One of the most frequently accessed items on this blog is the old link to Winabler. Kerry Rogers, the creator of Winabler has recently updated it to include the enabling of Windows® menus in addition to buttons and other objects. Here's the new download location:
http://www.tinkertoys.net/downloads/WinablerSetup.exe
[Inspired from a mention by Steve Gibson in SecurityNow episode #249 (yes, nearly a year ago)]
Steve wanted to use the NS32000 instruction set. He’s purchased some old PDP-8s and has them doing things now. I had early exposure to a Univac 1100, a Burroughs 5700, a CDC Cyber 74, and an RCA Spectra 70* but my all-time favorite computer was an early PDP-11. I’ve often thought about finding one somewhere and getting it working again.
Steve’s idea is to emulate old hardware, even though he's purchased some antiques. Years ago, that didn’t seem reasonable. Now it seems ideal! I once wrote my own operating system (monitor is more appropriate) for a Z80 and wrote some neat things in assembler. Maybe I can do that again!
I miss my days of programming!
What “vintage” hardware would you like to tinker with again?
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* Note that the RCA Spectra series, which was later acquired by Unisys, was a clone. We think of clones starting with the IBM PC, but this machine was basically a clone of an IBM 360 mainframe.
I don't think I'm all that hard to please. I want a simple Twitter App for my iPhone. I just want an app that works like I do. OK, maybe I'm not normal -- but I can't be that weird, can I?
I want an app that shows me what I care about in a single stream. What I care about is NOT everybody I follow (sorry). I care about a group of searches (#citrt, #chms, some keywords, etc., and it does include a few people I might follow, and even some I don't) and any direct messages to me or mentions.
Now, I'm convinced there must be apps that will do exactly that. Apparently I'm just not using them right. Anybody know one? (free would be a nice)
If you had a drive crash today, could you get all your data back? How long would it take?
January 10, 2011 was a great day for me. I was in Lexington, meeting friends and doing a little business networking. But there was one little “ding” in the day. My notebook’s hard drive crashed. Well, it wasn’t exactly that it just suddenly quit working all on it’s own. It sort of got bumped. Well, actually dropped. Hard. Several inches. More like it was standing on edge, running, when it got kicked and fell over. Darn it. It was MY foot! It was hours later that I realized my machine was dead. Very bad.
OK, that’s the bad news. There is good news, and lots of it. I’m a backup fanatic. I do a weekly backup to a physical drive that I keep at home, and I do frequent, almost continuous, backups using a cloud service. I happen to use Mozy, but the story would be the same for Tomahawk, Carbonite, or plenty of others.
I spent a few hours running SpinRite on the drive. Perhaps, given longer, there would have been a lot recovered, but it was clearly deeply damaged and I needed to get functional sooner, rather than someday. (I love SpinRite – there’s just only so much it can do) So, new drive, reinstall Windows, reinstall my apps, restore from the local backup, then see what else I need from offsite. Not very much! The process of rebuilding took a lot of time, but the restore didn’t really take much at all. I was “functional enough” in less than 24 hours, and that includes the few hours I was stuck at jury duty not doing anything!
One big shout-out. LastPass! Having quick, secure, access, to all my websites without having to lookup (or remember – hah!) passwords. What a blessing! I knew I liked LastPass before, now even more. LockNote was another key piece that I now keep more accessable
But, there were issues. Here's a short list:
None of those are a crisis, just an inconvenience.
Here's my question, mostly for myself. What can I do differently to make sure I NEVER have to deal with these problems again. A related question for backup product vendors: what would you have to do in your product to have made the recovery easy (easier) for me? Can you do better at backing up configuration data and other stuff that's not in standard "data" locations?
Is anybody else frustrated with LinkedIn's recent change to hide the last name of anyone who's not a 1st or 2nd level contact? I've spent years developing my network, and until recently, the 3rd level connections were very valuable. Now I get things like this:
So now, if I want to contact this person, I can track down his office and call and ask for Jason, and hope there aren't two Jason's in the same office. Yes, I can work around this, but how frustrating.
I don't begrudge LinkedIn for wanting to make money, but darn, this is a big change, and a negative one, late in the game. The value of the free account just declined a lot.
Items 1, 2, and 3.
