Recently in Leveraging Connectivity Category

Philip Bloom mentioned, in his master class yesterday, a file utility I had not heard of before, one that seems brilliant to me:  ShotPut Pro.  This program will copy your media files from their source (camera card) to up to 3 locations simultaneously.  Brilliant!

I think that always having an untouched copy of your original media files and a working copy of them is always a bright idea.  This practice not only gives you the option of having an emergency backup of your files in case of drive failure or theft, but provides you with some measure of future-proofing your media files for later use—perhaps in projects using CODECs we don't even have today.

I also use BackBlaze to automatically and continuously sync all of my data off site.  The three important parts of that last sentence are:  off site, continuously, and above all:  automatically!  BackBlaze is a steal of a deal at only $50 per machine per year for unlimited storage!  I just do my work using my machines, and BackBlaze is always keeping my offsite backup up to date.

If you were doing professional projects, where setting up the shoot required a significant investment or was time sensitive (can't be easily repeated, for example), using locally redundant copies of the original media and off site backups is essential!

Today Apple sold its 10,000,000,000th (that's billionth) song at the iTunes Store—all in less than 7 years. The music industry can gripe all it wants, but Apple has made them a lot of money they would otherwise have lost to file sharing!

Today's Business Insider has this headline: Blockbuster Collapses: Shutting Down 500 Stores In Desperate Bid To Save $200 Million. I'm actually shocked they survived as long as they did. They ended last year almost $1,000,000,000 in debt.

By closing 500 of their weakest stores, they hope to reduce operating expenses by $200 million. They are also exploring other ways to increase liquidity and find new emerging distribution channels.

Let me offer them a touch of advice. Liquidate now and save everyone the misery to come.

We are entering a new age of cool! Apple's iPhone is a game changer!

The bike wheel contains all you need so that no sensors or additional electronics need to be added to the frame and an existing bike can be retrofitted with the blink of an eye. ...

By using a series of sensors and a Bluetooth connection to the user's iPhone, which can be mounted on the handlebars, the wheel can monitor the bicycle's speed, direction and distance traveled, as well as collect data on air pollution and even the proximity of the rider's friends. ...

The Copenhagen Wheel is part of a more general trend: that of inserting intelligence in our everyday objects and of creating a smart support infrastructure around ourselves for everyday life... The Wheel has a smart lock: if somebody tries to steal it, it goes into a mode where the brake regenerates the maximum amount of power, and sends you a text message. So in the worst case scenario the thief will have charged your batteries before you get back your bike."

(Via MIT’s big wheel in Copenhagen.)

Yesterday I listened to a presenter at Emory who reminded me of something I read years ago when he said it, "The opposite of love isn't hate. It's fear."

We live in such fearful times. And I don't think all fear is unhealthy at all. But this free hugs movement, started by Juan Mann a few years back, points us in a positive direction marked by kindness and acceptance. Check out pictures of huggers from around the world.

He started a movement that has spread around the world. I'm including this clip from Scotland, though there are many videos on YouTube about Free Hugs.

When it gives people the opportunity to create and share (over 1.5 million views of this video) beyond the grip of corporate ownership.

A tag or word cloud is a collection of tags or words (or both) that are most commonly used in a speech, on a blog, in an article, etc. Below is a current word cloud for my blog. It refreshes automatically twice a day; so, it will change as the content of my blog changes. If you click on an word in the cloud, you should be taken to the Google search results for that word.

The tag cloud in my sidebar is different. It is restricted to tags only and not all of the words on my blog. Clicking on a word in the tag cloud in the sidebar of my blog will take you to all of the posts that use that tag.

The larger the word, the more often it appears on my blog at that moment.

This tag cloud is provided by Tagul.

My dislike of AT&T has been no secret on my blog. Others have shared similar disgust both in my blog's comments section and in personal email.

To recap just a single reason AT&T has earned my ire: Because AT&T will not offer me the tethered wireless internet connection* my iPhone supports, I have a Verizon wireless card that allows me to surf the internet on my laptop. (AT&T didn't even offer this service for Mac users when I purchased the Verizon card!!!!!) I have yet to be in a location where my Verizon card does not get a robust signal. It always works flawlessly!

