Last December, one of the hard disks on my computer went kaput. It was a 1 TB drive that I used exclusively for data. Thankfully, I’ve been in the habit of backing up the entirety of that drive to an external 1TB hard disk, which I keep locked up at my office and bring home for the monthly backup. After restoring my data from the backup, I found that the only thing I had lost was a few .mp3s which I retrieved from my laptop. I’m such a believer in backing up data, even if you are using a brand new computer! External hard drives are cheap these days, so there’s no reason not to. Plus there is some decent free backup software that is out there.

Backing up to the external drive can be as simple as dragging and dropping, then choosing “replace” when it comes across an existing file. This is the easiest backup to do. However, there are some disadvantages. First, since you are copying everything each time you backup, it can take a long time (depending on how much data you have). Also, if you delete data from your source location, it won’t automatically be deleted from the destination. This may or may not be what you want. If you want to keep them in sync, then you’d have to completely delete your backup data and do a full copy. There’s that small window between deleting the backup and making the copy when you will only have a single instance of the data.

Fortunately there are several free pieces of software out there that can help. I’m using Windows, so I have no experience with Mac backup software, but I also don’t have any experience with the built-in Windows backup software, but I generally want something that creates a backup folder that I can treat like a regular data drive. In other words, I don’t want the backed-up data to be encrypted or compressed or in some wacky format that I cannot do anything with unless I use the backup software. GFI Backup is pretty good in that you can specify what folders you want backed up and where you want them backed up to. It also has scheduling and options to overwrite files only if different, keep two files, delete files in the destination directory if it no longer exists in the source, etc. I used it when my hard drive failed and it restored all my files with ease. It also keeps track of what files change in the source and destination so that the backups are quick (doesn’t have to copy everything).

A few months ago, the GFI software was updated, and it started asking for Windows permissions. Even though I put in my password, this never worked and I soon gave up on GFI. I did a little research and found another program called SyncBack and it does much the same thing. It’s even simpler than GFI, and I love it. The explanations of what files will be copied and what will happen when it encounters a conflict are written in easily understood language. It seems pretty quick and is also lightweight.

I’ve also tried the online backup service Mozy, and while the idea was great, the execution was lacking. First of all, I have about 1TB of data to back up so the initial upload took a few weeks. Also, the Mozy system tray program was slowing down my system. It also cost about $6 per month. The price of my 2 TB drive was $69, so as long as it lasts more than a year, it will be cheaper than Mozy. Of course Mozy will keep the backup up-to-date whereas my system is once-per-month, but that’s a tradeoff I can live with.

We recently added a PS3 to our household and the first game I got was Final Fantasy XIII. Since we’ve had a Nintendo Wii, I’ve been missing out on the big Final Fantasy titles so I was pretty excited to find FF XIII for the low price of $29. I guess it’s been out over a year so it’s considered a PS3 oldie or something. Anyways the game is amazing! Visually, the 1080p graphics are stunning. The artwork is so detailed and the opening cutscene is incredible. I really like the movie-like feeling of the game. I switches from cutscenes to playable portions seamlessly and the story flows quite well. Granted I’ve only completed about 5% of the game, but the momentum and pacing seem perfect.

Like in all FF games, there’s a lot of combat in it and this worried me a little. I didn’t want to get bogged down in really intricate battles, or be turned off by fights that were stop/start turn-based. FFXIII avoids those situations by using an active-battle system, and simple menus. Basically you have a timer bar which dictates how quickly you can perform your attacks, then you have a choice of attacks to use. It’s all just one or two buttons away. The battles keep moving even if you just stand there, so there isn’t much time to dawdle. There are also battle stances called “paradigms” that you can switch to during battles. This helps out a lot because you can go into defensive mode if you need healing, or full offense if you want to deal maximum damage. These paradigm shifts are also easy to execute so you don’t waste time fumbling with the controller.

There’s so much more to the game and it’s been reviewed extensively by all the major game sites, but I have to add that the storyline is really engaging. The characters and voice-acting are excellent and the backstory is interesting. There’s a journal that you can pull up at any time that has the story explained so you don’t miss out on anything.

