Rui CarmoInstead of doing my quarterly backups, I was out and about taking photos, but I think I have my strategy worked out. It isn't much of a change, and still follows my KISS approach:
- Mac home directories will be backed up using Backup to an external Firewire disk and to DVD, excluding mail and iLife stuff (all my music and photos are on a central SMB server). It will be the first time I use Backup for anything serious, and although I've been fiddling with the settings, actually using it is another matter - I have an ingrained dislike for anything that gets between myself and my data, even if it's supposed to be simple.
- Photos will be backed up over SMB to the same Firewire disk (essentially duplicating them) and to a DVD (which will store as much as possible going backwards in time, overlapping the previous quarter so that I have at least two copies of each photo).
- Personal mail will be backed up over SMB as well (mount IMAP root, drag, burn - I use mbox format mailboxes on my server, so it's painless). Work e-mail will be sacrificed to the corporate archival deities as soon as possible - this will probably land me in the usual sort of annoyances like getting home, remembering to check something and finding I don't have the right e-mail handy, but that's nothing that UMTS and Remote Desktop can't fix. Heck, I got to tune off work a bit more anyhow, it's driving me nuts.
Not having to back up work e-mail means I can probably fit everything into three DVDs a quarter (one for home folders, one for photos and another for e-mail and extras of some sort), which is pretty cheap. And I have all of it handy on the Firewire disk anyway.
That's the theory so far - tomorrow morning I'll start trying to turn it into reality, and then we'll see if Backup is worth it. If I like it (and as I am still rethinking my photo workflow - more on that later), I may move a lot of stuff permanently into iPhoto and do album-based backups.
And yeah, I know, there's not a script in sight this time - I expect to feel the need to build some, and will try using Automator this time around - it mostly works, and lets me build file pickers with a minimum of fuss...
Site Headers
Okay, that was the boring bit, and it will get a bit more boring tomorrow, but you'll be spared.
The fun bit is that after all my latest hopping around, there are now over 300 SiteHeaders, and that deserves some sort of celebration.
So, after careful selection, here are my current top five and some notes on them:
This is one of the latest photos I took with my 350D, and I guess I'm getting the hang of it. The focus is a bit off (I was on manual), but I love the way the "fake eyes" (turquoise/gold rings) turned out.
Ah, the little green men. I get a lot of questions about this one - it's a fountain located here, and I got the shot when they were still squeaky clean.
I love my rubber duck. It's just one of those things, you know? This one was slightly tweaked (the table ended somewhere above the "T" on the top right), but it was one of those shots that pack a log more punch by having a plain background.
The amazing macro of my former camera got me this shot from far enough not to spook the ladybug.
For old times' sake - not all of them are photos, you know... :)
As always, you can see the daily rotation by clicking here - a set of 20 is picked semi-randomly every day.