Everyone needs to backup their data; students, however seem to be the worst at it. We either don't do it, or we obsessively do it. A little compulsion would be a good thing, but making multiple copies and keeping them in a variety places is a bit counter productive. "Did I add a backup of my latest to this thumbdrive? What about this drive?"

The long and short of data backup is that you really only need one backup, so long as it is reliable, and is off-site. Don't keep your only back up plugged into your computer, or in your purse, or anywhere that it might burn in a house fire, or be left at the library (Nancy, I'm thinking of you).

Ideally, your backup would be transparent, accessible, remote, secure, and have privacy settings for possibly sharing your stuff. Beyond that, if it offered diffing, that would be perfect.

I've been using Dropbox to keep live copies of my coursework. I can only speak to the Windows and Android UX, but it is very slick. On Windows, DB installs quickly and insinuates itself into the standard Windows Explorer. If selected at install, it will add a shortcut named "Dropbox" to desktop and also a shortcut named "My Drobox" to your "My Documents" directory.

Double-clicking either shortcut opens a folder on your local drive that stores whatever you put in it. Anything added here is automatically synced to your account at Dropbox. You can access these files on your tablet (Android or iOS), or smartphone (Android, iPhone - I am sure Symbian and Windows Phone 7 are not far off), or on the web on any device. You can also set up an account with Habilis to send files directly to your DB space as e-mail attachments. Pretty handy.

There is a third-party portable version of DB so you can run it from your thumbdrive, but I cannot vouch for it. I haven't used it and with Habilis, I don't need it.

To share a file, login to the web interface and select what to share, and with whom to share it. The shortcut for this is right-clicking on the file in Windows Explorer, and selecting the Dropbox menu item, then the "Browse on Dropbox website" fly-out. Try this out and you'll find another goody in there as well.

So, we are down to diffing, or versioning. DB does support undelete, as well as versioning, and even maintains a 30-day undo history for the free accounts, and unlimited undo for paid accounts. You can also roll back to previous versions if you need to. Additionally, if you are on any flavor of *nix, including OS X, you can install DropDiff and be able to download the previous version of your file(s). Right-click on a file in Windows Explorer to do this, or get it from the web interface.

The free version gives you 2GB to get started, and for each referral you sign up, you get a 250MB more, up to 8GB. I don't feel too much like a shill for asking this, but if you are going to sign up, please use one of the links above to +250 my account. Thanks. When I've reached 8GB, I'll update the links to boost someone else's accounts.

If you have things to which you want constant availability, DB can't be beaten. It does encrypt everything (SSL for transport), but it does so transparently. You won't see that your stuff is encrypted for transit, or for storage, and you may want to encrypt on your own anyhow. To do so, you might try TrueCrypt or some other tool for sensitive info. If you don't have TrueCrypt on your other computer/device, you won't be able to open your encrypted files. However, you can install it on a thumbdrive (I use my phone's microSD card) and run it from there.

TC is currently available only for PC platforms (Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux), but I hope Android and other mobile OSes will get it soon. Chip in a few bucks to encourage development.

I'll cover more on TC in another post, hopefully soon.

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I'm in my third quarter of online coursework and am learning, and
remembering, a great deal. If anyone has questions about Capella's
Ph.D. IAS program, drop me a line. partly as a place to keep stuff,
and also for some fellow classmates, I am going to start posting tips
and tools here.

The first post idea came up because of a conversation at colloquium in
Anaheim (no, I didn't get to see Mickey, or even the gates of the
kingdom).

Last night while speaking with some fellow students, we discussed the
quantitative analysis (statistics) course. I haven't taken it yet, but
one of them who has, did a project looking for correlations between a
nations number of Olympic gold medal winners and the nation's GDP. I'm
not sure that he found the correlation he was looking for, but it
seems very likely that there exists one.

Anyhow, he mentioned that finding and analyzing the data was
troublesome. I immediately thought of Wolfram|Alpha. I far under
utilize its capabilities, but I still find a great deal of value in
it. It uses curated data, and I would feel confident in citing it as a
primary resource when needed, but most data can be traced to an
original source. Perhaps Dr. Chmura could chime in on this.

I haven't found the correct syntax to create a table of nations'
names, their medal counts, and their GDPs, but the following queries
gets me pretty far (quotes are not used in queries):

"gold medals"
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gold+medals

This is a query for "gold medals" is interpreted quite well. The top
of the page shows an ordered list of countries with the highest medal
counts. Note that there is a link to expand this list to show more
nations. Below this table is an ordered list by year, which can be
changed to meet your needs.

