New site about backup

RJM62

RJM62

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Jun 15, 2007
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Geek on the Hill
I threw this site together in about five hours, while waiting for a paying client to send me content. I dunno if I'm happy with the site or not. Something seems to be missing.

The purpose is (firstly) to encourage ordinary users to do backup and present a few options for doing so; and (close second) as a place to plant ads.

Any opinions / suggestions would be appreciated.

http://www.backupnut.com/

Thanks,

Rich
 
RJM62 said:
I threw this site together in about five hours, while waiting for a paying client to send me content. I dunno if I'm happy with the site or not. Something seems to be missing.

The purpose is (firstly) to encourage ordinary users to do backup and present a few options for doing so; and (close second) as a place to plant ads.

Any opinions / suggestions would be appreciated.

http://www.backupnut.com/

Thanks,

Rich
Click to expand...

Nice job, Rich. This is an important topic for the everyday PC user; most of the pages out there are focused on commercial users. And with hard drives with 1TB+ capacities being common, users have just that much more data to lose. Efficient and non-intrusive backup strategies are important.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Nice job, Rich. This is an important topic for the everyday PC user; most of the pages out there are focused on commercial users. And with hard drives with 1TB+ capacities being common, users have just that much more data to lose. Efficient and non-intrusive backup strategies are important.
Click to expand...

Step 1: Get a Mac (or upgrade to 10.5 if you have one and haven't done so already)

Step 2: Plug in an external hard drive

Step 3: Click yes

Step 4: Sit back and enjoy feelings of relief. :yes:
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Nice job, Rich. This is an important topic for the everyday PC user; most of the pages out there are focused on commercial users. And with hard drives with 1TB+ capacities being common, users have just that much more data to lose. Efficient and non-intrusive backup strategies are important.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I re-read the site this morning after returning from my niece's birthday party, corrected a few typos, etc. I guess it's okay, but I'll play with it a bit.

-Rich
 
couple of notes from a lo-tech/no-tech guy:

-I had no idea RAID has a spof as described. So when the controller fails, everything you have stored on alternate RAID drives is permanently inaccessible - you can't just switch out the controller? So much for that idea, as a backup.

-ref the off-site backup services. I guess we got over credit card sales and paying bills online with secure systems, so we should be able to get over the idea of someone storing our most personal and private info in a city a thousand miles away. Or maybe not! (you can read daily about security breaches. Cash can be replaced. If your most private thoughts and family photos are publicized, can that be undone?) Also I think you should include a warning on the 'con' side of that list, the remote chance of a storage company going bankcrupt (small businesses do have an established record for this unfortunate event) and who knows what will happen to your backups, or if you will ever have access to it again.


-the number one problem that we have, and will continue to have with The Backup Problem is human laziness. Having vast amounts of personal experience with that topic, I can guarantee we will never overcome it! People (me) just will not do what is required to make a backup on a regular basis! Even if it takes a button click or two. Most people won't even periodically save a document which they are typing even though it takes only CTRL-S after the initial set-up. What we need to be looking at is a storage device, preferably in the computer, which is automatically, and constantly making backups without any human input.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
-ref the off-site backup services. I guess we got over credit card sales and paying bills online with secure systems, so we should be able to get over the idea of someone storing our most personal and private info in a city a thousand miles away. Or maybe not! (you can read daily about security breaches. Cash can be replaced. If your most private thoughts and family photos are publicized, can that be undone?)
Click to expand...

I think the best idea is to find someone you really trust who lives far away and trade off-site backups with them. For example, were I to decide I wanted an off-site backup, I'd give Spike a call and ask if he'd store my off-site backups, and in turn I would agree to store his off-site backups. Any disaster that affects Wisconsin and Texas equally is likely to mean that we aren't gonna care much about computers any more! :eek: Plus, re the privacy issue, in the unlikely event that Spike were to become untrustworthy, trading backups enacts the concept of "Mutually Assured Embarrassment." :rofl:
 
Thanks, guys.

As for the SPOF with RAID, I've had three occasions where the entire array on servers I was leasing were destroyed by bad RAID controllers. Also, if the computer is destroyed, stolen, etc., and you're relying solely on RAID for backup, you're up the creeek, without a paddle, in a boat with a hole. That's why I look at RAID as a downtime reduction strategy, not a backup solution.

