Brewing Master

Question:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Jon – have you tried using the Winblows scheduler or backup utility? That might be something to backup your data to a cd-rw on a regular basis.  Either that, or get a real os…OpenVMS! sorry to hear about your loss! Rodney I’ve taken to buying hard drives 2 at a time. I regularly duplicate one to the other using Ghost or similar. If the primary drive craps out, simply tell the BIOS to boot from the secondary and you’re back to life in a minute or two. Important data also gets backed up to other machines, CD and/or tape. IDE RAID is so cheap, why not mirror the 2 and bypass the pain of ghosting?

There is no pain, it happens automatically. And there are other advantages: If I accidentally goof up a file on the primary I can get the backup from the secondary. With RAID I could not do that. Also I set the drives so spin down when not in use so the secondary drive effectively has very few hours on it. DB

Response:

This guy removed his personal files from a network share.  Hardly the rights of an admin or superuser would matter in this case. BTW — your argument applies to Windows NT and its successors 100%. Tom Veldhouse

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Linux, most flavors, don’t let you delete files that the superuser does not let you delete. Now if you use your computer as the admin all the time, that would be your mistake. It does not let you forget to backup, it just lets you not delete stuff. And that is where the OS comes into play. Running as root in linux is just plain dumb unless you are reconfiguring stuff.

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Repeatedly spinning up and down a drive is much harder on it than letting it run continuously all the time.  Power management is to save energy, not to increase the life of the drive. Tom Veldhouse

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – There is no pain, it happens automatically. And there are other advantages: If I accidentally goof up a file on the primary I can get the backup from the secondary. With RAID I could not do that. Also I set the drives so spin down when not in use so the secondary drive effectively has very few hours on it. DB

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Probably because Windows lets too many people make these mistakes. Other OSes would not let you make the same mistake, unless you tried. How would another OS not let you forget to backup your files? I don’t see how the OS has anything to do with that. John.

To me, MS is just much less forgiving in it’s ability to recover after a catastrophic event – or maybe I should say it’s much more prone to catastrophic events from which you must recover. True, everyone should back up their files on a regular basis.  Using MS products just makes that more true. Beer here, Mike

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Jon – have you tried using the Winblows scheduler or backup utility? That might be something to backup your data to a cd-rw on a regular basis.  Either that, or get a real os…OpenVMS! sorry to hear about your loss! Rodney I’ve taken to buying hard drives 2 at a time. I regularly duplicate one to the other using Ghost or similar. If the primary drive craps out, simply tell the BIOS to boot from the secondary and you’re back to life in a minute or two. Important data also gets backed up to other machines, CD and/or tape. IDE RAID is so cheap, why not mirror the 2 and bypass the pain of ghosting?

That isn’t the same as a backup. If you delete a file on a mirrored set of drives, after all, you’ve deleted it on both. Mirroring saves your ass if one of those drives fails, though…

Response:

I run Win2K and my wife & kids don’t have permission to delete anything.  I work with a bunch of Mac users, and I get a kick out of it every time one of them complains about their computer crashing. Blaming things on the OS is a crutch.  IMHO, you hear about more Windows crashes because more people are using Windows. Hardware quality control, on the other hand, is a huge issue.  Compaq, Dell, HP, Gateway… suck.  Just so happens that they run Windows.  I built my own, and have very few problems.  Of course, I have to provide my own tech support… – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Probably because Windows lets too many people make these mistakes. Other OSes would not let you make the same mistake, unless you tried. How would another OS not let you forget to backup your files? I don’t see how the OS has anything to do with that. John. Linux, most flavors, don’t let you delete files that the superuser does not let you delete. Now if you use your computer as the admin all the time, that would be your mistake. It does not let you forget to backup, it just lets you not delete stuff. And that is where the OS comes into play. Running as root in linux is just plain dumb unless you are reconfiguring stuff.

– Todd Enlund http://www.photografik.net/lonelyneuron/      "Bandits at 3 O’Clock"      "Roger.  What should I do ’till then?"

Response:

Though a bit distant from the normal topics of this NG and a bit lengthy, backups can be much more easily done with a simple change in working habits in our day-to-day computing. I have found it helpful over the years….

Along those same lines: For anything that I actually write (code, brew recipes, etc) I put it into a CVS repository (for details see http://www.cvshome.org/).   While this isn’t a backup method per se, it makes it extremely easy to maintain copies on multiple disks/systems.  For example, while writing my thesis I set up a nightly cron job to do a CVS checkout from 3 systems on two continents.  It gives added benefits of allowing one to work on the files from multiple systems as well as having the backup in a form that is immediately usable.  CVS can also allow others to access my files over the net with either read-only or read-write permissions. -Brett.

