cowen 
    

    Sustainability is not just power... It's also agricultural. Currently our farmland and crops have been engineered to over produce. It strips all the nutrients out of the land leaving nothing for the next crop. All the nutrients have to be ...See More

    August 7 at 2:15pm · Like
  • 
    

    Jim Mathews 
    

    Well, of course with unlimited resources and all those resources going to solve the problem instead of lining peoples pockets..... sorry, off subject, we could make anything we wanted. The technology is there. one of the problems is the pop...See More

    August 7 at 5:26pm · Like
  • 
    

    Andy Cowen I think it may be a matter of population distribution.

    August 7 at 5:39pm · Like
  • 
    

    Jim Mathews yes, that is definately a problem. the other problem is transporting food and resources to the population

    August 7 at 6:07pm · Like
  • 
    

    Tom Houston Hydroponic Skyscraper Farms, about 1 square acre by about 100 stories tall. :)

    August 7 at 6:09pm · Unlike · 1

Responses from Google+ (my wall is PUBLIC, so always remember that the world will see it.):

AWE... Nothing today from G+

The Quest For Awesome - Home Server Saga-Part 1

Once upon a time, 
A couple college kids were sitting around downloading the internet over 56k modems and were thinking that the 4GB hard drive that they just scored for a couple hundred bucks was going to last them a long time. Then they got a cable modem, discovered MP3s and networked their machines with BNC cables, at a staggering 2MB a sec! (Long before YouTube was launched in Feb 2005, btw) Their world, would never be the same..
That 4GB drive did last a long time; a year or so. It was replaced/supplemented with an 8GB drive. And then a 12GB Drive... See where this is going?
Now, there are individual files that are over 6GB in my collection of data. That's a single file that I wouldn't be able to store on that paltry 4GB drive. Hell, Windows won't even install on less than 10GB these days.
I'm not here to talk about the old days but only to put into perspective the rate that we are acquiring digital assets. It's staggering. In 1995 I had a single (hardly utilized) 30MB drive that I only upgraded because of a lightning strike. I was able to upgrade to a 130MB and thought I was hot stuff. It was true for the time too, but who could really predict the gravity of the digital revolution?
So, on to the topic, "Where the hell am I going to put all this stuff?"

• A Single Drive?
• External Drives?
• DVD Backups?
• Multiple drives?
• RAID?
• Offsite? 
• Where?
• The Cloud?
• How much will this cost???

These are the questions that we will address as we go forward. So, Go forward with me and I will share the pain and the victories I have had. We will start with the "Plan".