You Should Have a Robust Backup System For Your Computer

I’ve had several friends with drives going out recently and it occurred to me that I should really look into getting a decent backup system. At first I thought of just burning DVD’s periodically or getting one of those 1-2 TB drives which attach to your USB port; but it all seemed to be a bit labor intensive. I just know that I would forget to backup at just the wrong time and lose critical files.

If you do anything business related on your computer, I think you will find that a good backup solution, even if it is only used ONCE, will pay for itself many times over.  Just think about all of the work that goes into creating and organizing the files on your computer and if your time and effort is worth anything, a few hundred dollars will seem like a pittance; especially when you consider the fact that, with a good backup solution, you can simply replace your drive and be back up and running with a few hours as if nothing happened.

Network Attached Storage

The solution which I feel is finally coming of age, for the home user on a budget, is Network Attached Storage (NAS); particularly NAS systems which support at least RAID 1 mirroring or similar setups which allow for redundancy.

While most of us can get away with having an external drive that we periodically copy our data to; there is still a good possibility that this drive will crash. If you are using this drive to archive files, then you will have lost data. So it is imperative to have a mirrored system to hold your data.

I waded through the various systems out there and the reviews. I found many which are “adequate” but inflexible; because they do not allow for future expansion. For example, I saw many which allow you to swap out drives; but cap the number of Terabytes you can have in the array.

Well, after a night of searching, I ran into a combination which gives you a total of 2TB (redundant, actually 4TB total) on a nicely featured NAS box.

Mirrored Hot Swappable 4TB Network Attached Storage System for Under $600

I recently ordered one of these diskless NAS boxes for under $200 after rebate:

It runs a tiny version of Linux and supports a variety of backup and file system protocols including Apple’s “Time Machine”. One nice aspect of it, is the fact that you can plug in any SATA or SATA II hard drive and have it do RAID 1. So you can always buy a larger drive in the future.

I saw this interesting bit of info in one of the reviews:

“It does Netgear’s own proprietary XRAID mirroring (but not RAID 0). XRAID apparently allows the automatic upgrade to more then two drives, if you would use it in a Netgear box, which supports more then two drives. Unlike with other home office NAS, the firmware is saved in a flash and not on the drives itself. The drives are hot swappable and rebuild themselves automatically unlike with many other personal NAS products. The NAS can share directories via CIFS, NFS, AFP, and HTTP. It also can do FTP and TFTP, which comes in handy in the lab.”

So if a 3TB drive came on the market and you wanted to incorporate it into your box, you would just pull one of the 2TB drives out and pop it in; then it will copy the data over. Then you would pop the other 2TB array out and the data on the newly copied drive would be copied back; so you can expand the array easily.

When you toss in 2 x 2TB Western Digital Hard Drives, the whole system with 2TB of redundant network accessable storage came out to under $600.

Tired of Being Bound to Social Networking Sites

I would love to see social networks de-centralized. Something like a blog (with openID authentication or something similar), feed reader and email; this would likely accomplish much of what is done with networking sites like FB.

Unfortunately, most people do not have the desire or the know-how to have such a set-up. So until this propagates to a larger sub-set of the population; most of this kind of communication will be stuck on places like FB & MySpace.

I can sense a growing dis-content among many, with this kind of centralized set-up. I think they really are tired of giving control of their content, feed management and social network to a large company.

If someone can implement a very simple, easy to install, open source, app, which accomplishes much of what these network sites do; then there may be a big change in store for this kind of communication.

It will have to be something that people can equate to their existing social network sites (at first). Most likely, it will also have to integrate with sites like FB, in order to remain connected to the legacy network.

That would be a good project for an enterprising programmer. Something to finally put an end to these large networking sites controlling our experience and profiting from our everyday activities.

Destroying Viruses with Resonant Frequencies

It is likely that scientists may, some time in the near future, be able to destroy viri by bombarding it with frequencies that resonate with the particular virus.

Every object resonates at a particular frequency. When the amplitude of the frequency is increased sufficiently, an object will be destroyed.

Recent experiments have shown that viruses can be killed by the pulsations of lasers at the right frequency. The present-day understanding of this technology, however, involves trial-and-error.

Imagine what virus eradication techniques will be possible when scientists move out of the current drug paradigm, and into the understanding of resonance.

source: Live Science February 5, 2008

A Solar Grand Plan

source: mercola.com

If the U.S. makes a massive switch from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power plants to solar power plants, it is possible that 69 percent of the U.S.’s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy could be solar-powered by 2050.

This would require the creation of a vast region of photovoltaic cells in the Southwest. It could operate at night as well as during the day; excess daytime energy can be used to compress air stored in underground caverns, which would be used as an energy source during nighttime hours.

In order to work, the plan would also need a new direct-current power transmission system to deliver solar electricity across the country, and would require $420 billion in subsidies from 2011 to 2050.

However, despite the fact that many are skeptical about our ability to produce photovoltaic cells and modules that can provide electricity at a low enough cost to be truly competitive, I personally believe we’ll get there. And probably A LOT sooner than projected.

