Well so far, I have been unsuccessful in retrieving anything off my dead drive, but I still have a few more tricks up my sleeve. But sadly, the tricks are slowly running out so I'm not exactly thrilled at the prospect of losing everything. Keeping hope though.

I've pretty much decided what I'm doing in the aftermath of my hard drive failure. Without my 400GB drive, my server is almost at its storage limit so I'll need to get a replacement. I plan on picking up a 1TB SATA hard drive and dumping that into my server. I'll be doing some moving of data around to allow for better room alotments, and since Hardy Heron (Ubuntu 8.04) comes out in a couple days, I'll reformat the root partition and bring my server back online.

Anyway, wish me luck

Tags: server, harddrive, dataloss

I write this in hopes that anyone who reads this learns from my shortsightedness. Saturday I went and started up iTunes on my desktop to listen to some music. Well, my network share was unavailable. I figured that samba on my server just needed to be restarted. I restarted Samba, no luck. I look at the uptime, 91 days...I figure maybe my server just needs the rare restart. To make a long story short, the 400GB hard drive that stores my server uploads, music, and documents just went to shit. Bad sector somewhere and I couldn't read anything off the hard drive. Immediately I went out and got a 500GB external hard drive to use for backup. I thought great, now I can backup my music and other important stuff, as well as use it for Time Machine on my Macbook Pro. I manage to get into the hard drive, but am still unable to successfully do much more than that. I now have the hard drive in an enclosure connected to my Mac in hopes of repairing it with fsck but so far it's been unsuccessful.

I'm hoping and praying that I can get it working just long enough to transfer the data, but so far it looks bleak. If this is unsuccessful, I might try the freezer trick, but we shall see. I'm crossing my fingers.

On a side note, I like Time Machine, I just have one comment on it. Time Machine will back up everything on your drive except that which you choose to exclude. Personally, I don't care if Time Machine backs up my system files as I can always just reformat in the rare situation that I have to reformat. What I wish it did was only back up the folders you set it to, rather than backup everything that you don't exclude. Oh well though, seems to be a nice tool either way.

So my final point that I want to make is just this. If you value your data, find a way to back it up. Be it the periodic burn to DVD/CD or whether it be to an external hard drive. Whatever your method or choice of methods, just do it, you'll thank yourself later.

Tags: sucks, dataloss, server

As many of you are aware, I despise Digital Rights Management (DRM), I think it is wrong and believe that we should be able to do with as we please with what we purchase. I was reading an article on Ars Technica today about the NBC-Apple breakup that occurred last August. Apparently NBC wants to be able to put its content back on the iTunes store but wants full control on pricing as well as full control on its shows DRM.

Currently, it seems Apple takes a somewhat lax DRM scheme. I was just made aware of this today, and despite my distaste for DRM, I actually don't hate Apple's policy so much anymore. For those of you that aren't aware, Apple allows you to authorize up to 5 computers to play your DRMed music, movies, and TV shows. This means that anything you download can be played on those 5 machines, which is probably perfect for families and even roommates. To add to this, unlimited iPods and iPhones synched to those 5 machines. I was unaware of this and thought that you can only play the DRMed content on one machine and one iPod. As much as I hate saying it, I actually do approve of this scheme.

What NBC wants however I believe is unacceptable, and beyond reasonable. NBC wants any and all of their shows to not be allowed to be transferred to any mobile device like the iPod, and it looks like NBC doesn't even want you to be able to watch it offline. This is where my hatred to DRM comes from. If i were to buy an NBC show off iTunes, I would expect to be able to transfer it to my iPod. I paid for the show, I should be fully able to transfer it to my iPod to take with me on the road. To me, it's this mindset that hurts the consumers. I can understand companies wanting to make sure that people don't pay for a TV show or song and then give it away to all their friends, but to balk at people transferring the TV show to their iPod is complete and utter crap.

With the way NBC is trying to push Apple, I can now understand more why the writers strike occurred. Companies like NBC are trying to make an extra buck at the expense of the customers, and probably the writers as well, and without writers, the TV shows we have come to love are worthless.

