Backup, Backup, Backup your Data

Am I the only one who gets this. Why don’t people want to backup their data.

Is it that they just don’t care.

I hear people tell me that they lost their mobile phone and all the data on it. But still don’t get that they need to backup.

I lost my legacy Address Book in 1993 back when it was normal to write down your addresses in a Book. I decided that was the last time I lost an address book.
I bought one of the top of the line Casio Dairies and a connector and software to back it all up. Its now 15 years later I haven’t lost any information. Duplicate addresses I have a few. But that’s better than one lost address.

I know it has been traditionally very complicated to backup data. But not any more.

Go out and buy an additional hard disk and start backing up.

If you want to back up your Mobile Phone or PDA they all come with some software and now with Bluetooth on almost all the phones and new PCs – its quite easy to get all your data on to the Computer. 

Backing up your Photographs and Documents is also very simple. Just download Synctoy from Microsoft (its free) and start backing up. 

Ideally, you should also have an off-site backup. Try something like Carbonite or Jungle Disk.

Parallels Desktop for Mac – Frustrating

I had installed Parallels 3.0 for Mac on my Mac Mini in August 08. So was not elible for the free upgrade to ver. 4. Apparently only those who bought it in September were eligible. Cest La Vie. So any way – I went ahead and downloaded the 170MB file and installed it.

At first it was doing fine. Asked me to backup etc. Which I did do. Then it seemed to all go, sort of, wrong.

Here’s what happened – it installs in 4 stages and after each stage I got a message to manually go in to re-activate my Windows. When I tried this I got a message that my original copy of windows has been activated already. I know that. And I should call microsoft.

Anyway – long story short – I finished installing it and had 3 days to activate Windows and one month to use Ver 4.0.

Having said all the above I have discussed this with a friend and he installed ver 4.0 over ver 3 and it all just worked. Including the fact that he did not need to activate windows.

I do know that if I go back to version 3 from a fresh start all should just work. But for now – with a Windows PC sitting next to my mac mini I don’t really need to install Parallels.

“Parrot Party” Bluetooth Speaker

Saw this really well designed set of portable speakers at the Dubai Festival City – Plug-ins. I asked the sales man to let me try it with my Nokia E51. He was very helpful. It took a few seconds to pair. Sound was very nice for its size and weight. I am no speaker expert. I let my ears do the talking.

It had a built in rechargeable battery. Stated battery life of 4 hours. All this and the price was only Dhs. 299.

Hey presto. I bought it.

Been using it for the past few days and I love it.

The only issue is that every time I switch it off and the back on again – I have to go into the Nokia BT settings and connect to the speaker. The rest is all good.

Oh and by the way it also has an Audio input for the iPods and MP3 players of the world.

At the moment I am listening to Internet Radio playing over the wifi network on the E51 – on to the Parrot Party. What fun !!!

Battery Life on the Toshiba

I have been using the Toshiba on battery only some of the time. I do use it a lot – but always plugged in. Hence the delay in reporting on battery life. But that’s not to say the battery life is not good. I have got an average of about 3 hours. Which is pretty good.

But I do only run it at Normal Settings. Its mostly while I am checking mail and browsing the net. Not a gamer.

New Toshiba Satellite Pro SU400-12P

I dont know why I bought it except that I fell in love with it.  A few days ago I was just thinking to myself – the next Notebook I buy – if I ever buy one should have an HDMI out in it.  Then my poor old Panasonic Toughbook had a problem with the keyboard. The controller is probably damaged.  That gave me an excuse to go out and look at this new PC.

Its really cool.

3GB RAM and 250 GB Hard Drive Core 2 Duo 2GHz processor. What more can a man ask for.

Haven’t checked out the battery life yet. Will write about that as soon as I do.

The Great DROBO

The drobo is it. I have been eyeing the various types of hard disk and related storage solutions for a while now – but not happy with what I saw, was managing with my two 500GB Drives. Wanting and hoping to find a backup and storage solution that actually did what it promised.

