The PutPlace Blog

A burglar broke into Alex Botsios’ apartment and threatened him with a baseball bat. Botsios willingly gave up his wallet and guitars, but balked when it came to his laptop:

Then the robber made the mistake that ultimately landed him in the hospital — he went for the laptop. According to Botsios, he said “Dude, no — please, no! I have all my case notes…that’s four months of work!” Saucedo, obviously underestimating the fury of an overstressed, overworked first-year, was unsympathetic. That’s when Botsios could take no more.

Wrestling Saucdeo to the floor, Botsios separated the bat from the thief and repeatedly punched him in the face. When it was all over, police had to get Saucedo stitched up before charging him with armed robbery and kidnapping, while Botsios only suffered some scrapes and a bruised knuckle. Most importantly, at least to the student, is that his laptop, which he called “his baby,” escaped unharmed.

Of course, if Mr. Botsios had backed up his laptop somewhere remotely (hint, hint), he might not have worried so much about it getting stolen.

This is the second in an occasional series of audio interviews we’re doing with tech gurus and alpha geeks. We’ll be talking to them about how they manage their digital life, where they store all of their virtual stuff and related geekery. Photo by Randy Stewart, blog.stewtopia.com.

You can listen to the interview, or read the transcription below:

• Interview with Vanessa Fox (17:59, 16.9 MB)

Darren: This is Darren Barefoot talking today for PutPlace about backing up your digital life. Today we’re talking to Vanessa Fox. Hello, Vanessa.

Vanessa: Hi. How’s it going?

Darren: It’s going well. How’s it going with you?

Vanessa: Wonderful.

Darren: Excellent. And tell us who you are.

Vanessa: Oh. My goodness. That’s a very good question. Well, I do a number of things online, I guess. I probably am mostly known for what I’ve done in the search industry. I used to work at Google and built Webmaster Central for them. Now, I’m actually launching a new site called Nine by Blue where I’m going to just try to talk about a lot of different things involved in acquiring more visitors through things such as search and social media.

Darren: And so this is the number nine by blue dot com?

Vanessa: Yes, so I’m going to try and make sure to have both it spelled out and the number redirecting to the same place.

Darren: Yes. That makes sense. And why that domain?

Vanessa: You know, it’s very hard to come up with names. I think people who do naming are very skilled. They have a talent that I don’t have. So I spent a lot of time thinking about it and what I really just sort of wanted to convey was the idea that there actually is a lot of data out there about your customers, about your potential customers, and so you can take all those numbers and sort of turn them into something more, something that’s actually an engagement as opposed to just the numbers. ‘Cause there’s just tons of numbers and it’s hard to find what’s actionable. So, you know, really aggregating that stuff in a useful way. Just sort of, numbers into something else. And I just like blue. I like the water.

Darren: Sure. It could have been any color. You went with blue.

Vanessa: Could have been anything. Yeah.

Darren: Maybe you got a spot in this whole — Hopefully, if you’re really successful you can spawn an imitation site which is “Seven By Indigo” or something like that.

Vanessa: Yes, exactly.

Darren: I’m going to go register actually all the other numbers and all the other colors right now just so I can own –

Vanessa: Oh no!

Darren: So somebody’s like “Oh, what was that website? Nine by pink?” Anyway. Actually, that’s a fun way to slice a bunch of domains is by having colors associated with given, kind of, topic set.

Vanessa: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Darren: Not to use a stereotype, but if you had a blog about gay lifestyle it could be “X By Pink” or something.

Vanessa: Uh-huh.

(more…)

The sad story of Jimmy and Tamala Lapointe was featured on the front page of Vancouver’s tabloid, The Province, today. They had their laptop stolen from their car. The laptop had the only copy of irreplaceable baby photos–”the birthing room, his first time breastfeeding, everything”:

Thieves got into the car and nabbed a backpack. Inside was a white Apple MacBook laptop loaded with all Rykr’s photos. “I kept on thinking, ‘I should get that backed up,’ but we knew we were going to make a photo album,” said Jimmy. “It was dumb that we didn’t have a backup.”

Theirs is a cautionary tale. We’re hoping the thief has a heart, and that they get their baby photos back. Don’t let this happen to you–back up today.