However, I can't begin to recall all of the places where my iPhone's AT&T signal did not exist at all or was so unspeakably sporadic (full signal one second and no signal the next, resulting in a dropped call and no internet connection) as to make it useless, or it connected to AT&T's slower, creeping, crawling Edge network.

From my vantage point as an end user, Verizon's network is vastly superior and more expansive when compared to my experiences with the AT&T network. My only gripe with Verizon is that they have been rumored to have turned down Apple's proposed iPhone deal when it was first offered to them. Foolish, foolish choice! They could have all but killed the monolithic AT&T!

Cingular then accepted Apple's offer only to then get bought by the giant AT&T that had previous been dismantled as a violation of anti-trust law.

Whatever did happen to those laws?!!!!

This week, Verizon filed a sarcastic and defiant response to the lawsuit earlier this month alleging that Verizon's "There's a Map for That" ads falsely assert that AT&T has major gaps in its wireless coverage. In Verizon's response filed with the U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia, the company eschewed standard legalese and instead launched into a bombastic broadside against its rival.

"AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon's 'There's A Map For That' advertisements are untrue," said the introduction. "AT&T sued because Verizon's ads are true and the truth hurts."

The response then went on to taunt AT&T for the small size of its 3G wireless coverage.

"Verizon Wireless has invested billions of dollars since 2004 upgrading nearly its entire network across the continental United States... and today covers five times more of the United States than AT&T's 3G network," it said. "Despite the far smaller size of its 3G network, AT&T has spent tens of millions of dollars making its 3G network... the centerpiece of its national advertising."

Verizon's "There's a Map for That" ads typically show AT&T users struggling to use applications on their mobile devices while Verizon customers happily watch live streaming videos. The ads then display maps that show the total geographical reach of 3G coverage for each carrier, with Verizon's map showing a far larger area of the country covered by its 3G service.

AT&T has not disputed that the maps used by Verizon in its ads are accurate. Rather, it has accused Verizon of misleading consumers by implying that AT&T has no wireless coverage in large parts of the country, when in reality parts not covered by AT&T's 3G HSPA network are still covered by its 2G EDGE network. However, in Verizon's ads the company clearly marks the maps as "AT&T 3G Coverage" and "Verizon Wireless 3G Coverage."

link: Verizon ups the smarm, mocks AT&T | Phones | iPhone Central | Macworld

Live streaming video???!!! Where's that AT&T?!! Why are you not providing iPhone users with that service AT&T?!!

AT&T just needs to stop pocketing all of that cash from iPhone users' absurdly high billing plans, and start investing it in provided a vastly improved network. But no! Of course not!

The day Verizon kicks off full support for the iPhone will be the day this customer drops AT&T in less than a heartbeat, even though AT&T will extort its $200 cancelation fee--a small price to pay for no longer supporting AT&T's corporate interests over their customers' interests. AT&T probably knows I will only be the first of millions of iPhone customers to do so and therefore, I'm guessing, chooses to pocket the cash while they can rather than invest it in an improved user network experience. I'm guessing they've done the math, and it appears to be all about profit for AT&T.

And the PR firm that came up with Verizon's "There's a Map for That" advertising campaign is completely brilliant! It's so effective on so many levels it has AT&T crying foul. Hopefully it will also be a catalyst for forging a partnership between Apple and Verizon sooner rather than later. AT&T is indeed the weak link crippling the iPhone user experience!

*Tethered wireless internet connection: The iPhone has the ability to automatically connect to my laptop wirelessly when it is physically near (within 30 feet) the laptop and seamlessly, without the user having to do anything, allow my laptop to surf the internet through the iPhone's connection to the cell phone carrier's network. Astoundingly, considering how much money iPhone users pay for their service plans, AT&T currently refuses to support this feature! I suspect they refuse support because their network is, as Verizon has clearly pointed out, inadequate for the task.

Nicholas Carr's writing over at Rough Type often makes me think. He recently posted "Does My Tweet Look Fat?" I laughed.

