johnhendron.net: hendron’s digest - a weblog

Dan Benjamin recently posted about performing hard drive backups at Hivelogic, his weblog.

He uses a variety of methods. I thought I’d share my own methods, and while they are working now, I think I will expand a bit within the year.

For the sake of understanding how I do what I do, it’d be best to describe what equipment I have.

• PowerMac G5 tower (holds two drives)
• 3 LaCie HD (Firewire)
• Apple Timecapsule

I’d echo Benjamin and say that having a bootable clone of your drive is a good idea. SuperDuper!, a program I’ve bought, does a smart-backup feature which updates the clone image as often as you like. Before you start, however, it helps to have a second HD that is the same size.

So, if you are backing up a 750GB drive, you need a second drive of equal or larger size. Maybe not at first, if you only have 300 GB of files; but in theory, you’ll need something at least as big. You have to begin thinking, then, of acquiring drives “in pairs.”

I currently use the two internal drives in my computer to hold the Mac OS system, home folders, etc., on one drive; the iTunes folder on the second. I now use the 1TB Time Capsule (hybrid backup and Aiport Wifi router) to backup both drives. For now, it is adequate, but it is a short-term solution. Calculated in less than a year, this will be inadequate. The TimeCapsule uses Apple’s Time Machine software to backup everything.

I used to keep a cloned copy of the music drive on an external HD. But then it grew too big to fit on one drive. That is likely what I’ll do in the future: buy another HD for mirroring/cloning the media drive; use TimeCapsule to do the computer’s main backup.

Keeping cloned copies would be a luxury. Like Benjamin, I keep Mail loaded through IMAP with Google Mail. It is of course also backed up on the computer through it’s own backup on TimeCapsule.

Other options for more storage include devices that hold multiple drives (NAS, Drobo, RAID systems), and of course, a new computer chassis (the 8-core MacPro holds 4 internal drives). I’m excited at some point to load up a new computer with a smaller boot drive (320GB) that runs at 10K or even 15K RPM. This would speed up the computing experience, for sure.

As more laptops make it into the home, I become aware that loading software on all your home machines is like maintaining a lab. I’ve also toyed with acquiring a 10-seat license for Mac OS X Server to use a technology Apple calls “Netboot.” This boots the computer off the server–all your applications are off a disk image stored on the server.

Your local client machine can hold files (i.e., documents), or your could even share them on a mount point on the server (everything is centrally stored). If files lived on the client machines, you could back each of them up to the centralized TimeCapsule. Future Apple products may include TimeMachine write to an OS X Server (mere speculation, but it would make sense in work environments).

Above all, I can say from experience, it’s important to keep backups of your work. I’ve known folks who keep everything on a flash drive “as the backup.” They may own all of 600MB of files that fit on a 1GB thumb drive, but that isn’t very wise.

Recommended backup programs I’ve used over the past few years:

• Carbon Copy Cloner
• Chronosync
• Time Machine (Mac OS X Leopard)
• SuperDuper!

I was quoted in an article that appears this morning in the State.

Of course, Dr. Morgan was our former superintendent who rallied behind our teacher blogging initiative. As many of you who read this blog already know, VoiceThreads aren’t special podcasts, but rather, are suped-up slideshows available only through VoiceThread.com. Their popularity stems from the fact that you can embed these multimedia creations into blogs, webpages, etc., just as easily as you can with other Web 2.0 multimedia, such as YouTube videos.

It was cool to appear in a South Carolina newspaper supporting what we do in Goochland County.

Tim recently posted about being Googley, and as much as I admire Google and all, I decided to read into the list for profound underpinnings.

As it turns out, these are good traits, no matter if you work for Google, want to be a good citizen, or simply want to change the lives of young people.

To paraphrase,

1. Focus on people,
2. KISS,
3. Engage,
4. Innovate,
5. Design for those outside your reach*,
6. Plan for today and the future,
7. Be worthy of our trust,
8. Human touch.

I think #10 is most important. It’s that #6 I want to spend just a couple sentences on, however.

Their #6 is design for the world, but I changed it slightly. When I design things in my job (a screencast, an after-school class, or a writing I do) I look beyond its immediate use. I don’t intend it just for my immediate, intended audience, but instead, a far-wider, far-reaching net.

After all, what I publish invariably ends up online. But shouldn’t we all aim higher, and take the extra effort, to make world-class things? If you speak of it another way, “Well for us here, I only would have to…”, you dumb it down.

I think one of the more important things I can do is share the fruits of my labor with more than just the 220 employees who are in instructional positions. Someone once said of me, “You’re always willing to share, you put so much of what you do out, online, for others to use.”

