My recent experience with Mozy means that I have been looking for alternatives and I am currently trying out DropBox. Now DropBox isn’t really meant for backing but with a bit of tweaking I think I have found an acceptable solution. You’ll need to create a folder that you want to store you documents in inside the DropBox folder. In this case I called it Documents. You’ll then need to open terminal window and type the commands below (modified obviously for you own paths)
- cp -Rp ~/Documents /Users/UserName/Dropbox/Documents
- This will copy all your documents to the new documents folder
- chmod -R -N ~/Documents
- This changes the permissions on the documents folder allowing you to delete it
- sudo rm -rf ~/Documents
- This will delete the contents of the old documents folder and the folder itself
- ln -s /Users/UserName/Dropbox/Documents ~/Documents
- Creates a symbolic link where the system expects to see the old documents folder and points it at the new one
As a techie I rebuild and restore a lot of computers. As part of the rebuild I usually install Mozy home (free edition), even if the free edition doesn’t have enough space to do a full backup. In the case of not enough space I at least backup documents giving people the initial thought that they have to at least think about backups, not to mention I get the extra space every time I refer someone.
Well today I rebuilt my MacBook Air and once the patching was done I installed Mozy and tried to restore from the client. No matter how many times I tried, how many config changes it made it wouldn’t work. In the end I did a web restore and downloaded the DMG which is fine, I mean the restore did work. On the other hand I had to wait an hour for the Mozy server to collect up and package all my files. I have decided this is unacceptable from a service that says I can get my files restored immediately and am now looking for alternative backup solutions.
I am in the process of designing a new site for Fantasy Fine Line Tattoo in Windsor. The holding page is up and running and the new site will be launched within a few weeks
Check it out at http://www.fantasyfinelinetattoo.com
Here is a simple script you can use to create an icon to launch a Virtual Box VM in headless mode using an Automator application. Simply start automator drop and paste this code into a AppleScript window.
on run {input, parameters}
do shell script "vboxmanage startvm [VM NAME] --type headless "
do shell script "sleep 60"
tell application "Terminal"
if (count of windows) is 0 then
do script "ssh -l root root@[VM IP ADDRESS]"
else
do script "ssh -l root root@[VM IP ADDRESS]" in window 1
end if
activate
end tell
return input
end run
This script is designed for a VM running Debian and will launch your VM in headless mode wait, 60 seconds and then launch and SSH session within terminal window.
If you launch this whilst the VM is already running you’ll get an error. You could get round this by putting a simple if statement to check and see if the VM is running, and if so simply launch the terminal window and not attempt to relaunch the VM
You could even save the workflow as an application and drop it on your dock with a cool icon.
I have been reading on the web that hotmail is going to get Exchange ActiveSync enabled over the summer allowing users to keep their email, calendar, and contacts in sync with their mobile device.
Although not officially enabled yet it appears some users have had limited success (including me) it appears that to get it working you specify the server name as m.hotmail.com and leave the domain box blank.
Please remember ActiveSync on most devices currently only supports one email address, this means that if your work email server is configured on your phone then you most likely cannot take advantage of this new service. iPhone 4 users, iPhone 3G* and 3GS* users will be able to support multiple ActiveSync accounts.
*3G and 3GS users will get this in iOS 4
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