In another post, I describe my backup strategy.  Even though, my strategy had multiple layers, it still failed a little bit.  My main data drive on my main computer got corrupted.  No big deal, I thought.  It is under warranty, and I will RMA the old and get a new one.  After that, I will just pull down the last good image from WHS.  However, it was that smooth.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do a volume restore.  It just kept failing a certain points.  So next I tried to mount the WHS “Z Drive” and just copy the files over.  That mostly worked.  However, a whole much of family movies that I had ripped from DV tape would not restore.  Kept getting a “The drive cannot find the sector requested.”  I did the usual chkdsk’s and repair backup history but no change.  I truly this is related to a external USB harddrive failure a few months ago and WHS really never cleaned up after itself.  It never “re” backed up the data it lost because of the USB harddrive failure on the WHS server.

So next I tried Carbonite…no luck at all.  Carbonite, by default, will never backup a video file.  I realize that you can turn this on for a specific folder but at the end of the day, it is a horrible issue.  These were never setup to be backed up because of their file extension. 

In addition, I really doubt that Carbonite would have ever uploaded those files.  It was so far behind.  Carbonite has a “feature” that severely limits bandwidth after you have uploaded so many gig’s.  It is a way for them to “manage” their “unlimited” plan.  However, it makes it useless after 200 gig’s.

After researching all of the main backup providers, I chose CrashPlan.  I had used CrashPlan before…strictly in a peer-to-peer mode.  However,it became such a lopsided relationship that it wasn’t worth it anymore.  When a computer is a backup target, all of the data needs to be able to fit a single backup volume.  I could quickly outgrow that.  They have had the CrashPlan Central for awhile but their pricing never really interested me until know.

The beauty of it was up to 10 computers for the same price.  And the key features that are priceless:  any file type and no limits: storage or bandwidth.

Regardless of the perceived usefulness, we still need to embrace it with all of its glory.

We all know of the usual semi-annual checklist that we do this weekend:

• change batteries in smoke detectors
• change clocks

However, the one that people always seem to forget is setting their clock on their camera.  Several times I have to adjust the “digitized time” by an hour for months of pictures at a time for relatives.  The importance of this becomes magnified when you have an external GPS.  Time is how the data gets applied to the pictures.  So instead of just add/subtracting an hour, actually “calibrate” the time so that they exactly match up.

Finally, don’t be late for church…can’t use it for an excuse.

As an alternative, I installed a shared PDF printer on our WHS.

1. Install PDFCreator on the workstation/server that is still supported by your printer.  Make sure you select “Server” when you install.
2. Run PDFCreator Options
3. Turn on AutoSave
   
   I specified a temp directory that was UNC because this was on a WHS.
4. Turn on AutoPrint
   
5. Under Printers, Share the PDF Printer
   
   I renamed it to be the model that I was proxying.  Also, make sure to include x64 bit drivers.
6. From the new unsupported workstation, add the new PDF Printer that was shared.

Every so often, you might need to delete out the temp PDF’s that it creates.  You will lose some options that are printer specific but it general it works perfectly.

In the last couple weeks, I have first hand experience data loss.  I lost my main data hard drive about 700 GB of data (not the system drive).  My sister lost her hard drive to our desktop computer. That hard drive contained not only the OS but also all of her documents and pictures.  Fortunately, the net result is that we had no data loss.  I have lost data before and it made me feel ill.  Never again.  In the last month, it was a good fire drill on our backup strategy.

First off, there are different types of failures.  I like to refer to these as different scopes of disasters.  

A good comprehensive backup strategy will keep all 3 of these in mind,  In general, no solution fits all situations and none of them are bullet proof.  Each of them has a cost associated with it…whether time, money, bandwidth or discipline.  I personally use a combination of solutions for my needs.  Your mileage may vary. 

