Entries from July 2006 ↓

I’m using Mozy at home now.  It waits until you’re not using your computer and starts sending changesets to Mozy servers.  It’s free if you sign up for their goofy newsletter, which I do, and since I understand how to use mail filtering, I wouldn’t have to bother.  Still, I occasionally do.  It’s not the worst newsletter.

If you want to go beyond a certain number of gigabytes (I can’t even begin to backup my photo collection in their limit, to say nothing of my music collection), it’s a flat fee per month, but it’s a good bailout plan for free.  There’s another application by someone else, and they let you back up 1 gigabyte for every 10 gigabytes you sacrifice to them, but there again, we’re talking about giving up a terabyte to just get my MP3s safe.  (And my iPod does a theoretically good job with the most important 60GB, anyway.)

Another consideration would be FolderShare, and just sync up folders on extra PCs.  I don’t have a lot of problems with FolderShare, and if a couple of machines were ONLY backing up files, and not actually doing anything with them, I think it’d work okay.  All of these choices are passive, and passive backup systems are much, much more likely to be used than ones where you have to push a button.

I suppose part of my block about writing has been the old design. It was the first thing I whipped up after I installed WordPress: not bad, but not perfect. And while I appreciated the flexibility advantages over TypePad, WordPress has its own complex system of odd corners you have to relearn.

This template is a little better for me, I think, but I might have to tweak here and there. Under construction as always. If you don’t see something that you liked before, but it’s missing now, let me know. I hope you like it.

In all that mess, I added Jer to the friends list, because he’s my friend.

New feature! I wanted to assemble a free-form list, with just brief descriptions of what I’m into at the moment and maybe a link for more information. So that’s over there, called “Top 10″. It’s not specifically Top 10 anything, just ten things that I like at the moment.

Turns out all the information-overload doomsday prophecies were correct. I spend a lot of my time getting “updates” on RSS feeds that add no value to my day. Again I repeat the plea: someone find a way to actually cut the crap out of it. Netflix: offer an RSS feed of the new releases that actually had some theatrical release. (I will no longer read that seasons of TV shows can now be placed in my queue.) I don’t need all Slashdot news, just the really important Slashdot news. Give me an option. I don’t need it hand filtered and gift-wrapped, I just need a whole lot less of it.

So, subscribed feeds: you’re on alert. I’m unsubbing anything that I don’t find vital. Nobody needs to track that much information. At least, I don’t.

My favorite thing that Adam says right now: “I… I can’t weemember the word.” I don’t know if he picked it up from us, when we’re stuck for a word, or if he’s actually aware of his own linguistic process, but he’ll get jammed on something and say that.

Cruel footnote: Becky pretty much always knows what he’s trying to say, and will tell us… if we ask her.

I’m playing in a World Series of Poker satellite this afternoon. At least 150 people from this event are going to the real deal in Las Vegas next week. (If it was just the $10,000 entry fee, then I’d probably not be playing, but they’re throwing in $1,000 “spending money”, which should just barely get me there, eating a few days, and flying back.)

I don’t play satellites, and I don’t play MTTs, and I don’t play in anything this large, but I’m looking at it as a long shot to a long shot, and just having fun. The experience should be worth it. (And if I make the WSOP, then same philosophy: zero expectation, and just play as well as you can.)