As for privacy with online backup, you're free to manage your own encryption key if you like with most services, so even the backup company itself won't be able to read your data. I probably should add that somewhere.

The part about the company going belly-up is a good point. I will add that as a potential drawback.

Trading backups with a trusted friend or colleague would be workable, if somewhat cumbersome. I actually did that for a while with my brother, back in dialup days. Now, with an 8 MB/sec connection, it seems silly to drive 30 miles (or even walk to the post office, for that matter) to do what can be done online in minutes once the initial backup is done.

Thanks again for the input. It's always appreciated.

-Rich
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Step 1: Get a Mac (or upgrade to 10.5 if you have one and haven't done so already)

Step 2: Plug in an external hard drive

Step 3: Click yes

Step 4: Sit back and enjoy feelings of relief. :yes:
Click to expand...

Until a fire breaks out...
 
FlyNE said:
Until a fire breaks out...
Click to expand...
or the Mac and drive are stolen. Need off-site, or at least locked in a fire-proof safe. As soon as you do that, though, it's no longer as idiot-proof.




"Where's the copy of your program disk I told you to make?"

client reaches into drawer and pulls out a photocopy of the original program disk.
:mad2::mad2::mad2:
 
FlyNE said:
Until a fire breaks out...
Click to expand...

Yes, it's imperfect - But it's better than nothing, which is what well over 90% of home users have.

The "theft of Mac and drive" problem would most easily be rectified by using a Time Capsule as the drive, and having it in a secure and/or different location (ie, whatever wiring closet you keep your WiFi base station in in the first place.)

Or, put it in a fireproof safe and solve the fire problem too. (hah, yeah right.)
 
Check out NetCDP; it is a program that uses Amazon S3's cloud to store your backups, in an account you setup. Does not only backup but also versioning of files. Cost to send and store 30GB of data on Amazon S3 is $3; with 10% change rate, you're at $4.80 month 2.

http://netcdp.blogspot.com

And YOU control the data, not some online backup company. What do you think, Rich?
 
TangoWhiskey said:
And YOU control the data, not some online backup company. What do you think, Rich?
Click to expand...
Well. You don't control Amazon S3 - so it's pretty much the same thing as far as that goes.

That said - the S3 platform is stable enough that I would most certainly not hesitate to store backups on it. The question really comes down to the stability of the software you're using to do the backup.
 
Nice clean looking site. Loads fast on all pages on firefox.

Your entire site looks clean. Enjoyed the twitter demo.

shywon
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Check out NetCDP; it is a program that uses Amazon S3's cloud to store your backups, in an account you setup. Does not only backup but also versioning of files. Cost to send and store 30GB of data on Amazon S3 is $3; with 10% change rate, you're at $4.80 month 2.

http://netcdp.blogspot.com

And YOU control the data, not some online backup company. What do you think, Rich?
Click to expand...

Sorry about the delay. I hate those truncated months...

It looks pretty good, and I think Amazon's involvement adds credibility for people who may not have heard of some of the less well-known (but nonetheless venerable) providers.

-Rich
 
shywon said:
Nice clean looking site. Loads fast on all pages on firefox.

Your entire site looks clean. Enjoyed the twitter demo.

shywon
Click to expand...

Thanks, and sorry about your hovercraft...

Among the other things that kept me away from here over the weekend was another new site, this one an educational site about keeping pet turtles, which isn't anywhere near "done," but which I put live anyway because... well, it had just taken too long. It's one of my own sites, so it kept getting pushed to the back burner. Making it live forces me to work on it.

Like now, I just realized I never got around to writing the privacy policy. It's 404. So I have to fix it. Now.

-Rich
 
There. That's done. Advertisers would pull the ads without a privacy policy, so that had to be fixed.

-Rich
 
Nice job. My daughter will enjoy reading this--she's been a fan of the turtle cam since I first showed it to her.
 
Thanks Troy.

Please let me know your daughter's school grade and if she has any comments about the readability after she looks at the site. My biggest area of uncertainty is whether I hit the mark language-wise and tone-wise. I wanted it to be simple for kids to understand, but not babyish and condescending.

-Rich
 
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