Posts Tagged ‘backup’
Windows Home Server is Incredibly Awkward
I was compelled to set up a file server because my clients maxed out their Dropbox. Originally, they were only sharing about 100MB worth of documents, so, I figured Dropbox was the ideal solution for them. Of course as they got real comfortable, they started sharing folders and moving enormous PDFs, .wav files and videos into the Dropbox. Needless to say, they maxed it out pretty quickly. I could upgrade their Dropbox, but then I’d have to upgrade everybody’s Dropbox and at this point there are at least ten different clients accessing the data at any given time. So, a dedicated file server seemed like the logical choice.
Livedrive: “Unlimited” Online Backup Review
Update: See our Top 5 Free Online Storage Reviews (11/1/2010) for more cloud storage goodness.
I’ve been in search of truly unlimited online storage for quite some time. I don’t mind paying, as long as it’s really unlimited. In my quest, I’ve come across a wide variety of services that fall short of their claims because they require the use of a proprietary client to facilitate the backups, thereby effectively making an online RAID 1 mirror. The catch is that if you delete something on your local machine, it will be deleted (typically within thirty days). So, they’re obviously not too worried about you using too much space since it is unlikely that you’ll have 100TB of data on your machines.
How-To Archive Large Files with SkyDrive
I have a lot of stuff on my hard drives. Not all of it is entirely necessary. I have dozens of old 3d studio max files and other projects that have long since been completed or abandoned over the years.
I like the idea of having an off-site backup of non-mission-critical data. When I heard that Microsoft increased their online storage capacity on SkyDrive to 25GB, I became very interested. They have a cap on the filesize, 50MB per file. To work around this, I elected to use my favorite archiver — WinRAR.
Why I Still Use DOS
For some of you, the thought of DOS probably brings back horrifying memories of things like IRQ conflicts, MSCDEX, the config.sys, himem.sys, etc. Those days are over, but the best aspects of DOS remain a part of Windows, fortunately.
Knowledge of DOS has been critical to my geeky endeavors over the last dozen or so years. Back in the nineties, as the GUI became pervasive and people seemed to have completely forgotten the command-line altogether, I continued to use it for a wide range of tasks. Yes, part of the reason I haven’t “let go” of DOS is in part nostalgic. The other part is that it has in fact been and remains very useful. Especially in troubleshooting and fixing low level problems that can’t be solved any other way.
So, you’re wondering what I could possibly have used DOS to accomplish? These days, for most things DOS can do, there is usually a free or paid application for Windows that does the same thing a little easier. Thing is, knowing how to do various tasks in DOS can help you repair Windows and perform a whole host of other tasks a lot quicker and often more efficiently than installing a bunch of different programs.