Nov 2008

Thanksgiving Turkey Trot 2008

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YMCA 5K Turkey Trot

This is my first Turkey Trot, so I can’t wait to attend. It is a 5K race in Towson, MD on Thanksgiving morning.

Date: Thursday, November 27, 2008
Time: 9:00am - 10:00am
Location: Y of Central Maryland,Towson Branch
Street: 600 W. Chesapeake Avenue
City/Town: Towson, MD

Full event details and registration: http://tinyurl.com/6zu2un

Link to Event on Facebook: 5K Turkey Trot
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100 Mile Club

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I just joined the 100 mile club with Nike+! Basically I have ran more than 100 miles since I got the Nike+ Sportsband. Nike+ has really helped to keep me motivated. When I first started running, I would not have even though of running 100 miles, but I finally did and I am better for it. If you have not checked out Nike+, take a look.
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Face Your Manga, Nike+ Mini

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A few people have asked me how I made my avatar (above) so here it is: www.faceyourmanga.it. Basically it is a website that lets you make avatars. They can be emailed to you for free, or you can pay a few dollars to get a high resolution version for printing. It is actually fun to make one of your friends... or boss!

I also just added my Nike+ Mini to my My Stuff page. I shows information about my running and progress. Check it out.
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Backups

Backup, Backup, Backup

Besides security updates, backups are probably the most important thing you can do to protect yourself. Not only are backups critical, but the more backups the better. I wanted to lay out my own personal backup plan to help you create your own strategy according to your needs.


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Right now I have a MacBook Pro and my wife has a MacBook. I have an 1 TB Apple Time Capsule that both our laptops backup to via Time Machine each hour (when they are powered on). Time Machine backups are kept until the space on the Time Capsule runs out. We currently have a few months worth of backups with plenty of space left. I really like the time machine as it makes backups and restores very easy. I have even used it to do a full restore on a laptop that would not seem to boot correctly. All you have to do is boot to the Leopard Install DVD, then there is a choice in the menu to restore from Time Machine.

Store Link via Amazon

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My 2nd major backup for both laptops is SuperDuper, which is a full clone copy of your computer to an external hard drive. The nice thing about a full clone is that it is also bootable if the internal hard drive has issues or dies. I do a SuperDuper back on both our laptops about 1-2 times a week. It also offers the fastest restore time as you can boot to the SuperDuper backup, then restore back to your internal hard drive. To boot to the SuperDuper backup, power off your computer, attach the USB or Firewire external drive, then turn on your computer while holding down the “option” key. That will show a boot menu of the internal and external drives.

There is a free version that will do a full clone copy every time you use it so it can take a couple hours depending on how much data you have. The paid version does a full backup the first time, then only differentials (or what has changed) for the others. The later saves a lot of time and is fairly cheap, which is what I use.


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Mozy is a 3rd backup I do for both laptops, like a few other services, it is an online backup. When you sign up for the free account, you will get 2 GB of online storage for free. It has a nice little client that allows you to choose what you would like to backup. 2GB should be enough for most people’s documents but not enough for their music and videos. They also have a paid plan of around $5/month for unlimited storage. That is a good deal if you need it.

Right now, you can get an extra 512MB for the free plan with this referral code: http://mozy.com/?ref=CXRE56


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Lastly, my 4th backup, is mobileme (formerly .mac). I don’t have the mobileme family plan, so I only use it on my primary laptop. It is also an online backup (and more) that give you 20 GB or storage. You can buy more if you need it. It costs $99/year for storage, a .me email address, calendar and contacts syncing, web space, and photo gallery. I have a daily scheduled job to backup my important data.

Store Link via Amazon


As you can tell, I am pretty keen on backups. I always want to be able to restore if needed and to keep a copy of my critical files off-site. It may look a little excessive at first, but after the setup, it is easy to maintain. The first time you lose some important files (financial, photos, etc) you will get at least some sort of backups going. What is your approach to backups?
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