Why you should backup your computer

What will you do if you woke up tomorrow and found out that your entire digital music collection is GONE? What about all the photos and memories you have with family and friends - all gone? If you are like most people, you will proceed to the shit out of luck aisle because you did not backup your files. Good luck finding and downloading 10,000+ songs (legally of course... of course.) and trying to relive the precious moments in your live with only the memories in your head. 

The digital revolution have pretty much consolidated all forms of media and files into one solitary machine (or two, if that is your cup of tea). Heck I am perhaps the perfect example. Of course my music is in digital form, immaculately catalog in the bloated software called iTunes. All my movies have been ripped into a digital format (h.264. mp4. ac3) for easy access and no disc swapping (I actually threw all the disc away - the minimalist in me). I grew up in an age of digital cameras, so all photographs I have are in digital form to begin with. With a scanner, any important document that I have is not locked up in a filing cabinet, but rather the encrypted space of my hard drive.

How nice is it to basically have everything in one computer? Very much so, plus it keeps my room clean because I have less things (paper somehow always tends to stack up and take up space like no other). Anyways, having everything in one object means that it is also easy to lose it when the object disappears or malfunction. Technology may be great, but the hard drive that stores all your digital files is still only a bunch of spinning magnetic platters read by a stylus (not unlike a LP record player). And as with anything that has moving mechanical parts, it can FAIL. There is a reason the most amount of years hard drives have warranty on them is only 5 years. They are NOT built to last, hence the data you have on it are not going to either.

Unless you perform backup. In essence, it is having another copy of your data on a separate device, or in some extreme cases, separate location (you'd still have a copy of your stuff even if your house burned down when it is stored at another location). For most people though, it means having another harddrive that stores the same information, and updating it regularly. Hard drives are so dirt cheap these day that there is really no excuse not to get some and backup your data (unless you are the type that likes to play Russian roulette). 

And it is not physical deterioration of the hard drive you have to worry about. Computers in itself don't last forever (will save the conspiracy of windows for another day). Things from viruses to power surges can completely kill your machine. In that case all your data is gone too (well, not exactly, but do most people know how to extract data from a broken machine?). Another thing is, laptops are as popular as ever - so imagine a machine with all your stuff is actually MOBILE and prone to thieves (Starbucks laptop theft is at all time high I have read). In that case, perhaps losing all your music and memories may be the least of your worries. 

There is another way to backup your files - online (to the cloud!). But unless you want to pay monthly fees, the amount of free space online backups give you (I use Dropbox, which gives on 2gb free - I use it only for my documents) is not nearly enough. Online is convenience in that you can download and restore anywhere there is an internet connection. The problem is the internet connection itself. Upload speeds are absurdly slow compared to download speed no matter what ISP you have, hence the initial backup of your file may take a long time. Even with the faster download speeds, downloading gigs of data during restore will still take much much longer than simply plugging in an external hard drive. Online store still have ways to mature for it to be truly mainstream (and the fact that people's data are increasing by the gigs does not help). 

Nonetheless, the message is this - BACKUP your data. The cost is so cheap you don't have an excuse. Don't wait until that day comes when your computer goes kaput and all your files are gone. I sort of hate to always be a champion of Apple products, but if you have a mac and an external hard drive, there is software within the operating system that will do a backup for you automatically as a scheduled task (set it and forget it, thanks Rotisserie chicken machine). Even windows has its own backup software. But you don't need software, just drag and drop your files and you are good to go.

P.S. I love my music, so I actually have it in four places - the mac, external hd, iPod, and DVDs. Overkill? Not if I never lose it. 

Apple's Thunderbolt technology

I’ve always hate it when Apple introduces new products. 

Because inexplicably they always roll out something awesome (even if it is just an update to a certain product line) and it makes me want to buy it (perhaps that is how they made 6 billion in PROFIT last quarter - people like me). To say Apple has some of the loyalist customer base is probably a massive understatement. I am still waiting for the next iPhone to drop come June on the Verizon network so I can finally complete my Apple "quadfecta” (iPod, iPad, Macbook Pro + iPhone). 

Anyways, yesterday Apple updated their entire computer notebook line with the new second generation Intel Core processors (which is endorsed by the lovely Girls' Generation - http://bit.ly/hXrsWc), with quad core processors available in the 15in and 17in monitor size models. Finally, desktop grade computer power is available in a mobile machine. It complete crushes my current Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo model, with up to 50% more number crunching power. In fact in some cases these new laptops are even faster than some models of Apple's Mac Pro desktop line, which is quite a leap.

I need one. 

I am a big multi-tasker with my computers, which at any point in time have at least 10 programs open, and 20+ tabs on my chrome browser. Add in a splash of photo and editing and my Macbook Pro quickly gets bogged down (I also need more ram). The new Macbook Pros that were introduced yesterday will fit the bill very nicely. But that being said I am sane enough not to be suckered into the consumer technology refresh cycle, where the thing you bought today will be obsolete tomorrow forcing you to get the new model. I am indeed going to tough it out a couple more year with my current Macbook Pro. It is still plenty fast to be honest, but man digital photo files are not getting smaller and the programs to edit them are not getting any simpler either. 

I already have a mac notebook. No need for another one. Sometime in the future I will get myself a Mac Pro. That will serve all my creative and multimedia needs. Until then, hey I still love my Macbook Pro more than any other PC laptop out there. 

So, not getting a new mac notebook, but yesterday's announcement also bought to the consumer world something called the "Thunderbolt" port. I am sure everybody is familiar with USB (and how you always have to guess whether you orientated it correctly... it is like flipping a coin). Think of the thunderbolt port as another USB - but MUCH faster. It has twice the speed of the just recently introduced USB3 standard. What does this mean for creative professionals and amateurs like myself? Revoluntionary.

RAW digital photos takes up a lot of space - on the camera and thus on the computer as well. Transferring from the camera to the computer also takes some time because the current USB and Firewire cables only goes so fast. Thunderbolt cables and ports will change that because it is so fast that file transfers will be instantaneous. No more waiting for things to transfer before you can start your editing work. And not only digital photography, videography also. HD movie files are absolutely huge, and thunderbolt will make transferring them from camera to computer a trivial matter. There is one caveat though, is that camera manufacturers must start making cameras that has a thunderbolt port in order for this technology to work. 

Another promise that thunderbolt will bring is that finally, creative people can finally do their work off an external harddrive. Current transfer technology does not allow a fast enough connection for people to do digital work with files out of an external harddrive connected to a computer. The speed is just to too slow, and the workflow will be slowed down by waiting for bits to load all the time. Some can tolerate this for digital photography, but HD video editing? Forget about it.

But with an external harddrive that has a thunderbolt port, the bottleneck will be gone. In demos, Intel showed that with a thunderbolt external harddrive can stream 4 uncompressed HD footage at the same time. This kind of throughput and speed will save a lot of time for digital creative professionals. Because face it, digital files are not getting smaller, and most of us own laptops, so the size of the ONE harddrive can only be so large. External hard drives are a way of life (heck, I have 7 of them). If the thunderbolt port can bring instaneous kind of transfer speeds, I think it will revolutionize everybody's work flow and file storage paradigms.

It will take at least another year for thunderbolt ports to be completely mainstream, but once it does the benefits will be enormous. I cannot wait to get my hands on some cameras and computers with such technology.