New Backup System

I've been struggling for a while with having a working backup system for our family. I mostly need to back up digital photos and video but also some things like MP3s, images of laptops, other documents, etc. I use Dropbox for backing up smaller things like documents, but photos and video are too big to be economical there. For quite a while, I used my Flickr account to back up photos, but it was becoming unmanageable. I looked at Mozy and Carbonite but there are a few downsides (other than price). It can take a long time to upload, especially for an initial backup. Then if you do ever need to recover 100 gigs of data, it can take an incredibly long time to download unless you just pay to have DVDs of your data sent to you. I figured I could do better on my own.

When I got my new camera, I moved to using a single Western Digital Elements 2 TB external drive for backups. I kept it off-site but needed to either bring it home to update or use another drive to bring any updates to it. It wasn't good to have such a disconnected backup.

For my new system, I wanted to rotate drives. One drive will always be offsite and the other will always be at home, ready to receive files. Every few weeks I'll swap the drives, which means that they'll both be offsite for a while, but since my original files I'm backing up are at home on the original drive, that's pretty low-risk.

I started with a Diablotek EN3525D Hard Drive Dock and a pair of 2 terabyte drives. I went with two different manufacturers - Seagate and Hitachi - to avoid the possibility of getting two drives from a single bad production run.

I had been using Microsoft SyncToy to run backups but had some struggles with it. You need a sync definition for each drive pair and you can't run two in parallel or sequence. I switched to using a Windows command-line tool robocopy. That lets me build my own scripts and decide whether I want to run a quick update of just some files or sync everything.

One concern I have is that if any files on my original disks get corrupted I will end up replicating those corrupted files to both backup drives. Similarly, if a file is deleted from my original disk, I'll replicate that delete. I'm considering adding a third backup drive that I only ever add files to (contribute) instead of mirroring deletes. Or maybe it's time to look at a Blu-Ray burner?

QR Codes

I've been seeing QR codes more and more. I might even stick some on the banners for our Cub Scout pack as we get ready for the Lutz 4th of July Parade. We definitely need some built out of LEGOs for our First LEGO League / Tech Challenge team.

I captured two of the more interesting uses of QR codes I've seen. One was at the Florida State Fair, in the Fish and Wildlife Commission exhibit (right). On each of their aquariums and displays, they posted a QR code to learn more about the display and topic it illustrated. I could see this working well in museums, providing audio/video about a piece or even different language translations of the notes.

The other was at Office Depot. Each of the cameras on the sales display had a QR code that linked to a YouTube video demonstration of the camera. Maybe someday we'll see displays like that have a QR code that will launch a video chat session with someone (working remotely) that can actually answer questions about the product. 

I Have a Blog?

So I touched my blog for what appears to be the first time in 18 months. I had a few draft posts sitting around that I pushed out, including one from December of 2009 apologizing for not blogging lately. (It's only three posts below this one.) The same reasons still apply and then some. My short thoughts and interesting links show up on Twitter and/or Facebook or sometimes my Google Reader feed. Anything much longer tends to just get filed away for later, never to be seen again.

We've been busy.

Work keeps kicking into higher gears - but in a good way. Among a lot of other things, in the past year we've hosted two technical conferences here in Tampa with many of our developers and other technical staff from around the world. We were also acquired earlier this year.

Our First LEGO League team TechnoForce had a very successful run over two seasons. We made it to the second round (regionals) in our second year, but didn't make it to the state level. I really need to write up a couple of posts about all the lessons we've learned along the way. Unfortunately, TechnoForce has now dissolved as a team and we'll be focusing our efforts on other things. We may be returning to First LEGO League though, especially as our son gets old enough for it.

We joined Cub Scouts - Lutz Pack 86 - and had a very active first year. Lots of group camping, Pinewood Derby, and other activities. I have a couple blog posts in mind about what we've learned as parents new to the Cub Scouts.

For Van Dyke Church's annual Sports Camp last summer (2010), I coached chess. Despite considering coaching soccer or football a couple times, I've always wound up doing non-sports activities for kids that just don't want to (or can't) do a sport. I've done robotics and science olympiad before, but chess was the most like a sport so far. I got to teach almost all of the kids something and they still wanted to play even at the end of the camp. I wrote a few related posts over on Gifted Homeschooling about teaching chess. This summer I'll be coaching a LEGO engineering activity.

We helped host TEDxYouth@TampaBay. I mostly handled video. It was a little rough but I learned a lot in a hurry about producing live and recorded video. You can see all of our speakers on this YouTube list.

