A while ago, I wrote a piece about the need to backup your home computers.  After tweaking the full-backup script on my desktop today, I thought it would be useful to update the information. 

Before we get into it, I hear you say, "But Steve, I'm not technical.  I don't understand about scripts and I have a PC."  For you, I recommend either Mozy or Carbonite.  Both are "set it and forget it" systems that, for about $55 a year, will backup your computer into the cloud and keep that backup current whenever it is connected to the internet. Installation is trivial and both have excellent technical support.

I'm backing up 4 computers with four backup methods:

• Fedora Linux Desktop
  • backup of my home folder to a Linux server
  • backup of entire file system to external USB drive
• Apple MacBookPro
  • backup of entire file system to external USB drive using Time Machine
• Sony Vaio notebook (MS Vista)
  • image backup of hard drive to external USB drive
• Fedora Linux Server
  • backup of entire file system to external USB Drive

The Sony Vaio image backup uses CloneZilla.  CloneZilla is a free product that works like Symantec Ghost or other commercial image backup programs. I boot the computer from the CloneZilla CD, plug in the external USB drive, and create an image of the hard drive.  I use image backup because I'm protecting this system from a failing hard drive. The most likely restore scenario is a "bare metal restore", not a file restore.

The Linux systems use a simple rsync script for full file system backups. It's attached below. The main file, "do-backup", does the backup.  The companion file, "do-backup-excludes", excludes certain virtual parts of the file system from the backup. Restores are easy because the file system is duplicated (through 5 iterations) on the backup media.  Files can be restored by a simple copy or by using rsync.

I backup my desktop home directory to the server using a script based on rdiff-backup.  Unlike my do-backup script, rdiff-backup uses a combination of rsync and diff files to produce a backup with multiple increments. Restores from increments other than the most recent backup must use the restore functions of rdiff.

The Apple MacBookPro uses Time Machine for backup and like most things Apple, it just works.

Seveny five percent of all users use the same password for email and social network sites, according to a story in Security Week magazine, citing a study by Bit Defender.  Want to bet a good number also use the same password for their bank accounts, credit cards, Starbucks card, and every other web site?   

We all probably trust the security of our bank, but what about that website where you had to register, then take a survey to get a chance to win an iPod? Who's running that site?  Did they ask you to pick a user ID, enter your email, and select a password?  And did you use your "usual" ones?

When you say it out loud, does it seem like a good idea?

It's been a bit over 3 weeks since I've had my iPhone 4 and it's a keeper.  That's not to say it was all sweetness. The first phone I got had issues.  I'd put it next to another iPhone 4 and compare the famous "AT&T Bars".  I usually had half the bars of the other phone.  The battery was also a bit weak... It would often drain overnight.  Apple swapped the phone at a nearby store and the new one seems to be OK.  There's still a power issue, but that traces to using push notification for two Exchange Active Synch accounts.  If I have the accounts enabled for push, the phone seems to spend a lot of time and power synching. It's almost always warm.  Since I changed the synching to manual fetch, the phone is cool and the battery lasts for days, not hours.  I wish there were some happy medium. 

The Grip-of-Death issue is real. If I hold the phone in either hand and cover the lower left corner, I can say goodbye to my AT&T signal (and whoever I might be talking to).  My free bumper case is on its way, according to a shipping notice from the Apple store.  It's going to take about 10 days to get here.  Last time the post office scanned it, it had been sent from Tennessee to Georgia on its way to Chicago.

Face Time is pretty amazing.  It works pretty much like on the commercials.  The key to using it is to hold it in front of and slightly above your face. If you hold it low, you present a double chin and give a nice view up your nostrils.  It also has a gyroscope. I'm not sure what there is to do with it yet. There's a gyroscope app, but what's the point of that?  It's bound to be integrated into something, soon.

We walked by the Army Navy store today on the way to Bakin' & Eggs for brunch. The Army Navy store is not the sort of place you would associate with high tech, or any tech, for that matter.  Nothing's changed in the windows for about 10 years and I've never seen anyone go in or out.  But, on the window, they had a bar coded sign.  Pointing my trusty iPhone at it with the QRMARK decoder app, it turned out to be a link to their website.  They've made the jump from mail order to online. Cool.

A bit of googling later, and I've got my own matrix that encodes my email signature.  I'm not exactly sure what I might do with this, or what you might do with it, but there it is.  According to Wikipedia, this is really hot stuff in Japan.

Here's a slice of life moment that I watched while looking out the front window this morning, sipping coffee and contemplating a memo that needs writing.  There's a man walking around and around a car parked in front of our house. He's running his fingers across the tops of the windows and trying each door handle. Is he trying to steal the car?  It's 9 AM and sunny and he looks frustrated and a bit ticked off, like a guy about to be late for work.  So, probably not.  Then I noticed he had a key fob in his hand and it was clear he was pressing a button on it over and over again.  My bet? The battery is dead.  What do you do when your car key fob is dead?  How about using the attached key?  I could see the dangling key from my window; he couldn'tt see it hanging from his hand.  He's too used to opening the doors with the button to remember that (1) he has a key and (2) each door has a place in which to put it.  I guess it's time to open the front door and offer a suggestion.

There's probably a more general lesson here.
 

