Online Backup Solutions

Posted by riscphree – September 18, 2009

I have recently got the urge to start backing stuff up. I found a couple online companies offering this service so I decided to try them out.

First is a product called iDrive from http://www.idrive.com

idrive

iDrive gives free users 2gb of storage. For me this is plenty to backup some important documents. Their little program you download is quite nice. It is easy to use and explore, allowing you to see right away what files you are backing up and how much space you are using.

The three main buttons in their program are Backup Now, Schedule Backup, and Enable Continuous Backup. It has a default scheduled backup time of 5:00AM every day, but that is easily changeable.

The restore feature is nice as well. It will show the files you have stored with them and allow you to choose which ones you whish to restore to your computer.

There is integration with your OS, but under Windows XP I was prompted to install the plugin for it, it didn’t install along with the program. They do have support for Windows, Mac, and Linux. As well as some mobile applications.

Overall, this was a good option to use if you like something with a bit more options and like to tinker with settings to have full control over things, but it seemed like it was just more work than I wanted to do. I give this application a 4/5 stars.

The second application I used was Dropbox from http://www.getdropbox.com

dropbox

Just from the website alone you can tell Dropbox is more slim and condensed.

They also offer a free 2gb account, which is plenty for me.

I downloaded their application and was pleasantly surprised. Their application is all integrated into Windows. When I want to backup a file, I just drag it into a folder called My Drop Box which they put in My Documents.

They also have a system of synching. You can run it on multiple computers or phones, and when you save files, it can synch to all devices. Pretty handy feature.

Folder sharing is also very easy and makes it great for letting other people have access. For me, this will come in handy when I’m working with people on projects. They have a Public Folder as well that allows anyone to see the files which you put in there.

Dropbox also have some 30 day undo history. Might come in handy if I make mistakes. They also offer an unlimited undo feature called “Pack-rat”.

The online interface for Dropbox is amazing. So simple and great looking. You can upload a folder of images and it’ll generate a photo album. Pretty slick.

I give Dropbox a 5/5 stars and recommend it for sure!

The Art Of The Start

Posted by riscphree – September 10, 2009

I’ve recently finished reading Guy Kawasaki’s book on (mostly) business startups called The Art Of The Start. 4121XMD3A5L._SL160_

This is a pretty good book for people trying to get a business started as Guy talks about a lot of issues: raising money, gathering a team, etc.

I’ve never had the opportunity to read any of his other books, but he’s a great writer. Very easy to understand and nothing should pass over anyone’s head.

Although I’m not in the situation myself, he has an excellent chapter for people starting a business while they are currently at a job.

newest project: wopr

Posted by riscphree – September 8, 2009

I’m going to attempt to build a functional version of the WOPR supercomputer from the movie Wargames. Well, mine won’t have supercomputer power, but it’ll be really rad.

Here’s my project page I will be keeping updates on: http://www.riscit.info/wopr/

enabled re-captcha on website

Posted by riscphree – September 8, 2009

I installed a plugin to combat the spam I’ve been getting recently. Re-captcha is something I use in a lot of projects so I decided to give it a shot here.

jquery password plugin

Posted by riscphree – September 3, 2009

I found this really really simple jquery plugin for registration forms and what not.passroids

It does:

- password metrics (tells you if its a strong password or not)

- submit lockout (user won’t be able to submit form until everything is good)

- minimum strength requirements (user needs to have a password of X strength)

Here is a demo of the script: http://www.thecreativeoutfit.com/freebies/passroids

You can view the options and download it here: http://www.thecreativeoutfit.com/index.php?view=jQuery-Password-Plugin

History of JWH-018

Posted by riscphree – September 1, 2009

As an amateur chemist, I do keep tabs on what’s going with research chemicals. Perhaps the most interesting one lately is JWH-018, basically a synthetic cannabinoid with effects similar to smoking marijuana. JWH-018 has a longer duration of effects compared to marijuana however.

This is not the only synthetic cannabinoid, but possibly the most popular. 10-51-large

A company called THC Pharm, in Germany, found this substance in January 2009, in the herbal smoking blend called Spice (introduced in 2002), which is sold as a legal alternative to marijuana or “incense”, as they call it. Basically as soon as THC Pharm published their findings, Germany banned this very unknown substance, JWH-018.

Currently you can find it at some research chemical shops, but most of the shops in the UK are halting sales due to pending legislation.170px-JWH-018.svg

You can read more about JWH-018 here on Wikipedia, or leave questions.

htaccess redirects

Posted by riscphree – August 31, 2009

I recently had someone ask me if they could set the priority of some pages. In this specific case they wanted index.php to take precedence over index.html. Well, on shared hosting you can’t change the server config to do this (which by the way is in the httpd.conf for Apache). So the next best thing to do is .htaccess redirects.

htaccess will only work on Apache webservers, if in doubt consult your webhost. To use these, you will need to create a text file and call it htaccess. Input code from below into it to suit your needs, and upload to your site via ftp. You will then need to rename the file to .htaccess

There are a couple different codes that are returned to the browser on redirects.

301 – Permanent Redirect. Good for moving files forever. This tells the search engine and clients that it has moved permanently and should use the new URI.

302 – Temporary Redirect. It tells the search engine and client that it’s redirecting and should continue to use the requested URI.

Here are some sample redirect usages:

301 Moving a single page

Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www.example.com/newpage.html

301 Move entire site

Redirect 301 / http://www.example.com/

To do 302 redirects, just replace 301 with 302.