This is the first in an occasional series of audio interviews we’re doing with tech gurus and alpha geeks. We’ll be talking to them about how they manage their digital life, where they store all of their virtual stuff and related geekery.

You can listen to the interview, or read the transcription below:

• Interview with Chris Pirillo (14:33, 27 MB)
  

Darren: So we’re talking today for PutPlace. We’re recording a series of conversations with tech gurus and productivity types about how they backup and manage their digital life and tonight we have Chris Pirillo. Chris, tell us who you are and what you do.

Chris: Well I think the easiest way to explain it is if you go to Google and you type in the word “Chris” I should be the first one there at least at this moment in time. I’ve been online since 1992 in one sense, well, except when I sleep but that’s not very often. So, I enjoy the world of psychology and creating content and sharing information with the world.

Darren: And we can watch you right now at Live.Pirillo.com, right?

Chris: Yeah, it’s kinda scary, I’m doing life-casting so all the time it’s always on and I’ve set it up so that even if I’m there I’ve got chat room, and the chat room’s always lively and interactive and you know just a bunch of geeks hanging out.

Darren: Aren’t you ever worried that someone might see you picking your nose?

Chris: Uh, no, although they definitely caught some interesting moments.

(Darren laughs.)

Chris: Uh, yeah… uh, yeah (Chris laughs.)

A Very Complicated Digital Life

Darren: Uh, OK, well uh, we wanted to talk you obviously because I know you and you’ve obviously been online for a long time and have alot of technology and you have probably a very complicated digital life– (Following overlaps with Chris’ comment below:] so… how many computers do you currently - have?

Chris: - No, not really…

Darren: — No…? How many computers do you currently have?

Chris: Well I do have alot of computers but, you know, I tend to be a minimalist as far as my digital lifestyle is concerned. I don’t want to you know be overwhelmed and that’s what can happen really easily. So if you ask me how many computers I have I don’t know if I can name them all. For me it’s been trying to find the right grooves so that everything integrates and it’s been difficult. Especially in relation to content, whether it’s my own content or consuming other people’s content. For years I had to rely on tradition media means and mechanism and I don’t really want to rely on tradition channels and delivery anymore so I‘ve been looking for ways to integrate that older type of consumer lifestyle with the digital world with whether I am today and the way content is distributed today. So… it’s… when you ask how many computers I have… I think I’ve got alot but they wouldn’t necessarily be termed as PC or Mac but anything that could be connected to the internet I would consider a computer these days. (more…)

I was recently doing some research on Flickr, looking for photos of melted, damaged and destroyed hardware storage devices (after all, that’s what we help you recover from–sign up today and get 2 GB of online storage free). As it turns out, I hit the mother lode. I expected to find a few ruined laptops and dropped iPhones, but the carnage goes on and on. Here’s a bunch of my favourites, presented without comment:

(more…)

So you’ve decided to set up a digital storage plan? Congratulations! But, before you take your victory lap, review these 12 common backup mistakes and do your best to avoid them. Your data and your sanity will thank you.