Windows Home Server

Hands down this is one of the best products for backing up Windows desktops and laptops.  Microsoft already put in all of the intelligence of what to backup.  It knows that you don’t need a backup of your Internet Explorer cache or other temp files.  It also keeps a single copy of the same file found in multiple directories or computers.  It backups the entire computer, including programs and operating system.  You can boot from a CD and restore a hard drive in an hour or two with little effort…perfect for a crashed hard drive.  I have personally replaced broken hard drives this way twice in the last year or so.  I have also used the disk restore one other time to revert the system drive to a previous state after installing some software I didn’t really care for.   You can restore individual files and folders to previous point in time.  This is done via Explorer like approach and is intuitive enough.  I wish they would have wired up “Previous Versions” in the desktop’s Explorer.

I have all my computers backing up to this.  In addition, my in-law’s computers also backup to this.  I brought their computer over to my house and did the initial backup.  Subsequent backups are done via Hamachi.  WHS is only good for “local computers”.  At least they have be local for initial backup and any restores.

The good:  cheap…you can build your own frankenstein server or buy an OEM.  I got my Acer for $300 plus the cost of some extra harddrives.  Simple to use.  Just works and is rock solid.

The bad:  doesn’t cover the whole house disaster.  If I had a major lightning strike or EMP go off at my house, this would not save me.  There are some plugin’s to do some backup to the cloud but you have be really selective about what gets sent because of network bandwidth and cloud storage fees.

Scope:  operates very well on restoring a PC to any given point in time. Restoring individual files is decent, as well.

This is my primary backup component and has not failed me.

Carbonite

Use a cloud based backup service such as Carbonite, Mozy & Amazon S3.  This is a growing market and many more competitors are out there since I last reviewed them.  I personally use Carbonite and have used them for years.  They offer unlimited backup storage for a fixed rate.  Carbonite has very simple program that just works.  It is totally perfect for grandma and grandpa.

Carbonite is not a comprehensive solution.  It works well to selectively solve the offsite backup gap.  Unfortunately, it’s not very practical for my TB’s of data that need to be backed up.  It backs up “precious” data for me. 

I had installed it on sister’s computer.  After she got her new hard drive and did the system restore, we installed Carbonite.  It walked her through the restore.  It took almost 2 weeks to get it all back.  Biggest issue was we had to turn off the power saver features on her computer; otherwise, the restore would effectively only happen when she was in front of her computer.  After that was adjusted, it still took several days to do the restore.  It is simple math.  It takes a long time to download 100 gig or so.  It restored all of the user data except for video files, including some home videos.  Overall, it did exactly what we wanted it to do at a time that we never wanted to happen.

The good:  it just works.  Very simple UI and is approved for even novice user.   It uses incremental backups which is a phenomenal bandwidth savings when you dealing with a 2gig PST file.  Also, no discipline is necessary other than paying the bill.

The bad:  it takes a long time to get it back but an even longer time to get it up there.  Carbonite is unlimited but storing your 200 gig music collection at most services would be cost prohibitive.  Also, not all files are backed up (e.g. movies).

Scope:  Works well for entire house disasters because it is offsite.  Also, good for restoring a few files…Carbonite keeps versions.

Windows Live Mesh

Distribute enough copies such that all of them can’t be destroyed at once was my primary backup strategy for years.  I had even wrote a Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) client that would upload my files safely offsite.  It was way cooler than FTP but had about the same value.  BITS was really good for slow bandwidth and restartability. 

Today, Windows Live Mesh fills this need.  I started using FolderShare, then Live Sync and now we are stuck with Mesh.  I use this in my family to share our picture libraries  It takes a while but it will eventually get there.  This fits a functional need (sharing) as well as backup.  However, a delete is quickly replicated!  This option saved my sister’s home videos that Carbonite ignored.  It don’t mind sharing your files unencrypted, this is a good choice. 

The good:  free and just kinda works

The bad:  Slow, unencrypted, no versioning, etc.  One big draw back to Mesh right now is that you cannot share your files readonly any more. 

Scope:  really good for entire house issues (offsite)

Shadow Copies

Certain builds of Windows have previous versions  built in.  The OS takes shadow copies of the hard drive typically twice a day.  It is really easy to get back to a previous state when the occasional whoops occurs between backups.  However, this is a backup convenience not a strategy.

Robocopy

I robocopy all of my “precious” data frequently (typically daily) to another computer (or could be a USB hard drive).  This is just my OCD cropping up.  This shouldn’t be necessary but it makes me feel good.  The net is a have exact copies elsewhere in my house.  Some people talk about taking a USB hard drive to work or a family member’s house to get it offsite but I have never been that disciplined.