Conversations about Twitter

When I talk to businesses, networkers, or friends about Twitter, I usually hear something like, "I don't get Twitter. Who cares what I'm eating for breakfast?". I'm good with that -- I don't care what you had for breakfast.

The second thing I hear is "And who would follow me anyway"? Granted, you're not Aston Kutcher. (Who would have thought? Was That 70s Show such a big deal?)

But that's not what Twitter is about when you're a business or a networker who's looking to expand your online footprint. Twitter is a way to publish, immediately and broadly, content on the Internet. Twitter is a way of handing out your business card.

Why should you use Twitter?

1. Twitter is a tool that distributes your content on the internet.
2. Twitter is the cheapest search engine optimization tool you can get. It doesn't matter how many followers you have because Google, Bing, and other search engines read all tweets.
3. Each tweet adds to your online presence and, if you include a link to your web site, increases its rank in search results.
4. Tweets that relate to what you do increase your chance of being found in searches.
5. Relevant, thoughtful, and occasionally humorous tweets increase your social reputation and help establish you as a though leader.

By the way, in case you care, I prefer Trader Joe's Organic Os for breakfast. Follow me on Twitter.

The French National Commission on Computing and Liberty is shocked to find that Google's street view vans have recorded snippets of wirless traffic, including email content, user ids and passwords. Apparently, the French are easily shocked.  What many people seem to forget is that wifi is radio and they're running a radio station, starring all of the computers in the network.  Like any radio station, anyone with the right type of radio can listen and record your shows.

There are two things that everyone using wifi should do.

• First, encrypt your wifi using WPA2.  It's not foolproof, but defeating WPA2 is difficult and time consuming.  Anyone who's after you, in particular, may want to invest the time, but the drive-by vans will skip you and read your neighbor's unencrypted signal. 
• Second, whenever possible, login to websites using SSL.  SSL provides secure encryption from your computer to the server at the other end of the connection.  If you visit websites using "https" instead of "http", you're using SSL encryption. 

Using SSL is for all data exchanges is critical when you're on a shared, public wifi network.  Anyone at Starbucks, or the library, or your favorite place to park yourself with your notebook or phone could be recording network traffic.  On such networks, you should have absolutely no expectation of privacy.  It's critical to encrypt your data before it goes out over the air.

Check with your email provider to find out if they support POPS or IMAPS and Secure SMTP.  The "S" at the end of POP and IMAP means that the connection between your computer and the mail server is encrypted via SSL, too.  All major mail clients support the protocol. If your mail provider doesn't, it's time to find a new mail provider.

If you use Gmail, click "Settings", then "Always use https".  Gmail will then enforce an SSL connection whenver you access it on the web.

At a recent CIO Perspectives event, Adam Hartung presented the keynote address, Create Marketplace Disruption: Winning Through Growth. I'm usually not impressed by keynote speakers, but Adam's talk was good enough for me to order his book, Create Marketplace Disruption , using the Amazon iPhone app while he was speaking.  I'm looking forward to reading it. 

If you remember Tom Peters' In Search of Excellence : Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies , you remember the phrase "stick to your knitting".  Peters talked a lot about understanding the core of the business, mastering it, and not straying afield into non-core businesses.  Hartung takes another view.  He says "Don't get locked in" by what you know and what you do.

Xerox got rich by placing copying equipment in the office, disrupting and destroying the business lines of AB Dick, which sold centralized corporate printing systems.  With that success, Xerox funded the PARC. Xerox PARC invented the modern user interface model.  The scientists and engineers, tasked with the way to sell more Xerox equipment, invented systems that allowed people to self publish.  Xerox management wanted to place copiers in offices.  To leverage the PARC technologies, they created a large, complex copier, the DoucTech. And it got put into the same basement space that formerly housed the AB Dick printers.  Xerox grew through disruption, then spent a number of stagnant years as it stuck to its knitting.

Hartung derives four basic principles:

• Plan for the future, not from the past.
• Focus on competitors.
• Be disruptive.
• Use White Space to innovate.

But is Tom Peters wrong?  Was the world of 1982 so different from now?  Or do things just come around in cycles.  Innovation and disruption is one part of a cycle that returns to a core focus. You can't get stuck at any one point on the great circle.

In the words of Robert Hunter, "The wheel is turning / and you can't slow down / You can't let go / and you can't hold on / You can't go back / and you can't stand still / If the thunder don't get you / then the lightning will."  (video)

Adam Hartung blogs at http://www.thephoenixprinciple.com/

I've had Evernote on my phone for a long time, using it to send lists of things from my desktop to the phone, like all of my frequent flier, hotel, and rental car numbers.  And, before a trip, I'd paste the itinerary mailed by Orbitz into a new note, so it would be available on both the phone and notebook as I traveled.  Today, I had one of those forehead slapping experiences.  As Homer would say, "D'oh!" 

I had a couple of ideas for blog pieces. I was going to email them to myself, but I know that email, once read, falls off the mind's radar.  Instead, I created a new note in Evernote called "Blog Ideas".  Now, I have a couple of to-do lists, notes for iPhone apps, if I ever learn how to make them, and a few more things.  As a side benefit, this will reduce the amount of shredded paper that shows up in the dryer's lint screen -- the inevitable product of little notes I stuff into my pockets.

How do you use Evernote?