That’s right. I’m aiming for those outside my typical reach. And shouldn’t this be something we all go for? How are we to compete for the recognition of our ideas in an Internet-accesible age when our ideas aren’t good enough for a wider audience?

Be Googley. It can’t hurt.

I secretly covet the opportunity someday to teach a class to folks on file organization and workflow management. We’ve tried at my district, but not too many people want it. Or if they need it, they somehow don’t sign up. They like working unorganized.

My colleague has a method by which he makes folders for each month. He puts all the stuff for the month in there; if a project extends beyond the month, it makes the move to a new folder for the upcoming month. I never quite understood his system.

This hint, from November 07 shows off some of the power of the so-called “Smart Folders” in Mac OS X. With this tip, my colleague could store his files in more appropriate folders, yet still have the month’s last content at the ready.

Combined with tags, you’d have a pretty robust system.

Wow. This is significant.

Microsoft’s IIS servers have been hacked, sending malicious code to you through your browser, if you visit an affected website.

This report says perhaps over .5 million web servers have been compromised.

johnhendron.net uses the Apache web server.

I have had sore feet for most of my life (that I remember).

I took special interest then, in this article in the New Yorker on walking and shoes. It suggests the best “medicine” for your feet is walking barefoot!

Kevin recently posted about a new book that looks good, entitled Digital Ego.

We have talked a lot to teachers for the past two years on Internet safety, cyber-based copyright, etc., and there is a genuine concern for student safety. Are we careful to warn against using too-revealing information about ourselves?

This topic interests me because you do gain a reputation through search. I chose some time ago to use my real name for this website. I wanted to build a reputation, a type of “digital identity.” I figured if someone knew my name, they ought to find me in my own place online.

In college, we never used our real names, we used handles. And I use handles too, for non-professional activity online.

There’s some saying I seem to recall… “You’re only as good as your reputation” or something like that. It’s a reminder that in this emerging stage of electronic culture, our identities are very vulnerable.

Zotero is a new tool that facilitates online research.

This image compares it with Diigo and del.icio.us.

I liked Gen Yes’s quote from Papert:

The role of the teacher is to create the conditions for invention rather than provide ready-made knowledge.

What was even more interesting was a comment from Lisa-Gaye that she gets tired of teaching with colleagues who are “sages on the stage.”

Having just went through something with many of our teachers along this vein, there was some resistance. Some simply will tell you “I don’t have the time or patience” to change my teaching, use technology, or… learn something new.

Becoming an agent of change is tough work, no doubt about it.

I put together an entry for the Dangerously Irrelevant button contest! I like what I came up with.

I’ve been thinking about fluency of late; having just presented to our K-12 staff a presentation (a half-day) looking at this concept alongside 21st century skills.

Following my earlier post on the advantages of digital reading tools (i.e, the Web, ebooks, PDF, etc.) today I was writing in a Moleskine notebook. There’s something about it (likely similar some reserve for the romanticism for books) that I like. But, this article on fluency reminded me how more fluent a writer I am when I use a computer.

We live in interesting times, and yesterday I came across something I think is representative of these times.

Many years ago I remember reading an article (online, it wasn’t that long ago), where Francis Ford Coppola was remarking how incredible some new iMac was, because he had iMovie, and boy, it would inspire people to create films (or videos).

Maybe that was an interview, or a commercial. But I also remember reading about an argument Jeffrey Katzenberg was having with Steve Jobs… Jobs wanted to give movie-making tools to the average consumer; Katzenberg stated “he owned animation,” and basically, as I remember, he thought giving movie-making tools to the masses was a “bad idea.”

So, just yesterday, I run across this: instructions for making your own newspaper.

Now, when you think about it, yes, RSS feeds are kind of like that; you collect together various sources into one place, thereby creating your own digital “newspaper” of sorts. But this tip was more profound to me, for some reason, because it automated the process of collecting content together and making a new, “I could hold this in my hands” document.

I actually haven’t tried it yet, but it’s on my weekend to-do list, alongside upgrading some blogs to WP 2.5, reading some articles, and checking out sketching software… oh yeah, and mowing the lawn might be in there too.

You Tube now hosts a series dedicated to the story behind the Gutenburg press by Stephen Fry.

A teacher recently wrote that she didn’t think technology should replace books. Don’t get rid of the books! she silently cried aloud in her head.

I’ve run across many luddites and technophiles who, despite their comfort with technology, decry replacing paper books.

I had a long discussion at lunch today over this topic with a colleague. He collects books; he’s got an impressive library on many different topics.