Response:

Your old computer will not likely run Wine or any other windows emulation tool … How will you run Promash? Tom Veldhouse

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I have been dabbling with linux on the old computer as of late..I’m thinking of making the big switch… But regardless of the hardware and OS, if it’s important, back it up. I have been sometimes negligent in this area, and I’ve paid the price ;-( John

Response:

Why do you hate Windows?  Because you made a mistake?  You are blaming the wrong victim. Tom Veldhouse

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – After inadvertently deleting a very important folder across my home network, I spent … <snip I hate Windows…

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Also, Windows will save a deleted file in the recycle bin for every situation except when you delete from an open network drive window. That’s just idiotic.

If you set your share up correctly, it can have a working recycle bin on it. You just need to know what you are doing.  Even the opensource emulation of this has a feature for it (http://www.samba.org). Anyway, off to a 6 am Sunday morning junior hockey game… …YAAWWWN  (I wonder if I can bring my pillow).

I feel for you. Tom Veldhouse

Response:

<snip I hate Windows…

Hey, you can do dumb stuff with any OS or hardware…believe me, I know!  :)

Response:

No he didn’t ask about wine.  However, he did mention, indirectly, ditching windows.  If one were to want to run promash, they would have to run emulation and I wouldn’t run emulation on anything slower than a PPro — at least that is as slow as I could tolerate. Tom Veldhouse

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Your old computer will not likely run Wine or any other windows emulation tool … How will you run Promash? Tom Veldhouse I have been dabbling with linux on the old computer as of late..I’m thinking of making the big switch… But regardless of the hardware and OS, if it’s important, back it up. I have been sometimes negligent in this area, and I’ve paid the price ;-( John Anything less than a 486 is not recommended, and I am sure he is running something faster than that, even though he stated it nowhere. Nor did he ask about wine. But you can answer all your questions about it at www.winehq.org

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Wine? Isn’t this a brewing group? heh heh – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Your old computer will not likely run Wine

Response:

Jon – have you tried using the Winblows scheduler or backup utility? That might be something to backup your data to a cd-rw on a regular basis.  Either that, or get a real os…OpenVMS! sorry to hear about your loss! Rodney

Response:

Jon – have you tried using the Winblows scheduler or backup utility? That might be something to backup your data to a cd-rw on a regular basis.  Either that, or get a real os…OpenVMS! sorry to hear about your loss! Rodney

I’ve taken to buying hard drives 2 at a time. I regularly duplicate one to the other using Ghost or similar. If the primary drive craps out, simply tell the BIOS to boot from the secondary and you’re back to life in a minute or two. Important data also gets backed up to other machines, CD and/or tape. DB

Response:

Probably because Windows lets too many people make these mistakes. Other OSes would not let you make the same mistake, unless you tried.

How would another OS not let you forget to backup your files? I don’t see how the OS has anything to do with that. John. —                            *** John P. Kolesar ***                          *** Valley Mead Brewery ***

Response:

Jon – have you tried using the Winblows scheduler or backup utility? That might be something to backup your data to a cd-rw on a regular basis.  Either that, or get a real os…OpenVMS! sorry to hear about your loss! Rodney I’ve taken to buying hard drives 2 at a time. I regularly duplicate one to the other using Ghost or similar. If the primary drive craps out, simply tell the BIOS to boot from the secondary and you’re back to life in a minute or two. Important data also gets backed up to other machines, CD and/or tape.

IDE RAID is so cheap, why not mirror the 2 and bypass the pain of ghosting?

Response:

visit www.backup.com – Bill Success lies in achieving the top of the food chain. — Jubal Harshaw, 1904- www.wiccaone.com/billsBrewery/

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – After inadvertently deleting a very important folder across my home network, I spent two days and a lot of money and phone time to get the thing recovered from my drive.  Aside from some very important documents, one of the things in the folder were all of my beer recipes and brew sessions from Promash.  After retrieving the folder and replacing it onto my hard drive, I discovered that all of my documents work fine — except the files with my beer recipes and brew sessions. Jeffery Donovan was on the phone to me as soon as his feet hit the floor this morning out west.  We tried a few things, but to no avail.  He has my files now and is trying to see if he can extract the data, but I may be horked. I have a few of my older recipes in another folder, but anything I’ve developed over the last two years is gone.  I used to back up my files between two PCs, but I recently replaced the hard drive on my hub PC, and didn’t replace the files immediately after the installation. I hate Windows…

Response:

After inadvertently deleting a very important folder

(blah blah blah) I hate Windows…

Why do you hate Windows, when (1) you are the one who unadvertently deleted your important files, (2) you didn’t have backups of your files, and (3) you are aware that there are many other viable choices available. I sympathize with your pain of losing data (been-there, done-that), but is Windows’ fully to blame…? Cheers, Todd Bissell Eye Chart Brewing Company "Beers So Bitter, Your Eyes Will Cross!" http://www.eyechartbrewing.com

Response:

"Why do you hate Windows, when (1) you are the one who unadvertently deleted your important files, (2) you didn’t have backups of your files, and (3) you are aware that there are many other viable choices available." Yeah, I know I shoulda backed up after swapping my disk drive in my hub PC, but I hadn’t gotten to it yet.  I’m no Mac head or Linux user either.  I’ve never touched them.  But I tell you, I’m getting more and more tempted every day to switch.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve been heavy into a document when Windows locked up, forcing me to reboot and the file was lost — causing me to start over.  You shouldn’t have to hit the save button every paragraph on a document to protect yourself from the specter of this. Also, Windows will save a deleted file in the recycle bin for every situation except when you delete from an open network drive window.  That’s just idiotic. Anyway, off to a 6 am Sunday morning junior hockey game… …YAAWWWN  (I wonder if I can bring my pillow).

Response:

I hate Windows…

Windows is responsible for you not backing up your data? cheers, -Alan

Response:

I have been dabbling with linux on the old computer as of late..I’m thinking of making the big switch… But regardless of the hardware and OS, if it’s important, back it up. I have been sometimes negligent in this area, and I’ve paid the price ;-( John – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I hate Windows… Windows is responsible for you not backing up your data? cheers, -Alan

Response:

Though a bit distant from the normal topics of this NG and a bit lengthy, backups can be much more easily done with a simple change in working habits in our day-to-day computing. I have found it helpful over the years to keep all personal data in subfolders in one directory (lately called by default in Windows): MyDirectory. This allows the user to simply and regularly copy that directory onto the CD-r or whatever media or device is used for backup. This method only requires an awareness on the part of the user at the time of the initial file save to change the datapath of the saved file from (in this case) C:programfilesProMash  to c:mydirectorypromash. ProMash will hunt there for any file next time the program is opened. Microsoft is getting better at defaulting all personal file saves to one directory with each edition of its operating system, though it still has a ways to go to match the MacOS in this pursuit. On the Linux issue, I have Mandrake 9.0 on a laptop lately. It’s very fun and frustrating at the same time. I can spend about 20 minutes on it before I switch back to the ease and familiarity of Windows on the desktop computer. Linux has some distance to go to compete in the mainstream marketplace with Windows, but it’s getting better with each release. It is worth a look and for anyone who’s the least bit curious, it is as similar to Windows as is the MacOS and as different, too.

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I have been dabbling with linux on the old computer as of late..I’m thinking of making the big switch… But regardless of the hardware and OS, if it’s important, back it up. I have been sometimes negligent in this area, and I’ve paid the price ;-( John I hate Windows… Windows is responsible for you not backing up your data? cheers, -Alan

Response:

After inadvertently deleting a very important folder across my home network, I spent two days and a lot of money and phone time to get the thing recovered from my drive.  Aside from some very important documents, one of the things in the folder were all of my beer recipes and brew sessions from Promash.  After retrieving the folder and replacing it onto my hard drive, I discovered that all of my documents work fine — except the files with my beer recipes and brew sessions. Jeffery Donovan was on the phone to me as soon as his feet hit the floor this morning out west.  We tried a few things, but to no avail.  He has my files now and is trying to see if he can extract the data, but I may be horked. I have a few of my older recipes in another folder, but anything I’ve developed over the last two years is gone.  I used to back up my files between two PCs, but I recently replaced the hard drive on my hub PC, and didn’t replace the files immediately after the installation. I hate Windows…

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – After inadvertently deleting a very important folder across my home network, I spent two days and a lot of money and phone time to get the thing recovered from my drive.  Aside from some very important documents, one of the things in the folder were all of my beer recipes and brew sessions from Promash.  After retrieving the folder and replacing it onto my hard drive, I discovered that all of my documents work fine — except the files with my beer recipes and brew sessions. Jeffery Donovan was on the phone to me as soon as his feet hit the floor this morning out west.  We tried a few things, but to no avail.  He has my files now and is trying to see if he can extract the data, but I may be horked. I have a few of my older recipes in another folder, but anything I’ve developed over the last two years is gone.  I used to back up my files between two PCs, but I recently replaced the hard drive on my hub PC, and didn’t replace the files immediately after the installation. I hate Windows…

You must back up any data that you care about. This lesson is often learned the hard way. Assume that your hard drive can die at any time… because it can. DB

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