I've grappled with Twitter for some time now. Yet I still don't know what I think of it.

I have no interest in knowing "What are [most people on this planet] doing?" at any particular moment in time. Most of what we do day to day is just not all of that interesting. It's routine. It's, as it must need be, mundane and perfunctory. And I personally find the narcissistic emphasis of the late 20th and early 21st centuries completely revolting. I guess, to be trite, I'm just not that into "you" when you think it's all about you.

Some have suggested to me that Twitter is more like tapping into the stream of consciousness for the world, or at least the Twitter-verse. Yikes, so much noise! My life is already filled with enough noise. Besides, managing my own stream of consciousness in real time is pretty much a full time job.

Now, when friends are traveling and tweeting pics and such: cool--I rather do find that interesting. And some virtual friends pique my interest when they tweet something fascinating or informative. But these seem to be the exception to the twitter-verse. And I suspect that almost everyone on this planet, except for my mother, has no interest in what I am doing at any particular moment in time.

So what does it say about us when our skinny little 140 character tweet is too fat? And from my vantage point, so many of the tweets that stream through this virtual spinal tap are all but anorexic--completely devoid of sustenance and meaning.

For me, tweets are too often like digital ADHD--disconnected flits of thought thereby rendered pretty meaningless. Yes, that's more like what it is to me: digital ADHD. (And don't get me wrong, I can ride that vibe for a while.)

I feel a need for deeper engagement with people than a flittering tweet here and there. And I don't really enjoy the tweet overload. I rather enjoy a good, realtime conversation--virtual or face to face. Yeah, whatever happened to the art of conversation? Surely we're not too busy for that, are we?

According to the Audit Bureau of Circultations:

average daily circulation dropped 10.6 percent in the April-September period from the same six-month span in 2008. That was greater than the 7.1 percent decline in the October 2008-March 2009 period and the 4.6 percent drop in the April-September period of 2008.

Newspaper circulation down 10.6 percent // Current

And for a detailed graph of the circulation statistics of major US newspapers over the past 20 years, click here. It's horrifying!

Well, allow me to tell you why...

• It costs a fortune to deliver a physical paper to your doorstep. Remember the milkman? Print newspaper is going to the same resting place.
  
• Just yesterday I was lamenting that the LA Times is easily only 20% news copy and 80% advertising. What a foolish strategy. Nearly everyone has trained their eye to not even see the annoying noise on the page as they search for content.
  
• From an ecological viewpoint, the print paper is a tremendous waist of natural resources. I frankly have no desire to receive the LA Time any more. I throw out (recycle) a huge amount of paper trash every week. What's the point? Why not save that entire workflow of waisted resources?!

The print paper is no longer a sustainable business model. Adding more advertising to make up for the lowered cost of advertising only increases my desire to see no advertising at all and makes me want to cease the print paper from arriving at my house entirely. I don't subscribe to the paper to see advertising. At 80% advertising, why do I subscribe to the paper at all?

Where's the phone!

Everyone knows I'm a technology addict. Therapy would be far less expensive.

So I have purchased a new Withings scale in the hopes it will motivate me to eat more healthfully and exercise more often. (Since I've added the insulin pump, my A1C is in the normal range, but I have gained 20 pounds over the past 3 years and just feel fat.)

The scale measures your weight and your BMI. It tells me how many pounds of my weight are fat. (Dreadful) It sends my weight to my online profile and my iPhone so I can see a graph of how well I am proceeding to my goal. I could even share my graph here on timtyson.us, but... well, how to say this succinctly... not a chance in hell!

Actually, though I really want to lose 20 pounds, I'm just barely outside a normal weight (a mere 2 pounds) for my height, and my fat mass is within the normal for my height range. I suppose the reason I'm not happy with my weight is that my lean body mass is near the bottom of normal for my weight. So I need to have more of my weight be muscle mass instead of fat.

The new scale looks very sleek and works amazingly. I stand on it for about 10 seconds and get a digital readout of total weight, lean mass weight, fat mass weight, and BMI. Within a minute the data is on my iPhone and online profile. Very cool.

