June 2007

Online Backups

rmiles7721June 17, 2007Technology

This post is sponsored by IDrive-E. IDrive-E is a supplier of online backup services. I have been getting interested in online backup suppliers over the last couple of months and have reviewed a couple of them as well. IDrive is one of the leading suppliers and offers free backup space up to 2GB without any kind of bandwidth or file restrictions. This could be pictures, documents, or even music. They also offer the option to upgrade to the paid plan, IDrive-E Pro as well. The pro plan is only $4.95 a month or $49.50 a year and offers unlimited storage space.

I went ahead and signed up for the free plan for the time being so that I could check it out. Sign-up is easy, Name, user name, password, email address, and a captcha gets you started at which point you download the application, which is about 7 megs. The install ran pretty much flawlessly under Windows Vista. During the install you pick an encryption password with which your files will be encrypted, so don’t forget it as you won’t be able to recover your files without it.

After you have picked the password it will prompt you to restart your computer. It’s not required to use the IDrive-E interface but if you want to use mapped drives and Windows Explorer it is. Using the IDrive interface is fairly easy. You just pick the files that you want to backup, and either schedule a backup, or tell it to backup right now. I went ahead and did a manual backup and decided to store some pictures. I am sure that I have more than two gigs of photos on this computer but will store as many as I can. Here’s a shot of the main interface.

idrive.jpg

Once I picked Backup Now it scans the files…

idrive2.jpg

…and then starts the Online Backup. Apparently I did have less than two gigs. I had forgotten that I have not put all of my pictures back on here since I rebuilt my PC earlier in the year…

idrive3.jpg

Overall it is a pretty cool service and a nifty companion app. I am considering signing up for the pro service. I am interested in seeing how well I can access my media files online as I may install this on my media center. I have close to 800Gb of videos and movies and it would be nice to be able to free up some of that space here. If it’s fast enough I may just use them via a mapped drive.

Photo Hunt Saturday #62

rmiles7721June 16, 2007Site News

The theme for this week’s Photo Hunt Saturday is Hair, which as you can see from my HNT post and the photo on the sidebar I have very little of right now, so here are some older pics

1990-12-25 Christmas 01.jpg

Christmas 1990


Believe it or not, that’s me with all the hair in the upper right hand corner, and the toddler is my son who is leaving for Marine Corp boot camp tomorrow. Damn time flies when you are having fun. I still don’t know how well comments are working but even if you get an error they should show up. I will get it fixed eventually.

One more of me with real hair.

1984-11 New York City 01.jpg

Heck Yeah it’s Right…

rmiles7721June 15, 2007Uncategorized

…and a nice way to wake up as well.

Mom and Three Children Shot…

rmiles7721June 15, 2007Site News

I have taken to watching a lot of my news on video rather than getting it from CNN or Fox and I just ran across this story. This sucks. I hope they find the bastard and string him up by his nutsack.

Kingdom of Heaven

rmiles7721June 14, 2007Entertainment

The Boy is watching Kingdom of Heaven on cable right now. Pretty decent movie. This is the first time that I have seen it but I don’t know if I am going to stay up with him to watch much more though. Tomorrow will be a fairly long day and I need to get some sleep whenever this diarrhea of the fingers stops…

Movie Collector’s Haven

rmiles7721June 14, 2007Entertainment

I found a site to add to my media center links. The movie collector site is pretty cool. It’s called Movie Gatherer and the site is designed for movie collectors and movie lovers. There are useful links and information on hot to store and keep them as well as news about collector’s editions of quite a few movies. There are some pretty useful gadgets on there such as this revolving CD rack that holds 100 CD/DVDs. There is also a bit of information about barcode scanners. Barcode scanners are particularly useful because there are a couple of programs that will read the barcodes and pull the movie information off the net. You can usually find fairly cheap barcode scanners online as well.

The program that I use does just this. It pulls in the movie information from the Internet and then adds it to a database that I can use with my media center front end, including the posters and art work, which is very cool using one of the ten foot interfaces.

Furniture for the Kids

rmiles7721June 14, 2007Site News

With the Boy leaving for boot camp on Monday the oldest girl, Pete, is already clamoring to take his room over. I told her she should wait for awhile, but she is pretty adamant about getting his room. I don’t really mind although it’s going to be difficult for her little sister. What is going to be difficult is the fact that they sleep in a set of bunk beds except for when RePete is sleeping on my bedroom floor. That means that I will have to get new furniture for the kid’s rooms. Doh! Another expense. Coaster Furniture has some pretty decent deals that I was looking at earlier this evening, they may be one of my choices.

Jessica Alba Attends FF4 Premier

rmiles7721June 14, 2007Entertainment

Not that I post a lot of news about celebrities or anything, but damn thats a nice dress 🙂

Today Was Interesting…

rmiles7721June 14, 2007Site News

Rather than tell my manager that has time-management issues what to do this morning and then listen to why it didn’t get done I forced the issue. Since I have another manager off today I showed up at his store at 6am, changed the drawer, pulled whatever food I thought he would need today, locked him out of the office and store room and took the keys with me. That forced him to stay out in the front of the restaurant rather than doing stuff in the back. I did give him a short list of things to do before I returned, of which NOTHING was done but I think he did get the message.

I am still trying to find some way to motivate him. He likes to be the victim, so money apparently doesn’t do it. I know he likes gadgets. Maybe I should offer him my iPaq if he runs the numbers that I need him to. At this point I don’t give a fuck. He and I are going to make money out of his store even if I have to force him to.

Leveling up In Warcraft…

rmiles7721June 14, 2007Technology

I’m not a real huge multi-player game fan although I’ve played my share of death matches, but my son is. As a matter of fact he really enjoys World of Warcraft. One link I sent him recently was to Joana’s Horde Leveling Guide. It’s pretty cool and there’s even a video with commentary that explains the whole deal. I have played in a couple of different MMORPGS and I can tell you that it’s hard work to level quickly, but it can be done. The hardest part for me, particularly since I don’t play a lot of online RPGs is that I never know who to talk to to find quests, or spend half my time just asking questions about how to do stuff. This guide takes care of those issues.


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