I'm still looking for that perfect solution for small office / home office backup needs. It's amazing to me that there are so many potential solutions out there, but none seem to quite hit the trust + simplicity + speed + cost points that I somehow feel are reasonable. Maybe I'm being unreasonable. Maybe I just haven't looked the right place yet. Or maybe I just haven't defined well enough what I want, so I think I'll start there.
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1. The starting point - back up locally
Perhaps, above all else, I think a key requirement of backup is that is *start* with a local backup. Client systems, especially notebook users, need to be able to get their data backed up locally, at LAN speeds, without any delays caused by Internet bandwidth. Likewise, when you need to restore something, especially something big (or rebuild a complete machine), having the backup data local is a key. The local backup is ideally some sort of appliance, or mostly-dedicated system, such that you can trust it to be there an on all the time. Barracuda's backup does this, so does Zenith's BDR & ARCA, SonicWall's CDP, and I'm sure many others do as well. Based on other points to follow, this doesn't have to be the most expensive piece of hardware in the world because it's not a single-point system.
2. 3-2-1 rule
This isn't my rule. I learned of the term from the SecurityNow podcast, and they actually got it from Peter Krogh, and it probably has origins even further back. The concept: Data needs to always be [at least] three places, it needs to be on two different types of media, and one of those should be off-site.
3. Off-site SOON, but doesn't have to be NOW
My opinion only! For most SOHOs, near-real-time off-site backup is NOT a requirement. If you have an eCommerce site, that's different, but that's probably not located at your office. If it is, you have a whole different set of problems that I'm not addressing here. If you are getting frequent backups, per #1 above, then if the off-site backup lags by a few hours, to maybe even a full day, you are in a pretty low risk situation. Fire, flood, theft, or other local catastrophe would be bad, but at worst case you'd lose approximately 1 day's worth of data updates. Compared to the rest of your loss, that's not a big deal.
The local backup device should take advantage of unused bandwidth, so it would be nice if it knew how to monitor bandwidth, but simple throttling based on days/hours is probably plenty good for most organizations. What is important is that the off-site backup process is handled by the local backup device, not by the clients. If client machines are turned off overnight, or in the case of notebooks, not on the LAN, the local backup to remote backup process still happens.
Next up: reporting needs, then more.
Recently I had a nice visit with the folks at MinistryBox. If you know me, then you know that I'm a big fan of outsourcing. MinistryBox takes the outsourcing concept a step beyond what we normally think of. They have chosen to be a "Church IT Platform" rather than just a ChMS. In concept, they want to take "whatever a church needs for IT" and provide it, via the web, for a very low price, without the church ever needing to be concerned about IT.
So, where some churches might be choosing an outsourcer, such as Higher Ground, HyperDrive, MBS, Solerant, or Viant (I know, there are many others), AND choosing a ChMS, such as ACS, Arena, BVCMS, Church Community Builder, Fellowship One, MinistryPlatform, or Shelby. For churches that fit the right model, there would be only one choice rather than two. Choose MinistryBox and you are done!
OK, let's be clear, MinistryBox isn't for everybody. It's probably not going to fit any mega-churches, but that's not their focus. They are looking at the very small church (the staff of 1, or less), or the church with just a few staff. The concept: let the church focus on ministry and let MinistryBox supply the IT needs, all in a package. What a great idea for the start-up church. Let the pastor do what he's been hired to do, and have a well-resourced company handle the rest as a service.
If you know a young or small church that needs "something" for IT and ChMS, but doesn't know where to start, please suggest they look at MinistryBox. It's at least a good reference point, and probably can grow with a church through a membership of 1000, maybe more.
Somehow, MinistryBox missed out on previous Church IT Roundtable events, but they have recently begun to get involved and even had an attendee at the recent CITRT event sponsored by Shelby in Atlanta. Expect to see them at future events. They're good folks -- check them out.
This may be the closest thing to an advertisement I've ever done on my blog. I think this is a great opportunity, but I'm not compensated in the least if you participate.
If your organization knows you need to be doing something with Social Media, but don't have a strategy, or know how to create one, this is the event for you. This all day event (in Nashville) will give you the tools you need. Check it out. Social Media & SEO Boot Camp. If you want to save a few dollars, check out Ben Stroup's post that has a discount code.
My LinkedIn network passed a milestone this morning. I continue to be amazed how valuable this network is. Are you and I connected?
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