I must confess to being among the first to purchase the new scale in the United States. Withings has been selling them abroad for some time now and just opened up the US market.

Scale Rating: Tim Likes!

I have the basic news apps on my iPhone: AP, the New York Times, NPR, even the Wall Street Journal. I've had the CNN site bookmarked on my phone until today. I deleted it after purchasing CNN's new mobile app for the iPhone. It's the best news site application I've seen to date--complete awesomeness!

The app only costs $1.99. As a friend of mine pointed out, however, you still have to suffer with advertisements on the paid application. Sad. But at least I don't find it nearly as intrusive as CNN.com's video ads before every video. [By the way, I've found a way around that!] On the iPhone app you only get a still image ad while the video loads. And I'm delighted you can watch live newscasts and video over WiFi, 3G, and Edge! (It's about time, AT&T!)

Turning the phone horizontally gives a very nice coverflow slideshow for news events and videos all based on category. Touch the picture to flip the image and reveal the barebones basics of the story with a link to watch or read if you desire.

My CNN provides immediate access to news, weather, and traffic based on your physical location and on any locations you setup to monitor. The news stories link to local media.

iReport, shown at the bottom of this post, is probably my favorite, not because of the content, but because of the concept. In this section you can view featured iReport articles or video. But what is really impressive: Submit. The user can submit photos or video right from the iPhone. So if you find yourself in the middle of a news-worthy event, you can shoot it and upload it to iReport on the spot. Very slick! CNN even offers some suggested assignments for iReporters.

Other nifty little features remain undiscussed. I like the new CNN app, a lot. The designers did a great and thoughtful job.

Astounding!

In the last six months, we've seen uploads from mobile phones to YouTube jump 1700%; just since last Friday, when the iPhone 3GS came out, uploads increased by 400% a day.

This growth represents three things coming together: new video-enabled phones on the market, improvements to the upload flow when you post a video to YouTube from your phone, and a new feature on YouTube that allows your videos to be quickly and effortlessly shared through your social networks. It takes just a minute to connect your YouTube account to your Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader accounts. Complete a simple, one-time connection on our upload page to allow all your friends and followers to get a real-time stream of your uploads to YouTube, which can be essential in this age of citizen reporting and ubiquitous sharing.

[From YouTube Blog]

The "DNS migration" is simply the association of a URL, a website address, in my case: timtyson.us, with its home on some server out on the world wide web. It's not a complicated thing really. You just have to tell the Domain Name Servers (DNS) on which server, of all the millions of them out there, to go to find a particular web address when a person types it in to their browser.

In brief, these are the steps I followed to migrate servers and upgrade my blogging system at the same time (in case I ever want to do this again):

• I copied all of my ancillary timtyson.us files (images, movies, my photo galleries) that are on my old server account, a server owned by DreamHost that they nicknamed "Ivan," on to a new account on a server owned by mediatemple.
• I uploaded the new MovableType 4.25 blog system onto the mediatemple server.
• I set up a new MySQL database on mediatemple for my timtyson.us blog. (The database contains all of the posts and other critical setup and publishing information that make the blog function properly.)
• I exported my blog's database content from the DreamHost database I had created 5 years ago.
• I installed MT4.25 by telling my new MovableType installation everything about timtyson.us including where to publish my blog on the new server location by using a temporary access domain given to me by mediatemple.
• I imported all of my old database content (which I had exported from the DreamHost database above) into my blog's new mediatemple database.
• I told MovableType 4.25 to rebuild my entire blog using the new server settings and the temporary access domain configurations. At this point I had two complete copies of timtyson.us, but the web only knew about the copy it had been using on the DreamHost server.
• Using the temporary access domain given to me by mediatemple, I conducted a number of tests on the new server installation to be sure it worked. The last step in that test was the previous post through the temporary access domain.
• Since it worked, I told the DNS that now, instead of going to the DreamHost server to find timtyson.us, go to the mediatemple server and use the new installation as my web presence. Since the new MovableType 4.25 installation has a completely different look with the very same content, I could tell when the new server address was beginning to propagate around the world.
• Since that worked, I then edited the MovableType installation to stop publishing on the temporary access domain and begin publishing on the timtyson.us domain name, since the DNS server would now send newly published information to the mediatemple server.
• If this post goes live on timtyson.us, the last step in this process worked!