The query for "GDP" also works out quite well for us:

"GDP"
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gdp

This gives a sum for the world's collective GDP, and below that gives
a ranked list of the highest GDPs, which can also be expanded, or
reversed. The "Source information »" links for each give
Wolfram|Alpha's database as the primary source, but also gives their
secondary sources.

Pretty handy stuff, huh?

I have learned a few other tricks, and there is a good community of
users/developers on the site as well. Accounts are free online, or you
can get the Android/iPhone app for a couple bucks. I bought it to
support the development, but this group isn't really hurting for
money.

Queries and their resulting URLs:

"mass watermelon vs. pear"
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=mass+watermelon+vs.+pear

You can even compare apples with oranges:

"apple vs. orange"
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=apple%20vs.%20orange

But you can only one of each at a time (at least, I don't know how to
do more - are oranges measured in bushels like apples?):

"apples vs. oranges"
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=apples%20vs.%20oranges

"bushel"
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=bushel

"1bushel apples vs. 1bushel oranges" - misinterprets bushel of oranges
as just one orange
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1bushel+apples+vs.+1bushel+oranges+

If you can't get the output you think you should be able to, try
reversing terms, or being more specific:

"1bushel oranges vs. 1bushel apples" - this is not interpreted as the
reverse was
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1bushel+oranges+vs.+1bushel+apples

Who knew?
"pigs in belgium/people in belgium"
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=pigs%20in%20belgium%2F%20people%20in%20b...

"gdp/population france england italy germany" - not quite right
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gdp%2Fpopulation+france+england+italy+ge...

"gdp france england italy germany/population" - still not quite what I want
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gdp+france+england+italy+germany%2Fpopul...

"gdp/population france gdp/population england gdp/population italy
gdp/population germany" - closer?
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gdp%2Fpopulation+france+gdp%2Fpopulation...

I would suggest giving your queries a try, and if you can't get what
you want, post to the community forum asking how you could better do
it. Of course, post the question as early as you can to allow more
time for response(s).

Please share any cool queries you come up with in the comments.

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D

The Gartner Group has determined that AR is nearing the peak of the hype cycle:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/234849,gartner-tablets-4g-and-the-cloud-at-peak...

This is nearly identical to an idea I've been trying to pitch at work
for over a year. I'm bound to Boeing for the next five years, but
toward the end of that, I'll look up tanagram partners for possible
work:
http://spill.tanagram.com/2010/05/21/introducing-iarm-intelligent-augmented-r...
http://spill.tanagram.com/downloads/iARM_Final_Report.pdf (Skip down
to p. 28 for the storyboards.)

Very cool idea to replace corporate logos with other stuff, in the
demo they use the faces of the matching CEOs. A nice wake-up as to how
bombarded we are by advertising:
http://permianlacube.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/augmented-reality-vs-corporate-...

Even more impressive would me making advertising disappear. There is a
project to cover them with art, which is really cool. This real-time
disappearing trick (with rudimentary explanation) is very impressive.
It reminds me of an element in Daniel Suarez'es Daemon, or maybe it
was Freedom(TM):
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/11/german-university-makes-objects-disappear-...

A very cool AR curriculum vitae:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/oct/08/augmented-reality-cv

Not in any way AR, but really awesome in its own right - using Google
adwords to get interviews:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/may/13/google-jobs-brownstein

Pioneer to offer laser-based HUD for automobiles (probably
after-market) in 2012:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/10/pioneers-prototype-laser-hud-could-help-yo...

Name and details on the furniture app I mentioned (to a narrower
distribution list) last week:
http://www.killerstartups.com/Mobile/snapshopinc-com-buy-the-right-furniture-...

That's all this week. Have a great weekend.

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I loved this comic when it first came out, and honestly, I still do.
It is too near the truth to not be both funny and scary.

I'm not terribly concerned that Priceline is trying to steal my
identity, but if were a dB admin there, I'd keep an eye on who is
running queries for users who have selected the following option.

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I got a great hydration pack as a gift from my brother, and after a few months the hose began developing cracks. One feature I liked about it was that thee hose was detachable for easy bite valve, hose, and bladder cleaning. So I sent just the hose in to Outdoor Products, and with a very short turn-around time, I got my new hose today, complete with the whole bladder and bite valve.

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layar_test.xml Download this file

I'm teaching myself to create layers for Layar, a mobile AR platform. Check it out at layar.com.

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generic_resident_script.ahk Download this file

This is a preview of my introduction of Autohotkey (AHK), not a
preview of AHK. It is very complete and full-featured. Its user-base
is extensive and the supporting community is strong. I'm not sure how
this file will be handled by Posterous, so if you don't see anything
check back in a while after I have fixed it up right.