Right now, this is one of my favorite games and I’m trying not to go through it too quickly. I’d like to enjoy it for as long as possible! On the horizon is FFXIII 2, so hopefully I can finish the first game before the second part comes out.

Hi all! You might have noticed that I have a new buddy icon/avatar graphic that I am using on twitter, foursquare, gowalla, IM, google, etc. I made it over at EightBit.me. I’ve been looking to replace my old one for a while now, and I really liked the EightBit.me avatars that I’ve seen. I had to edit it a little bit in photoshop to add a nice background and also edited the hair a little (had to recede the hairline a “pixel”!) By the way, you can click on the “about” link on the top left to see the buddy icons I’ve used in the past.

Yesterday morning I went with Bay to the local Walmart to pick up Pokémon Black/White for the DS. Both Bay and Koa wanted to get the English version of the game (the opposite color than their Japanese version) and I wanted to pick up a copy for myself since I’ve been enviously watching them enjoy the game ever since they got them in Japan last Xmas.

The game has similar gameplay to all the previous Pokémon games, but it’s a lot slicker and the environments are pretty nicely rendered. It even looks great on my DS Phat circa 2005. The dialog in the game is actually quite funny, and some of the TV shows I’ve watched in the houses you can visit are really interesting. One of them has a lot of romaji in it. Not sure if the translation team was taking a day off, but it was really funny.

I was reading the instruction manual last night and some of the things you can do via wi-fi seem pretty cool. It’s pretty confusing reading without actually having the chance to go through it in the actual game, but the wi-fi trading and battling look fun. One frustrating thing I encountered is that our new router is not compatible with the DS. In previous firmware versions, there is a simple setting to change to enable the DS to connect but in the firmware I have, there is no option, and I don’t want to downgrade the firmware for fear of screwing up the rest of our setup. But luckily, the DS’s can access wi-fi via my G2 phone and it’s awesome wi-fi tethering. Which is great, because there is a special Pokémon named Victini that you can download right now.

I haven’t played a game on my DS in a while now, but Pokémon Black/White are a perfect excuse to dust off the old console. Lots of fun!

Actually, a refresh of my old phone. For the last month, the battery in my T-Mobile G1 has been really flaky. It didn’t hold a charge for long and would shut down the phone if I was using some power-draining apps. Then Cyanogen released version 5 of his cyanogen mod (Android 2.1) but I couldn’t install it because I didn’t think my battery would last through the update process. Finally I had enough and ordered a new battery. I found a deal on ebay for two more powerful batteries for only $9.19, with free shipping. How can you beat that? Yesterday they arrived in the mail and I charged one of them up to full. Then I went through the update process to install the latest and greatest cyanogenmod and am now up and running with Android 2.1. It’s so fast and smooth. I think it’s extra snappy because I wiped the phone during the upgrade process and installed the apps from scratch. Probably cleaned up a lot of crap. Everything is running nicely and it’s like I have a new phone. Too bad the update didn’t give the phone a 3.5mm headphone jack, but I’m used to it.

Just a snapshot of my day

I was reading Gina Trapani’s Smarterware site and she posted her list of apps on her Android phone. I thought I’d do the same. So here it is:

Some hilariously awful video game voice acting.

I found this idea from Derek Powazek’s blog via another blog I follow (sorry I can’t remember which one). You basically set up a smart playlist in iTunes and specify the dates. My “The High School Years” playlist is not very interesting (no really embarrasing songs), and I find that I actually listen to a lot of the songs up to this day. I guess I like the oldies! Lots of English Beat, Cocteau Twins, Everything But The Girl, The Police, Bowie, and Bauhaus. Maybe some of the new wave stuff is a little embarrassing, but whatever! And our iTunes library includes Mariko’s cd’s as well, so I see all the music she listened to during those same years. She really was nuts about Toshiki Kadomatsu! Anyways, try out a smart playlist like this and see if you can dig up some old songs that you might have forgotten about.