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A little self-indulgence

 

I just completed the RPM Challenge.  The premise is to write and record 10 songs (or 35 minutes) of original music during the month of February.  I have made excuses not to do this challenge for the past couple of years, but I finally did it this year.  Here is my 6-song (but over 35 minute) album on Soundcloud.  Perhaps the music will inspire me to write more blog posts about technology and music/audio recording.  I think that it is an important skill for everyone to have.  Sure, we may not all be aspiring musicians, but recording audio for podcasts or videos comes in very handy.

Words Just Written on the Paper by witmerm

Areca

 

As I have said before, I am obsessed with backups.  It all stems from the time I blasted my wife’s documents folder into oblivion.  Obviously, this had a negative and lasting impact on me.  Since that time, I have been trying to do what I can to avoid any potential disaster (either man-made, of Matt-made). 

Currently, I am using several backup strategies.  I think the most important strategy is to get an off-site backup system in place.  There are several services that are reasonably priced (e.g., Carbonite, CrashPlan, etc.) that provide a simple off-site backup system.  There are also other systems that are not direct backup software, but would work if setup correctly (e.g., Dropbox, Live Mesh, etc.).  I prefer to use a system I discussed before called Wuala.  It is very similar to Dropbox and Live Mesh, in that files can be synced and shared across multiple computers.  The additional feature of Wuala is that you can trade storage on your machine in order to get storage in the cloud.  I have a Linux server and a Windows Media PC that are on 24-7.  Each computer shares 100 GB, which means I have 200 GB of off-site cloud storage.  Free is a lot cheaper that buying that type of storage from another service.

So that is my first strategy.  I have other strategies that I think are important.  The off-site prevents a disaster (e.g., theft, fire, flood, etc.) from destroying all of your hard drives, computers, and other equipment; however, I also believe that local backups are important.  Specifically, I think local backups are important in order to keep multiple versions of files.

Multiple versions of files allow you to go back in time if you do something ridiculously stupid (which I have been known to do with documents).  Maybe you are working on your tax return and your 5 year-old decides to do some creative clicking when you aren’t looking.  If you can’t undo, you can always revert to an earlier version if your backup software is capable of this.

At home, I use a program installed on my Linux server called BackupPC to backup my server file share, and three Windows computers.  This is a great open source backup system, but it is not for the faint-of-heart to setup and configure.  Which brings me to Areca.

Areca is an open source program that does incremental backups.  Incremental backups just backup what has changed since the last backup, not the entire files and folders.  This means that the first time you backup files, the system might take some time.  After the first backup, only the changed files are backed up.  Although this is a common feature of backup software, it is nice.  What is also nice is that you can configure Areca to compress all of the files to zip format.  If you are backing up a lot of text files, spreadsheets, etc., compressing the files will greatly decrease the size of the files. 

An additional feature of Areca is that the manner in which the backups are stored.  Most backup software stores the data in a way that requires the software needs to be installed in order to recover the files.  This can be problematic.  Areca files can be recovered with any software that can open a zip file.  Although Areca has an interface for easily recovering files, it is nice to know that you are not bound to use Areca in order to recover the files.  

Areca is not without some learning curve and initial configuration, but there is sufficient documentation on the website.  The most challenging part is configuring the backup schedule.  In order to make Areca backup on a schedule (instead of manually clicking buttons each day), you have to create a schedule.  I used the example on the website (“Backup strategy”), which does the following:

• All daily archives of the last 7 days
• A weekly archive between the last week (7 days) and the last 4 weeks
• A monthly archive between the last month (4 weeks) and the last 6 months
• A single archive over 6 months

In order to run the backups automatically, you have to use the Windows Task Scheduler.  I think this is the most intimidating task; however, it is typically a set-it-and-forget-it process.

Overall, I like Areca for its simplicity, configurability, and the fact that it is open source.  I think it makes a wonderful program to use on individual computers to keep versions of important files.  

…and one book to rule them all

Well, I don’t know if it is the one book to rule them all; however, here is an excellent resource.  It is a book dedicated to Web 2.0 technologies for educational purposes.  There are sections for elementary, administrators, ELL, and many more.  The best part about the book is it is a collaborations between a number of prominent education bloggers…and it is also free.  What free thing has ever been bad?  So, here is The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators (as I discovered from Richard Byrne’s excellent blog, Free Technology for Teachers)


The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators -

Zotero

Here is a recent write-up I did for a grad class about Zotero.  Zotero is a library-geek's dream tool.  At least I think it is.  I maybe a geek, but I am under-qualified to be a library geek.

1. Provide a general description of the site. 

                The site/service I reviewed is Zotero.  Zotero is a not a standard social networking site.  Its main purpose is to gather and collect research resources.  It is a bibliographic tool with a major focus on collecting information from scholarly articles.    

                Zotero works as a web browser add-on.  As a person searches and finds various resources on the Internet, Zotero can be used to capture these resources very easily.  On many researched-related sites like JSTOR, Zotero is integrated to gather all of the bibliographic information.  Zotero also works on numerous other websites, including Amazon.  Once the information is collected, it can easily produce bibliographies and many different formats (e.g., MLA, APA, etc.), as well as integrate as a citation managing application within Microsoft Word or OpenOffice Writer.  With Zotero, users can also attach notes and tags to documents.

                The social aspect of Zotero is that a user can create groups to share their collected information.  The groups have three different settings for privacy.  In the most open settings, any person can view the group’s resources and anyone can contribute.  In the most restrictive group setting, only members of the group can post and view the resources.