Generic_resident_script.ahk is a script file and requires
Autohotkey.exe to run. I recommend getting it from autohotkey.com, but
in a future post I will add the .exe and other supporting files.

I'm very interested in feedback on this, so please let me know where I can simplify it and what else should be in there.

Thx,

D

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A second attempt.

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I'm going to start using this as my avatar for some fora I belong to,
and am hosting it at posterous by sending it now.

That is me guiding in the back with the yellow helmet. We were the only crew not to lose anyone on Husum Falls that day.

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Moon Spa was also a great stop for a deep-tissue massage, I've lost
the number, and never had an address. You should be able to ask around
and find where it is.

That's all.

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This was an attempt to use my camera's timer. Pretty fair considering
I had to set the timer, run my bike up the trail, get on, and ride
back down to hit the jump at just the right moment. Next time I'll
know to take a better tripod, and turn off the flash.

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Knowing

I wish this could be a list of the things that I don't know that I
don't know, but alas, I don't know what that list would contain.
Instead, I'll list a few that I didn't know I didn't know, and ask how
you all find out new things, or more surprisingly to me, old things
that you just didn't know.

I just learned a few weeks ago that in Windows XP, and probably all
versions, you can close a window by double-clicking on the application
icon in the window's upper-left corner. For instance, I'm posting via
web mail using Firefox. So, when I'm done, I can double-click on the
Firefox logo at the upper left. This is not any better way to close
windows than using the 'X' in the upper-right corner, and I almost
always close with alt-F4 anyhow, but I was very surprised to learn
something trivial like this about Windows that I didn't already know.
I learned it by seeing it done, which is probably the way most things
are learned.

I didn't know until recently that one born in, and residing in the US
can have dual-citizenship. I had mistakenly understood that the US did
not allow this. I had understood that naturalizing in the US from
certain countries creates a dual citizenship status for many people,
and that children borne to abroad to parents who are US citizens
typically have rights to citizenship in both the US and the country in
which they were borne. I learned this tidbit from some list of the
smallest countries (by area) that included Saint Christopher Island,
and that mentioned that it is popular amongst the wealthy because for
a $350,000 USD investment in property, St. Kitts will make you a
citizen. You have to keep your property for five plus years, but it
looks like a nice place to live anyhow. I'm not personally interested
in dual citizenship, but again, something I didn't know I didn't know.
In fact, I thought I knew just the opposite.

I rely pretty heavily on Wikipedia for quick reading jags about topics
and concepts that are new to me, and I'd say I learn about half the
stuff I didn't know I didn't know from the 'Ped. I get maybe a quarter
from conversation and being in a "live" setting. I'd guess I get
another 5% from TV and movies, and maybe 10% from books. It is hard to
categorize things into things I don't know and things I don't know I
don't know.

Two things you may not already know that I have found absolutely
invaluable at both work and home:
* Quicksearch in Firefox. Just type '/' (without the quotes) and then
the thing you want to search for and it will highlight it as you type.
Hitting F3 will find the next instance and shift-F3 will find the
previous instance. If you have highlighted a link, or a part of a
link, using quicksearch, you can hit the enter key to follow the link,
or control-enter to open it in a new tab.
* Keyword Search in Firefox. Setting up a keyword for a search is dead
simple, but I'll still leave it to LifeHacker
to explain. If you do already use keyword searches, there is better management available for them if you use FF3.

Comments and Followers

I appreciate everyone viewing my posts; I'll assume at least a few of
you also read them, but Posterous (and all web-based services) can
only tell me that you looked at something. I'm somewhat surprised,
pleasantly so, to see that I average over 41 views per post, so far,
and also that no one comments. I admit that I don't often comment on
anything either, but I'd appreciate just a word or two so I can see
who it is that views my posts. If you have a blog or such, leave a
link.

I also have two followers now, but one of the reportedly follows
almost 6,000 people on Posterous, and the other ostensibly follows
over 32,000. So, I don't know that either of them will even really see
a post.

Other
 
I'm writing an AutoHotkey
introduction that should only take about 15 minutes to go through.
I'll post it by the end of next week and would really appreciate some
feedback on it. Thanks.

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Among the squishier of northwest fauna, this wee banana slug, now less than an inch long, will grow to to over six or seven inches. Or be eaten, or squished, or just dehydrate while trying to cross the sidewalk on a hot afternoon. Such is the life of the banana slug. Incidentally, they are called that because of their shape. They don't really taste like bananas.

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I shot this, and the spider web, with my camera phone. I'm hoping to upgrade soon and get the Touch Pro 2.

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