1. Lack of Consistency: It’s important to have a number of places to store your data. Even more important? Being consistent in using them. Get into the habit of using the defaults that your operating system suggests (My Documents or Documents, Music, Video, and so forth) for your data.
2. If You Have to Remember, You’re Going to Forget: The human mind is an undependable backup system. Let your computer, or better yet, your backup software, do the heavy lifting here. An automated schedule frees up your mind for the more important things, like remembering to Twitter about your pancake breakfast.
3. Be Thorough: Microsoft Windows is particularly bad at dumping valuable stuff (like your mail file) under c:\Documents and Settings. Make sure you grab your user directory from this location as well.
4. Making a Copy of a Copy of Copy: Can’t remember the last time you backed up a directory? Don’t start down the slippery slope of copying over everything every time. Invest in reliable backup software to manage incremental backups and keep track of what needs to be backed up and what doesn’t.
5. Trust and Verify: Running backups is great. But like putting money in the bank, it’s always worthwhile to make regular withdrawals to see where your savings are at. Make a point of dipping into the backup once in a while to make sure the content is there and up-to-date.
6. I Don’t Need to Backup, I Use YouTube: Web services like Flickr and YouTube are great for keeping photos and videos stored online. However, what they’re keeping isn’t always exactly what you uploaded. For example, many people don’t realise that YouTube doesn’t retain your original video file. Flickr, on the other hand, does actually store the original size, even if you’re only using their free service. If you’re really attached to the original, be sure to save it somewhere else as well.
7. Don’t Forget Your Bookmarks: If you’re like us, you spend most of your day in your browser and live and die by the dozen bookmarks on your browser toolbar. Don’t forget to export these and back them up periodically.
8. No LOLs for Lost Chats: If you’re an avid IM user who saves their chat transcripts, be sure to include those in your backups. Skype automatically saves transcripts of chat conversations, and MSN Messenger does the same. Just grab these files, add them to your backup queue and you’ll always be ready to wow them at 4Chan with your IM pwnage.
9. Forget the Expiration Date: If you’re saving important business or personal documents (like financial statements, medical records, etc) don’t assume that you only need to keep them for seven years. Data retention laws are changing, and differ from country to country. To be safe, plan on keeping these documents forever. You might even consider creating a special subdirectory in your backup for long term storage items. Better yet, encrypt and password protect it.
10. Don’t Lose Your Encryption Key: If you do use heavy-duty encryption, make sure to store your key somewhere safe. Maybe print out a copy and send it to your lawyer or stick it in a safety deposit box. If you can’t find it and need to backup, it’s a major pain in the behind.
11. Save More than You Need: The costs for large portable hard drives and online storage have come down considerably in the past few years. Because of this, the need to pick and choose which data to save has essentially disappeared. Want a full terabyte storage unit for your videos, music and photos? No problem. You may never need it all, but it’s always better to have too much space than too little.
12. Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe: Finally, if you’re using a portable hard drive, be sure to keep it in a safe place. This probably doesn’t include your backpack or laptop bag. A safety deposit box isn’t always the best idea either, especially if you need emergency access after business hours. And be sure to pick an off-site location. There’s no point in having a prudently backed-up hard drive go up in flames because it’s sitting next to your PC during a house fire. Find a happy medium. We used to keep our backups in our Mom’s basement.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that, hey, we do this online backup thing pretty well. Sign up and get 2 GB of free storage.

Photo by So Misguided.

So we have been in public beta for a few weeks and I regularly get asked, What does PutPlace do?

We talk about three things in our tag line,

• Secure
• Organise
• Share

What I’d like to do is take you through some of the features around these areas in the next few blog posts.

This first one is about securing your content.

Now secure is pretty straightforward, we’ll take your files and put them somewhere safe. Safety for most people means "make me a copy and put it out of harms way".  Safety also touches on privacy (nobody else should be able to see these files) and access (except my family). 

But how do you know a copy is backed up, what about old versions, where are the other copies? PutPlace will backup every version of your file and because we track changes in realtime we backup in realtime as well. So each time you change that CV you get a new copy linked to the old copy on PutPlace.

lets see that in action. Here’s my CV directory, that I’ve added to PutPlace.

Now if  I edit the file CV Joe Drumgoole.doc  you will see it uploading.

Every time you save a copy of the file we will upload the changed file to the server.

Now you can go to the server see the file online.

See how all the revisions are stored. Nice. That will happen for every version of a file you create.

Things that we know we have to add,

• The ability to turn off versioning for a file and/or a directory
• The ability set a limit on the number of versions
• A way to look a the space overhead of the versions across a directory vs the cost of the latest revisions

We think this is a pretty good start to file security.

HP has launched an uncapped backup service called Upline. Its for Windows PC’s only and priced per PC. It uses the .NET Framework (so expect a bit of a download if your don’t have it installed) and presents a pretty slick interface.

Pricing is,

• Home (1 User), $4.99 a month
• Family (3 users), $6.99 a month
• Professional ( 3-100 users) $8.99 a month (per license)

Jonathan Schwartz (CEO at Sun) talks about the enormous disk requirements of the film industry in his latest blog entry. I love the quote at the end,

As I was told by Jeff (parroting a storage executive), there are only two types of disk drives in the industry. Drives that have failed, and drives that are about to fail

That comment goes double for consumer electronics (iPod failure anyone?).  With PC crashing all around us it makes even more sense to backup your PC.

Francis explains why…