2. What do you like and dislike about the site and how could it be used? 

                What I like about Zotero is its single focus on managing scholarly resources and sharing them with others.  Zotero’s focus is on books, journal articles, and other resources for reference.  It integrates very nicely with Microsoft Word.  This makes it very easy to cite research in text, as well as inserting full reference lists.  It is very different from other social networking sites in that its social-ness is extremely limited to Zotero’s single function.  There are not any chat features, picture sharing, or Farmville within Zotero.  It is very focused.

I dislike some of the complicated features of Zotero.  It does take some time to learn.  I think that it was created from the perspective of a research librarian, so many of the features are comparable to traditional library searching, note taking, and cross-referencing.  I am sure that a person with a strong knowledge of library systems would find Zotero very easy to use.  My skills are more limited, so it has taken me some time to learn.

Overall, I think Zotero is an advanced tool that makes sense at the graduate or undergraduate level.  I think that it could be used in a high school setting, but I believe it would require a lot of support from the school’s library and media specialist.  That being said, it would be a perfect complimentary tool to use while learning about essential library research skills.

3. How could the site be used in a classroom setting?  (Make sure to identify an educational objective and curriculum area that the tool could be used in a distance education program.)

                I believe that Zotero could have two very important uses.  The first would be as the landing point for distance learning reference list.  Zotero utilizes a folder structure, so an instructor could create folders and subfolders of required and supplemental readings.  This could then be shared in a group format with the student.  There would be several benefits.  For the instructor, they could continue to modify and recycle the resource list from class to class.  If the resources were part of a system like JSTOR, full-text PDF articles would easily be available to the students.  This would probably be easier to manage in the long run than just using hyperlinks.  Another advantage would be that students and instructors would easily be able to cite and reference the material in any of their written activities without having to recreate the citation. 

                The second use of Zotero would be to collaborate on a group research project.  For example, if a group of students is working together to construct a research paper, proposal, etc., and they need to collect research articles to support their position, Zotero would be a great tool.  The students could independently collect articles and share among the group.  In addition to the bibliographic references, the group could also their notes on the various resources.

20 Things I Learned about Browsers & the Web

http://20thingsilearned.com/


I just saw this really nice online book that details many aspects of the Internet.  It is put together by the Google Chrome Team.  They cover some basic stuff within the book, like “what is the Internet”.  They also get into things like TCP/IP, CSS, XML, etc.  I just gave it a quick glance and it looks like they do a good job of not getting bogged down by the technical jargon.

The book is done very well and it looks beautiful.  There are great animations on many of the pages.  I want to resist my natural urge to print it and save a few trees; however, I did notice a button at the bottom-left corner of the screen just for printing.

Wuala–Basic Overview

A few years ago, I learned a hard lesson about computer backups.  I created a server from spare parts and loaded it with Ubuntu.  The main point of the server was to function as a file server.  I had a Terabyte drive filled with music, pictures, videos, and documents.  This included all of my stuff, as well as all of my wife’s stuff.
So one day I decided to clean things up on the file server.  I started deleting files and folders, renaming things, moving things around, etc.  Of course, the problem happened when I was within my wife’s folder.  I accidently deleted an entire folder filled with documents from my wife’s files.  The lesson I learned is that the default setup for a file server (Samba) does not have a recycle bin.  The files were gone.  I panicked.  I eventually was able to restore the most critical files, but some were completely lost.  I then learned a lot more about Samba and how to make a pseudo-recycle bin (another post).  I also started my never-ending search for backup software.
Eventually, I stumbled on Wuala.  Wuala is an application that you install on your computer and runs in the background.  Once you create an account, you can add files to your Wuala account and they are backed up to Wuala’s cloud storage (I am drastically oversimplifying the features because I want to get to how I use Wuala).
For free, Wuala gives you 2GB of online storage.  This is great, but it is also pretty standard when you look at other online storage solutions.  Wuala also recently added the ability to sync files on multiple computers.  This is also great, but is similar to other products like Dropbox and Microsoft’s Live Mesh (both are great services).  What makes Wuala unique is that it has a peer-to-peer feature that you can trade storage on your own computer for storage in the cloud.
So let me explain how this works for me.  On my Ubuntu server that is running all the time, I have designated that Wuala can have up to 100GB of storage.  Since I allocated this storage on my computer, it means that I can store 100GB of my own data into Wuala’s cloud storage.  Of course, the data is encrypted; I can’t access someone else’s data on my computer, and they can’t access my information.  The Wuala website indicates that this type of storage means faster upload and download time, and built-in redundancy.  They also indicate that there are numerous copies of the data, so you don’t have to worry if someone in Japan has their computer turned on in order to access/restore your data.
Since I trade storage, I have an online backup service for the low low cost of FREE.  I am cheap, this is a huge selling point.  I can access the data from any web browser, which is also a nice added feature.
Wuala’s sync feature is also something that I heavily utilize.  I have my school files synced across all of my computers, so I never have to search for the latest version of something I am working on.  I also have some personal files that are synced on some computers, but not the others.  This makes it very flexible for me since I want my school files everywhere, but I only want my personal documents on a few computers. 
This is an extremely brief overview of Wuala’s features, but it is really a great service.  There are additional features like file versioning and sharing.  If you have any computer that is on all the time (or even for a large chunk of the day), you should think about it.  You can also purchase storage if you are not comfortable with sharing your harddrive.  Regardless of the option, everyone should have some sort of offsite backup solution.