For example, Nanosolar has already been able to reduce the cost of production by 90 percent, slashing the cost from $3 per watt to 30 cents per watt. They won the Popular Science Innovation of 2007 award for their paint-layer-thin solar coating, which is in production as of 2008. Read the rest of this entry »

Another Earth Found? Virtually the same conditions as our Planet…

The “second earth,” 1.5x the size of Earth, has simmilar temperature range as our planet, though its years are only 13 days.   It is located about 20 Light Years away from our planet, in the constellation Libra. It was found orbiting a star named Gliese 581.

‘Second Earth’ found, 20 light years away

Ian Sample | TheGuardian

Scientists have discovered a warm and rocky “second Earth” circling a star, a find they believe dramatically boosts the prospects that we are not alone.

The planet is the most Earth-like ever spotted and is thought to have perfect conditions for water, an essential ingredient for life. Researchers detected the planet orbiting one of Earth’s nearest stars, a cool red dwarf called Gliese 581, 20 light years away in the constellation of Libra.

Measurements of the planet’s celestial path suggest it is 1½ times the size of our home planet, and orbits close to its sun, with a year of just 13 days. The planet’s orbit brings it 14 times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun. But Gliese 581 burns at only 3,000C, half the temperature of our own sun, making conditions on the planet comfortable for life, with average ground temperatures estimated at 0 to 40C. Researchers claim the planet is likely to have an atmosphere. The discovery follows a three-year search for habitable planets by the European Southern Observatory at La Silla in Chile.

“We wouldn’t be surprised if there is life on this planet,” said Stephane Udry, an astronomer on the project at the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland.

Two years ago, the same team discovered a giant Neptune-sized planet orbiting Gliese 581. A closer look revealed the latest planetary discovery, along with a third, larger planet that orbits the star every 84 days. The planets have been named after their star, with the most earthlike called Gliese 581c. The team spotted the planet by searching the “habitable zone”.

Future Cars May Be Powered by Compressed Air

Two designers have created engines that can be run on a compressed air tank for a fraction of the energy cost of gasoline. The engines can be run on compressed air alone or a hybrid of compressed air and a motor to refill the air tank.

With a hybrid compressed air engine, one could travel from New York City to Los Angeles on a single tank of gas!

The first line of air-powered vehicles will be powered by compressed air alone; they will have a top speed of 110 km/h with a range of 210 km. The tanks can be refilled in 3 minutes at a compressed air station or plugged in and refilled with the on-board compressor. Read the rest of this entry »

Astronomers find gaping hole in the Universe

University of Minnesota | PhysOrg.com

University of Minnesota astronomers have found an enormous hole in the Universe, nearly a billion light-years across, empty of both normal matter such as stars, galaxies and gas, as well as the mysterious, unseen “dark matter.” While earlier studies have shown holes, or voids, in the large-scale structure of the Universe, this new discovery dwarfs them all.
“Not only has no one ever found a void this big, but we never even expected to find one this size,” said Lawrence Rudnick of the University of Minnesota astronomy professor. Rudnick, along with grad student Shea Brown and associate professor Liliya Williams, also of the University of Minnesota, reported their findings in a paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. Read the rest of this entry »

TED Talks: The Metaverse of Imagery is About to Merge

Seadragon is a program which allows massive amounts of image data to be viewed and organized in whatever way desired. This allows one to view a virtually unlimited amount of visual data including images and text.

The Photosynth software, powered by Seadragon, has the capability to pull together a large collection of photos taken of a certain place. The photos can be spatially related to one another based upon the metadata and graphical analysis. The demo shows a view of the Notre Dame Cathedral that was created by thousands of photos scraped from Flickr.

video: Blaise Aguera y Arcas Demos Photosynth and Seadragon

Paradigm Shift: Exponential Rate of Change

I am starting to wonder if the western world, once the center of innovation, cultural and technological change, can remain at the high level of prosperity that it has enjoyed for the past few decades.

The people of the western world need to become resourceful if they are to survive and prosper in the coming age. I believe that it will take much more resourcefulness than this people currently possesses.

The talents of the intelligentsia of Eastern nations such as China and India vastly eclipse the talents of the intelligentsia of the United States and Europe. Only the brightest among the westerners will be able to keep up with the staggering amount of information that is being generated on a daily basis, as this information will continue to be generated at an ever-greater rate as time progresses. Read the rest of this entry »

Cell Phone Health Effects | Busy Signals: Think Twice Before You Place That Call

by William Thomas | WillThomas.net

Though intended for renovations, Chris Anderson would like all visitors to deposit their cellular phones in the cement mixer by his front door. This sounds excessive – until you step into Anderson’s orchard, where the pegged needle of a shrieking electromagnetic radiation (EMR) meter placed beside a connected cellphone still shows significant exposure 100 feet away.

Much to the chagrin of this certified EMR-mitigation specialist, every day some 300 million cell phone users are “reaching out and touching someone you love. Yourself, and anyone else within range of the microwaves emitted by your cell phone.” Read the rest of this entry »