We continue to homeschool. This is our first year using Florida Virtual School which has been a different sort of challenge - less burden on us to teach but a whole lot of supervising a student that doesn't want to follow someone else's schedule. We continue to be active in our homeschool co-op, THINK Day.

I also finally picked up a more serious camera - a Canon T2i. I'm still learning a lot about making it work right - shooting a lot with the 50mm 1.4 lens - which absolutely blows me away with it's ability to gobble up available light and turn out a reasonable photograph. I'm now always quite behind in processing photos from different events with the kids (I often shoot over a thousand photos a weekend), but someday I'll get back to updating my Flickr account with some good shots.

More Secure Browsing

For most of the past year, my primary web browser has been Google Chrome with all plugins disabled. I selectively enable plugins for a few sites I trust, or I can enable it on the fly for a single session on a site. I haven't had a single virus / trojan hit since switching over. It's also eliminated a lot of my frustration with Flash ads and auto-playing Quicktime audio.

Google Chrome isn't necessarily immune to any security threats, but it's survived three straight years of pwn2own without falling - a pretty good track record. But if you browse with all those common plugins enabled, you're asking for trouble. On any given week, there seems to be a new severe zero-day Adobe attack.

Anyone that feels like they're more secure because they browse with Flashblock should try this (or any number of websites that show how Flashblock doesn't prevent Flash plugin hacks): http://hackademix.net/2008/06/08/block-rick/

Disney World Time-Saving Tips

We just finished another year of having annual passes at Disney World. Back in March we had a whirlwind trip of three parks (Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Magic Kingdom) on a single busy spring break day. How did we squeeze it all in? Here are some of our simpler tips we usually give people.

The number one tip I can give people is to understand the FastPass system. When we first hit a park, one of us runs off to the longest wait ride to get FastPasses for everyone. On a busy day you should always be holding FastPasses for something. As a family with young kids, even if you miss your FastPass window, the cast member is often willing to let you use them anyways if you ask nicely. As soon as we got to Animal Kingdom that morning, the family headed for Expedition Everest while I got Kilimanjaro Safaris FastPasses. In a little over an hour, we were able to ride both, despite not even arriving at the park until 30 minutes after it opened.

You need to understand which rides have long wait times and really plan your day if you want to ride those. There are even smartphone applications now that show you actual or projected wait times for different rides. Soarin' and Toy Story Mania run out of FastPasses very early on busy days. On a busy spring break day, we just weren't willing to spend the 60-90+ minutes in line to ride either of those again. If this was a rare Disney World trip for us, we'd have planned to attack one of those rides first thing when we arrived at the park.

Avoid the crowds. Look at the Disney World Crowd Calendar (from the authors of the excellent Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World book) and see which parks are the most crowded on which days. On a really busy day, a big park like Epcot or Animal Kingdom will handle the crowds better than Magic Kingdom or especially Hollywood Studios. We did a couple of short-wait rides / shows in Hollywood Studios that day but it was so crowded that even walking around was hard with so many people. So we abandoned it and went over to Magic Kingdom. (Be aware that Magic Kingdom can and does become full enough that they close it and don't allow additional guests in.)

Don't follow the herd. Just shifting your meals so that you eat lunch earlier or later than most people can save you  a lot of time and frustration. One of the things we've done with great success is take advantage of the parades, especially in Magic Kingdom. The ride wait times plummet during the parades and we're often able to walk right onto rides that still say 30+ minute wait times just by getting there right before a parade starts. You do need to be aware of the parade routes and not get trapped. Tomorrowland in Magic Kingdom is a great spot to be because the parade doesn't come through there.

Use Extra Magic Hours. You only have access to these if you're staying in a Disney resort on-property (not a nearby hotel). You get access to a park 1 hour before or 3 hours after the normal operating hours. In general most of the popular rides are still running but some things do close. The morning hour rarely seems worth it but the evening hours are a great time to get in some extra ride time. If you aren't going to use those extra hours, be aware that the parks with Extra Magic Hours that day are the most crowded ones, so you're better off going somewhere else.

Have a plan. Don't waste time wandering back and forth across the park on a whim. Don't miss things that you really meant to see. We like to have a rough plan of our "must see" items for the day and make sure to work those in if we can. If you really want to plan, get a book like

Don't go into "commando" mode. Don't be that parent dragging an exhausted, sunburned, and hungry kid across the park just to meet Ariel or ride the tea cups. Relax and enjoy your time. You can't do it all in a day. We've been to Disney World probably 50 times since our kids were born and there are still things we haven't done. It gives us something for the next time.