I actually bought the Linksys NAS200 and two 1TB seagate drives but returned it. (Kept the drives though). The main reasons for returning the NAS200 was it speed. I have 400GB of data and even after 36 hours it had still not been copied over. This is all tied into the fact that it is not Gigabyte ready. Also one cannot hot swap the drives in case of a failure.

The drobo has been a real joy to setup. I recommend it for anyone with any amount of data. Check it out at http://www.drobo.com/.

What I have on my new iPod Video 30GB

I have been meaning to share this with all my friends – obviously, I am more excited about it than they are – so what better place than my blog.
iPod Mini
I had been using a 6GB iPod Mini for over 18 months now. It had some music but basically it was for what I like doing best with the iPod and that is listening to books and Podcasts.

I have a subscription with Audible (www.audible.com) and pay US$ 14.95 a month for one book and a magazine. The book can cost anything (except in the case of Conversations with God) and one can download it under the subscription. I now have a collection of over 50 books.

With traffic in Dubai on the increase, one is spending more and more time on the road. If I have my iPod with me – I don’t care how long it takes. Sometimes, when I am engrossed in a book, I am sort of disappointed when I arrive.

iPod Video 30GB
In late September, an Indian friend was visiting from Saudi Arabia on his way to India. While he was in Dubai he wanted to buy an iPod. The best deal was on the 30GB iPod Video. He asked me to set up his iPod for him and left it with me because I was also going to Delhi, a few weeks later. While setting up the iPod, I fell in love with it. It was very tempting and I wanted to go and buy a new one immediately. My trip was a few weeks away and I took my friends permission to use his iPod for a few weeks – till I went to Delhi. (Dhs. 1,100 from Essen Trading Al Ain Centre).

I found some great Video Podcasts on the iTunes Music store, for free, and found that my time on the treadmill every morning was less and less tedious.

After using the iPod Video for two weeks, I went out and bought myself one. Of course, I just kept the one I was using and gave the new one to my friend. Besides being fair, I had put stuff on the iPod and I didn’t want to start over. (Dhs. 1,000 from Essen Trading, Al Ain Centre).

I have the following Video Podcasts on my iPod :

- ABC News Good Morning America.
- BBC Breakfast Takeaway
- National Geographic Video Shorts
- Newsnight Video Podcast (BBC)
- Ten O’clock News (BBC)
- Video: Eye to Eye

In Dubai one can’t download movies from the iTunes Movie store, but I don’t have time to watch them on my iPod in any case.

And I have the following Audio Podcasts on my iPod :

- Digital Planet (BBC)
- Kamla Bhatt Show
- Radio Leo (www.twit.tv)
- World News Bulletin (BBC).

Subscribe and Sync :
With iTunes, it is really easy to subscribe to the above Podcasts and whenever, you are online with iTunes, the updated podcasts are downloaded. I just have to plug the iPod to my computer and all the updated podcasts are downloaded. iTunes can be configured to upload only the latest podcasts to your iPod, or keep all of them. Then you can manually delete them.

Accessories :
What I have also bought are the following :

- Griffin iTripp : This is an FM transmitter for the iPod Video. It plugs in to the iPod and when you press play it comes on and give you the option to choose a radio channel to broadcast to. (Dhs. 200 from Radio Shack Deira City Centre).

- Docking Station and Apple Remote : The Docking Station is plugged into my Home Theatre. This dock also has a S-Video port which I have connected to the TV. When I am at home, I can watch some of the Video Podcasts on the TV. The Apple Remote is really cute. However, the menu button is not configured to work. The reason being – I think – that the display is not large enough to view from a distance. I was a bit disappointed – till I figured out that I could not have used it sitting on the couch in any case. (Total cost Dhs. 350 from Virgin – Deira City Centre).

Note : While I have the iTripp – I don’t use it in the car. I use a normal cassette adaptor. The quality is very good and it does not eat up the iPod’s battery.

Photographs :
I have also added some photographs to the iPod. In the new iTunes, it is very easy to do this. First – I went to the folder My Picture in My Documents and created a folder called iPod Photos. Here I have made a selection of my favourite photographs. Then, in iTunes, I set up the iPod to sync with this folder. Whenever, I add new photos to this folder in My Picture/iPod Photos, they are automatically Synced to the iPod.