Things that remain to be done that will follow in time:

• Complete this process for each of the website I manage. (I am well under way with downloading (from DreamHost) and uploading (to mediatemple) all of the files for my other sites.)
• Delete all of the files off of the DreamHost server once I have migrated all of my websites from DreamHost to mediatemple, and close that account. I have less than 2 weeks to get this done, hence the delay in completing the full migration for timtyson.us
• Complete the the timtyson.us migration which includes all of the following steps:
• Install SlideShowPro (SSP) on the mediatemple server. (SSP is the system that publishes my photo galleries, and, like MovableType, requires database creation and data population--no small task.) So right now no one can access the photo galleries at timtyson.us. Sorry.
• Create a database for the SSP installation.
• Turn on the existing photo galleries for timtyson.us
• Rewrite the CSS files that gave timtyson.us its previous look and feel. Since MT 4.25 is so significantly different from MT 3.36, this process will be such a significant reworking of those files (read: time consuming) that I will probably start them more or less from scratch. When this is finished though, timtyson.us should have the same (or improved) appearance and functionality it had before.

I've decided not to upgrade my blogging system for my other websites at this time as that would require a massive time commitment. I'll wait until timtyson.us has been restored to its former glorious self first. Then, I'll know the fastest and most efficient way to upgrade all of my remaining sites. I actually use timtyson.us as a proving ground, a beta test, for everything I do on my other sites. I don't want to run the risk of blowing up the professional sites; so, I run that risk on timtyson.us. :o)

[I have another reason the other sites will not be upgraded to MT4.25 yet... There's an unresolved problem with the new timtyson.us MovableType 4.25 installation: the comments template code (and/or any associated javascript) has a bug in it. As written, clicking on any comment link brings up a new page with banner, sidebar, and footer, but the entry data blinks onto the screen for a second and then goes completely blank in the entry area. Odd! I've found a temporary work around. If anyone knows what the problem is along with a solution, let me know!]

So, once again, fingers crossed as I click "Publish." I actually think this will work!

Well, the ole blog has now been around for 5 years! Seems rather amazing to me actually as life was so different 5 years ago!

Sometimes time passes slowly, other times it flies. I recall setting up my blog for the first time--seems like 20 years ago now! Lots of water under the bridge in the past five years. Lots os change. Many, many miles.

And all of it really has been wonderful actually--with the notable exception of the Republican party destroying America.

So I thought this first new post with timtyson.us hosted on the new mediatemple server account and using a new blogging system (from MovableType 2.x to MovableType 4.25 in those five years) was only fitting.

Now fingers crossed this will actually publish! :o)

Footnote: Not only did it actually post, but it posted in a fraction, a tiny, tiny fraction of the time the DreamHost server and MT 3.36 required for posting! Lovin' it!

In the next 12 - 24 hours some major changes will take place here at timtyson.us. We are talking heavy construction. I've decided to upgrade timtyson.us to MovableType 4.25. I've been using MovableType 3.36. In the past 24 hours I've had a crash lesson in the huge differences between the two.

Additionally, my hosting service contract needs to be renewed in less than two weeks. I've been using DreamHost for years. I've been relatively happy with them through the years. But lately their servers have been running slower and slower and frequently dropping my connections as they attempt to add every human on the planet to one of their server plans. And I must have received a dozen or more emails from them asking me to upgrade my account to a private virtual server (or something like that). The upgrade costs more but provides the user with more server resources. They tell me my websites demand a lot of server resources.

After doing a good bit of reading, I've decided to switch hosting services. I'm in the process of migrating all of the sites I manage to mediatemple. (If for no other reason, mediatemple has an awesome web design team!) So, in the next 12 - 24 hours (give or take a dozen or two), timtyson.us will be hosted on their grid service server farm. I'm hoping for better server response and greater reliability.