I'm really hoping that Apple does not acquiesce to NBC's stipulations. Apple in my opinion has a better DRM system than most and the pricing of $1.99 for TV episodes is a pretty good deal without ripping off what makes the company their money, the consumers like you and me.

Tags: nbc, apple, itunes, drm

I've noticed that a lot of times, in Social Media sites like Digg, Mixx, and the like, that a lot of stories that get votes, not so much on their merit, but simply because the poster's friends blind voted them. I believe I've seen it happen to my postings, and I would wager I'm not alone in the category.

Bloggers like me write about our thoughts and feelings on a wide variety of topics, and while I can't speak for others, I also write about things to hear other people's thoughts on the matter at hand. I have my opinions, but at the same time, I like hearing other people's thoughts to possibly get a better understanding of things, or even receive something that makes me completely rethink my stance. I may hold one opinion or thought, but most of the time, I'm not so closed minded that I'd be unwilling to rethink my position. It's happened before, and I'm sure it will happen again.

I mean for me, it's not so much about the traffic to my site, as it is the conversation. While traffic is nice, I'd rather open up dialogue on my thoughts and musings, or compare and contrast ideas and opinions. I know I always like to see comments about my postings, be them from my site or other sites. And in terms of my site, I don't really care whether comments are posted on sites like Mixx, or on my site itself. Either way, I get what I want, other's thoughts and opinions.

In voting sites like Mixx, everyone wants to see their posts voted up, but for me anyway, I'd rather have the dialogue. Blind voting probably won't go away, but just take a minute to look at what you're voting. So what do you think about blind voting when it comes to social media?

Tags: socialmedia

Some of those that know me could possibly call me a fanboy of both Apple, Linux, or the XBOX (yes, I know the last one is almost a contradiction in terms since its made by Microsoft and I tend to favor Microsoft's competition over its Windows OS). I however take a different stand. I don't consider myself a fanboy of Apple, Linux, or XBOX. Yes, I love my Mac, my iPod, my iPhone, my Linux server, and my XBOX 360, but does preferring one platform over another really make you a fanboy?

So this leads me to my question: What exactly constitutes a fanboy?

I've heard some people say that if you prefer company A's product over company B's, then you are a Company A fanboy. I don't believe this is true. To be a fanboy in my opinion, you must love a product so much that you will jump on any opportunity to badmouth any competition, ignoring anything that the competition might actually be doing better than your product. Fanboys tend to be relatively close-minded on issues surrounding whatever it is that their product or company is involved in. We'll take the gaming consoles for the example. A Microsoft XBOX fanboy would be so into the XBOX that he would be blind and try to find a negative spin on anything that Sony or Nintendo might come out with for the PS3 or Wii, even if what Nintendo or Sony does is better than how Microsoft happens to do it for the 360.

I'll say it first, being ignorant goes nowhere, and fanboism is no exception. Take me for example, I much prefer OS X over Windows, hands down, no second guessing with pretty much no competition. Do I hate Windows? Do I hate Microsoft? No, I don't. I don't like some of the things Microsoft does, I don't like some of the ways Windows does what it does, but that doesn't mean I hate them. And even though I love OS X, I still dislike some of Apple's practices. And this is pretty much the core reason why I don't consider myself a fanboy. I recognize Windows strengths, despite my fondness towards both of it's competitors, OS X and Linux. And the same goes towards Sony's PS3 and Nintendo's Wii compared to my preferred console, the XBOX 360. In the end competition is what drives markets, and operating systems and gaming consoles are no exception. Without competition, there would be less motivation for companies to improve upon their product lines. Can you imagine still working on machines with Windows 98 if Linux or Mac weren't around and Microsoft was less motivated to come up with something new? I'm sure that's an extreme situation that probably wouldn't have happened, but competition drives innovation and innovation leads to improvements. So the next time you immediately want to bash a competing site, product, or company, look at it and see what it is all about. Don't just jump to conclusions and bash it blindly. It may be competing with your sacred product, but it may have its own strengths, and in a roundabout way, may very well lead to improvements for your side of the fence.

Tags: xbox, microsoft, fanboys, apple, linux, ps3