On the positive side, there is some evidence that colour-blind people are much better than average at certain jobs. They are very good at finding green things hidden against green backgrounds – for example grass or leaves. They tend to find things by shape and get less confused by camouflage. Because of this, colour-blind entomologists still catch lots of bugs and in wartime, armies prize their colour-blind snipers and spotters. So, if you are colour blind and have trouble picking strawberries, why not try your hand at green beans or peas instead? You might be surprised at how well you do!

What else is really interesting about this site is their image/website check.  It will simulate a colorblind person’s experience.  5% of men have this in some form…a population that shouldn’t be forgotten.

I personally don’t suffer from this particular version of colorblindness; however, I do fail most of the variations.

I did this colorblindness test.  Here are the results:

Estimate of color vision deficiency’s probability:75%

normal answers: 20/30

Your answer is randomly: 0/23

no similar proposal: 1/7

green color deficit (deutéranopia): 1/17

green color deficit (deutéranomaly) simulation wickline: 0/7

red color deficit (protanopia): 8/14

red color deficit (protanomaly) simulation wickline: 0/7

blue color deficit (tritanopia): 0/14

blue color deficit (tritanomaly) simulation wickline: 0/7

deuteranopia indicator:4%

deuteranomaly indicator: 0%

protanopia indicator: 57%

protanomaly indicator: 0%

tritanopia indicator: 0%

tritanomaly indicator: 0%

via Ask Unclutterer: Organizing photographs.

Has a pretty interesting take on photographs, as clutter.  However, it has not been my experience that the original owner is not usually the person who wants to scan them.  Estates are probably the number one reason why this topic comes up.  Family reunions are probably a close second.   Right now I am in process of scanning a few thousand pictures.  

Here is what I have in the queue:

• My wedding pictures (negatives) and some college pictures
• Old slides from my dad
• Old pictures from grandparents’ estate
• my mom’s parents
• my dad’s parents
• my wife’s grandma

Realistically, most of the effort is taking out/putting in album and identifying.  The actually scanning is the easy part.  That’s why ScanCafe and other scanning services are not that much of a time saving.  The risk is the outright lost of your pictures (lost in the mail, mishandled, damaged, etc.).

I guess my point is people are more likely to scan (usually other people pictures) to share vs. reclaiming space in their house.  I, personally, don’t have a lot of attachment to the originals after their scanned  I don’t mind returning them to the owner or share with other family;  However, never throw away pictures.

As a father, I can total relate to this commercial.  I think you would understand after seeing our Halloween picture from last year:

Yes, that is Yoda on the left!

When he was President, I was between the ages of 6 and 14.  Back then, I think we only had 12 possible TV channels (2-13).  My first memory of Reagan is when he was on (almost) every TV channel when he spoke.  I can even remember him speaking on TV during school when the Challenger exploded.  He had a gift of communication.  He could make us laugh (“age will not be an issue for this campaign”).  He could give us hope (“shining city on the hill”).  He could inspire us (“tear down this wall”).  Not until later in life, did I truly understand and appreciate his contribution to this country and this world.

On a more personal level, I found out a few years ago that he’s my distant cousin.  His great, great grandfather Thomas Reagan is my great, great, great, great grandfather.  Here’s the simple view:

With only direct descendants, it doesn’t appear that we are that far apart.   So here is a clip from http://www.genealogy.com/famousfolks/ronald-reagan/

Here’s the additional information:  Thomas Regan who was born in 1783 in County Cork, Ireland and had 7 children.  He had only one child, Michael Reagan, from his second (?) wife Margaret Murphy.  Julia Reagan Harrington was Michael Reagan’s half sister, one of the six children from Thomas Reagan’s first marriage.  Julia is my mom’s great, great grandmother.

I know it’s a stretch, but we are related.  My daughter is so excited to be related to a President.  He will occasionally remind my wife that she isn’t!