Interestingly, one of the mediatemple data centers is less than 5 miles from my house in El Segundo, California. With my fiber connection, transfers have been singeing the wires around here!

So why even bother tell you about this? Well, when I change the DNS setup for timtyson.us, my site may be unavailable for a short period of time as the new DNS information propagates across the world. Not to worry, my site will be back up. The little 4.4 earthquake that just rumbled the house didn't do me in.

And you may also find links that might not work or other unanticipated issues. Let me know when you find an anomaly. I hope to have anticipated most things, but doing two major changes like this at the same time is probably unwise if not completely crazy!

timtyson.us will initially have a completely new look and feel as I rework all of the style sheets that make it appear the way it looks now. The "Pick a Theme" style switcher will initially not work at all. Retooling that code will be the last step in the migration and upgrade process.

So fingers crossed! The transition has already been underway for over 24 hours! I'll start the DNS migration soon! Things will be rough around the edges for a while, I'm sure.

I just learned about a new blogging client that run from the iPhone. It's like ecto for the iPhone. All of my blogs are aggregated into the iPhone to make publishing to any of them a snap! So this is my first test post from iBlogger the iPhone app!

I can show you my location while I'm blogging:

I can embed links, like this link to ecto.

I can snap a picture with my iPhone or upload one that's already in my photo collection, like the really cool one at the beginning of this post, an iPhone wallpaper from the awesome vladstudios.

I'm trying to figure out how to categorize my post though I can see how to tag it.

This little iPhone application, Ocarina, is incredibly clever! The creator turns the iPhone into a wind instrument. You blow into the mic while fingering the phone to create hauntingly beautiful tone. But, it gets even better than that. You can even listen to other people playing their Ocarina, the name of his iPhone-based instrument, around the world! The notes just gently float off of the earth in real time as they are played.

The website for Smule, the creators of Ocarina, is at this link.

This just blows me away. Enjoy this little ensemble below.

Last night was Halloween. I've commented before about the large number of children in the neighborhood. Well last night was a classic example: certainly over a hundred children came to the door and confiscated 5 large bags of halloween candy.

Why is this a blast from the past? Not since I was a child trekking the streets for Halloween have I seen so many children out on Halloween night! But, Halloween isn't what it was when I was a child. After leaving the front door, the kids were on the cell phones reporting where all the "good candy" was to be found!

Blast Two
My grandmother loved her Avon products. She used an off white Avon cold cream ever night. It had a very distinctive, soft, pleasant smell that I always associated with my grandmother. I purchased and used a cleaning product in the house yesterday that has that exact same smell.

Certainly, smells are very powerful ways to bring back memories. And this smell brought back the delightful memories of one of the most loving people I ever have known!

I have never made a secret of my detestation for Rove.

Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama as "a transformational figure" was powerful. But even more powerful was his withering indictment of the state of the Republican Party and the cancer of Rovian politics.

It was similar to the diagnosis of Christopher Buckley following his endorsement of Obama: "To paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan, I haven't left the Republican Party. It left me."

There are many other anti-Rove Republicans abandoning their party. I've had several Republican friends tell me privately what Powell and Buckley told the world publicly: that they're voting for Obama. Most of them not because they like Obama, but because they can't stand what Bush, Rove and now McCain and Palin have done to their party.

Rovian politics may or may not end up destroying the GOP. But, thanks to the Internet, with a bit of luck it will no longer have the power to befoul our democracy.

[Source: Arianna Huffington: The Internet and the Death of Rovian Politics]

Brilliant shirts, sold by redbubble, are hopefully instructive. Do you see the terrorists in the graphics on the shirts? No?! Well, still, don't you feel safer now? After all, isn't that what matters?

Trust, the social glue of life, evaporated and was replaced with greed and hyper-consumption while the Republicans ran this country—straight to hell, in my humble opinion. Where has the soul of my country gone? When will it return?

"They" blame the terrorists. (That's properly pronounced "tur-ur-ists.")

I blame each one of us.