“I have a connection with a book; it alone can tell a story…”

I cut him off. “My CDs I buy can tell a story too, they have little books, and sometimes, I leave the price stickers on–for used ones–and I could tell you where I bought each one…”

We both started at each other like old women recounting the achievements of their grandchildren.

I read books, and I like marking in them. But the futurists I read seem to be telling us a few things. My own thoughts:

• Kids in schools today will read the majority of text in their lives off screens via electricity.
• We have yet to replace books. But the benefits of non-books may soon outweigh book benefits.
• Electronic books (Kindle, computer, cell phone) offer us potential that books cannot, and that’s why I think their days are numbered.

Specifically, with electronic text, you can:

• Save it;
• Carry it (and a lot of it);
• Search it;
• Tag it;
• Hightlight it;
• Have it read to you;
• Have portions sent to others;
• Quote it, and
• Summarize it.

We say teens are saving time and all with abbreviations, l33tspeak, and “chat lingo.” Why write-out a word when the abbreviation is so much quicker?

Why read a whole book when the chips and software can help you digest it more quickly?

Readibility needs work; formats need attention, but I already see huge benefits with breaking-news type content: i.e., NY Times online, Google News, Digg, blogs, RSS, etc., etc.

My 2¢ before dreaming…

The so-called “Four Eyed Technologist” recently posted on educators as learners, and his call was for the professionalism of educators to include self-learning and exploration.

In short, he suggested several action items:

1. Spend a portion of your day honing professional practice.
2. Establish a professional learning network.
3. Establish a virtual learning space.
4. Make professional reflection and scholarly work a public priority.
5. Model professional learning.

These sound wonderful, and they remind me of myself, I have to confess… I read, I create, I participate in online discussions, and I try to model these behaviors for our teachers.

But I feel the flaw in his call is that the public education system does not foster an environment for these learning opportunities or action items.

We try hard where I work, but let’s take a more typical place:

• Can’t get online to social networks because they’re blocked.
• Paid for contract time that begins with a duty, and ends once the kids walk out.
• May or may not have a school-issued computer.
• Self-guided time learning doesn’t count towards professional development requirements of the system.
• Scholarly work? Now, where’s the time for this?

I think these action items might be identifiers for very motivated and top-shelf educators (by saying I do some of this, I’m not trying to express any vanity), but you’d expect the better educators among us to be doing some of these things… right?

I use technology to stay focused, aware, and on top of trends, tools, and techniques. But I spent the majority of my days in front of a screen; I have no kids, and I frankly have more leisure time than your average teacher. Add an active family life, a 1 hour commute each day, time for vacation, and time for coping with a typical day: I’m supposed to drag my colleagues kicking and screaming to read my blog? At this point, I send out a weekly newsletter. I give away prizes if you read it. If they don’t care by this point, then… it’s not worth my time.

I simply don’t think our education system supports an environment for these action items to be carried-out. And I wish it were different.

“Why is the internet so slow?” I thought… was Comcast the problem?

Just last week I “upgraded” from a white UFO-style Airport Extreme base station (B/G) to the new 1TB Time Capsule integrated hard drive/base station from Apple.

Tonight, I used Speedtest to test my broadband speeds.

Using the Time Capsule (7.3.1) Airport software, I achieved:

• 2376 download speed (kbps)
• 2193 upload speed (kbps)

As a reference, as T1 line is 1.5kBps, or 1540 kbps.

Downgrading the TC to 7.3, with the older software, resulted in similar numbers. Somewhere in the low 2K for TC.

Seemed sluggish. What was it without the TC?

Plugged directly into my cable modem, I achieved the following download speed, using the same server via Speedtest.

• 28465 download speed (kbps)

Now that’s broadband. Went to Apple’s HD movie trailer site, and the HD movies just screamed into my Mac.

I replaced the TC with my older base station. What were those results?

• 17590-19118 download speed (kbps), 2 tests
• 1913-2249 upload speed (kbps), 2 tests

Now, several hours separated the tests; but it’s clear that the older Apple Airport Extreme base station is conveying the bulk of the cable modem’s speed via Ethernet to my desktop machine. TC is not; it’s cutting things down by a factor of 10.

update: After a lot of playing with TimeCapsule after erasing the backup drive (preparing to return it), I found some interesting statistics. I began using a Quicktime HD movie trailer as a benchmark for download speed.

With the TimeCapsule switched on to AirDisk support (yes), WPA2 encryption, no WDS, download speeds ranged from 800 KBs upwards to 2.2 MBs. This was consistent being connected to the cable modem directly.