By the way, if you have never been to the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, it is a must see, regardless of your political views.  It is one of the most beautiful buildings I have been in.  Built on top of a mountain overlooking the value, it is truly breathtaking.  The building, itself, is very modern and open.    It is even built around Air Force One.    Here are few pictures from a trip I had in 2006.

If you visit, you must visit the Ronald Regan Pub beware that “Alcohol For Display Purposes Only”

Let’s start out with a few rules:

1. Assign a picture a filename and never change it.  Use a naming convention that will grow overtime and be consistent.  Most Canon’s have a naming convention of IMG_NNNN.JPG.  That might sound like a good start, but you will quickly outgrow 10,000 pictures.  The filename should never change after it is loaded into a library.   Many times I have shared pictures and need to reference back to the original
2. Do not modify originals.  Never edit the official copy of a picture to make an adjustment (crop, contrast, etc.) but metadata is ok (GPS, keywords, etc.).  Non-destructive edits are also ok (e.g. Lightroom).
3. A picture is only in place in the library.  Don’t make copies with in your official folder structure for the sake of making copies.  Let me explain.  If you copy the an original and suffix the filename with _BW to represent a black and white version of it, that’s fine to have both copies as long as the location and names of the files are predictable.  Don’t get me wrong, I often make copies of the originals in a working directory for some creative project.  However, the originals are in their safe, known place and there is no confusion about the where the golden version of the pictures are.  The side benefit is you have to only tag a picture once.

Naming Convention

So what’s in a name?  I have tried a few patterns and this works well for me.  I have 2 different naming conventions:

1. Date Centric:  The Date Centric pattern is used for all pictures that I have taken using a digital camera.  The filename is YYYYMMDD_NNNN, where NNNN is the number from the original file.  An example file is 20100101_1234.jpg.  In Lightroom, the pattern looks like:
   
2. Sequence Centric:  This format is used for all pictures that I receive from other people or scans.  The filename is PNNNNNNN.jpg, where NNNNNNN is a sequence number that started at 1 (zero padded).  An example file is P1234567.jpg.  In Lightroom, the pattern looks like:
   

So why 2 different?  Well, at first, I only used Date Centric.  It was nice and clean and seem very easy to find things.  However, I soon found out that I didn’t always know what the date was at the time of import.  Often with scan of family pictures, the date information was late arriving if even known.  Sometimes, it would even change.  That caused huge headaches because I would have to break rule #1 and rename the file.  Therefore, the genesis of the Sequence Centric approach.  I could use the Sequence Centric approach for all types but I enjoy the natural organization of the dates compelling.  As listed above, I also use the Sequence Centric for other people’s digital photographs that have full EXIF information (dates).  However, I find that not everyone is diligent about keeping their time AND date accurate in their camera.  I just don’t mean Daylight Savings issues, either.  Regardless, there is this visual indicator to me if this is mine or someone else’s.

Folder Structure

• Library
• 2000’s
• 2001
• 2001-01
• 2001-01-01
• 2001-01-03
• etc.
• 2001-02
• etc.
• 2002
• etc.
• 2010’s
• 2010
• 2011
• PIX
• P0000
• P0000100
• P0000200
• etc
• P1000
• etc.
• Output
• Originals

The date centric guys are dynamically built (except for the decade) via Lightroom during import:

That coupled with the naming format makes pattern #1 really easy to implement.

The PIX folder structure just supports the sequenced approach.  Each leaf folder supports a max of 100 files.  The nesting just makes it easier to navigate around.  Unfortunately, Lightroom cannot support the automatic creating of the folder structure.  However, I just import and move around, as necessary.  I have also used IMatch and it is easy to script either pattern.

All of the important, sacred stuff is under the Library folder.  But I have also listed Output.  This is my default folder to make working copies of any my pictures.  Anything from photoshopping to exporting to print at Sams.  I could lose any picture under this folder and not shed a tear.  The Originals folder is an optional one.  Since I do modify my library pictures (metadata only), it is another place to go when bad things happen.  Lightroom can “make a second copy to” when importing.  I never do anything with these.  The only overhead is storage.  One other note about the Originals.  I use DNG’s and Lightroom will put the original CR2 here during the import.  But RAW vs. JPG and DNG vs. CR2 is a discussion for another day.