Pssst! It's time for some hugely significant change!

Here is a good article at the iPod Lounge for Mac users who are interested in ripping your legally owned DVDs so you can watch them on your iPod. (They also give info for Windows users.) The article includes settings and information related to format. Handbrake, a great little application which I've used many times, is not completely intuitive. The step by step directions, presented by the iPod Lounge, along with some explanation of what the settings all mean and do is very helpful.

I'm in the process (this very moment, actually) of setting up a media server for the house that will provide access to all of the digital media content to any television or computer in the house. Regrettably, I can't find a single comprehensive solution to address all of the digital assets: TiVo, AppleTV, iTunes, Podcasts, Photos, the Verizon DVR, etc. I suspect that Apple has been developing this for the last few years, but that will probably be a completely proprietary solution.

And the thought of ripping all of the DVD content I own is just too overwhelming, especially when the new BluRay format is getting ready to pounce and make all of the lower resolution DVDs look less than desirable on the large HD flat screen TVs. And then there is the hard disk space requirement. For standard definition alone the space required is insane!

And then you have the issue of developing an affordable digital media backup strategy. I'm already dealing with a LaCie HD failure at the moment–a 1TB drive. When drives contain that much data, losing one is no small concern. And yes, they do die! This is the third hard drive failure I've experienced in 2008! That's a huge issue.

I have two 4 TB Drobo's with a network interface on the way to address the backup and redundancy issues. But what of catastrophic loss like fire or theft? I'm curious about off site backup. But .Mac, now MobileMe, limits backup capacity to 60 GB, which doesn't even cover my documents folder, let alone my digital media assetts: 20,000+ photos, then thousands and thousands of videos, podcasts, and music files...

I'm curious about Amazon's S3, with JungleDisk, which, as inexpensive as it first seems at .10 per GB per month plus bandwidth usage, adds up quickly when you're talking about terabytes of data. Redundancy is good but is also both very time consuming and expensive.

Then how do you fully and completely automate the backup/redundancy process? I certainly don't want to spend any of my time checking to see what new files have been added to iTunes to back up just those, etc. This must be completely and reliably automated.

Who has explored solutions? Has anyone found anything you really like that works well?

If it's true, the dude is out of touch with today's (virtual) reality!

In a daring bid to wrench attention from his Democratic rival in the 2008 presidential race, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) today embarked on an historic first-ever visit to the Internet.

Given that the Arizona Republican had never logged onto the Internet before, advisors acknowledged that his first visit to the World Wide Web was fraught with risk.

[Source: McCain Makes Historic First Visit to Internet - Borowitz Report ]

Today the iTunes Store is 5 years old. In just five years Apple dominates all sources of music distribution, surpassing the previous king of the hill, Walmart, about a month ago! Predictions are that Apple may capture 25% of music world-wide within only 4 years! How quickly times can change. And I'm lovin' it!

We have grown critically dependent on the world wide web!

Last Wednesday two undersea communication cables carrying Internet traffic were severed near Alexandria, Egypt, causing widespread outages in Egypt and India that left a reported 100 million people without Net access. On Friday, it was discovered that a third cable, off the coast of Dubai, had been cut. And then, over the weekend, a fourth cable, between the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, was reported to be damaged.

No one's quite sure who or what has caused the damage. Early reports that a wayward ship's anchor was to blame were contradicted over the weekend by Egypt's communications ministry, which said that no ships were in the area when the first two cables were damaged. With a lack of reliable news reports on the situation, conspiracy theories are beginning to spread through the blogosphere. One particularly imaginative theory is that a US submarine severed the cables in order to cut off internet service to Iran. Another is that it's all a ruse to distract attention from a big wire-tapping effort.

Whatever the cause, or causes, the cable breaks reveal both the vulnerability and the robustness of Internet service.

[From Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Who cut the cables?]

with my RSS feed aggregator, NetNewsWire. And a few weeks back the program, which I bought several years ago, became a free download! Mac users need to download it today. It has a wonderfully rich feature set. I'm continually learning more creative and efficient ways to use it, like this article, for example!