When the 1TB drive is mounted on the desktop, speeds decrease; they ranged from 512-760 KBs. Un-mount the disk, speeds go up.

Further testing will follow…

update: April 19…

I decided to keep the TimeCapsule. The speed results were horrible. But I found when I turned off the WDS functionality with my first-generation AirPortExpress (b/g), the speed problem was not there. I am guessing that with my experience, the WDS is unnecessary in my home now (because this airport seems more robust in its coverage). So–I am losing one piece of this new Airport’s functionality, but no real functionality is lost in my home. I can now backup (over Ethernet), and I can still stream music to my listening room.

As to why WDS slowed things down (wireless or not), is still a mystery.

Many in the education community have expressed opinions that earlier in our history, technology (i.e., computers) were introduced into our schools for the sake of introducing… technology.

I grew up during this generation. In the second-half of the first grade, we received one Apple //e computer in each classroom. When we got to use it, it was for things like Logo (making the turtle move) and educational games.

The games, like The Oregon Trail were far more popular and more widely used. I mean, how can a turtle compete with music, flashing graphics, and a persona who was talking to me?

I never felt that the computers were there “just because”. In hindsight, I could rationalize their existence because

• they were developing logical thinking skills more efficiently (Logo), and
• the games were motivational in ways other types of learning experiences were not.

But other folks felt the computers were there because the computers were the future. “Kids are going to have these in their offices and their workspaces and they need the experience of using this ‘future’ machines.”

No, that’s no real quote, but it’s the sentiment teachers today told me was floated about in the late 1980s and early 1990s where they began work.

And so today, we certainly do not use technology for “technology’s sake.” Right?

I think today we should have technology for technology’s sake more than ever before. But let me explain before you dismiss me.

Think about how school has changed from 1980 to 2005: that’s 25 years of innovation, folks. Except for the hair styles, or the markers replacing chalk, the only thing I could think of that’s changed in many schools is the technology. Yet, everything ought to have been evolving the whole time: room setups, collaborative spaces, and more flexibility for the school day.

Schools (and politics and human nature) being what each are, about the only thing maybe we could change was the technology. Broken computer? Sure, we’ll get you a new one… but it likely has new features.

Frustration set in when teachers discovered that this new computer ran a new system (What’s Windows?) and totally new software (Oregon Trail is in color now? Oh, we just now have a color screen… cool.).

Do we need technology because we have a leg-up on the skills kids will need 10 years from now? Well, I think being able to type on a computer, spell-check, perform a Google search are worthwhile, basic machine literacies that will likely be required in the majority of work, sure.

But by in large, they also do not take a long time to learn. So many technologies (cell phones, for instance) have adopted the same basic literacies that any child who is awake and is spoiled in this country is going to gain these literacies (to whatever degree) if they want to or not. So no, not technology for just developing basic literacies such as typing, spell-checking, or performing a Google search).

So why did I say what I did? Because technology in school enables us as educators to develop a diverse set of skills many are calling “21st century skills.” While these are not technology skills for the most part, many require technology beyond books, paper, and pencils to master.

We’re finally at that tipping point, to borrow a loaded phrase, where technology is no longer a luxury, it’s something society has donned necessary going forward. This isn’t new, it’s just the technology is new, this trend is historical. But it’s time schools caught up… because with the speed at which technology is changing, evolving, and emerging, we have little time to sit back and take our time.

We use technology to cope with the future.

These were just some thoughts in my head this morning as I was taking a shower and getting dressed, and I didn’t want to lose them… consider it a draft.

Lots of free content!

Today, the New York Public Library opened a collection through iTunes!

An interesting video with technology writer Walt Mossberg, talking about broadband in the U.S., AppleTV, and iPhone.

A recent New York Times article discusses whether or not blogging is bad for your health. (via BC)

Moreover, it really confesses, is a “21st century job” dangerous to your health? A colleague at work says she had to tell her husband that the Blackberry was “banned at the dinner table.” I often see e-mails in my box from my boss that were sent after 11 p.m. And I myself have been known to blog at 1 AM on a work night, when I cannot sleep.

Technology makes it easy to work at all hours, from different places (home, on the run, or at the office) but our work lives haven’t changed so much since, at least in terms of hours and time “on campus.”

What worries me is this change: used to be, you couldn’t work unless you were at work. Teachers often have been taking work home, for years. But now if businesses expect work to happen 24/7 because it can, are we on the verge of massive burn out because of competition?

Perhaps a new 21st century skill for our students will be stress and lifestyle management strategies.