All Hard Drives Will Fail

Posted on November 9, 2008 by Alvin Trusty
Disk Storage

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From 2004 to 2008 I was lucky. During that time I didn’t have a single hard drive failure at home. The law of averages caught up with me this past summer. Within a span of thirty days, three of my hard drives, including the hard drives of my two main computers crashed. All the data was gone. Not even SpinRite could bring it back.

Here is the good news.  I did not lose anything.  All my important data was safe on backup disks.  Every night, while I sleep, all my important files (document folders, databases and web site) are archived on external hard drives.  I have three different external hard drives, so I always have multiple generations of archived files.

My friends haven’t been so lucky.  In the last month three different people have given me computers with dead hard drives.  The hard drives have pictures, personal communications, financial information and other files the owner must have back.  None of the files have been backed up anywhere.

Take a look at the last slide of the embedded PowerPoint.  It shows that 4.7 gigabytes of data can be saved to one twenty-five cent recordable DVD.  Almost every computer made today has a DVD burner.  Using a burner and a quarter-dollar blank DVD, most of your files could be saved.  In fact, if you buy a 50 pack of DVDs, you could backup all your files once a week for a year for a total cost of $12.50.

There are many ways to backup your files.  The simplest way is to drag your Documents folder onto a blank DVD.  If you have pictures, music or video files,  you may have more than 4.7 gigabytes of data.  In that case, use multiple disks.  I can backup everything important to me using ten blank DVDs.  Burning ten DVDs takings more of my time that I want to devote to backups.  That’s why I use external hard drives.

Another tool I use is Mesh.  This free tool from Microsoft lets me synchronize my files across multiple computers.  It’s a “real-time” backup.  When I change a file on my home desktop, my office desktop automatically gets the updated version of the file too.  It is an automatic off-site backup.

USB flash drives are also convenient backup devices.  Important information can be duplicated on one of these portable drives.  Most of my students use USB drives in the computer labs.  I have only seen a handful of these drives fail and those were mostly due to physical damage.  On the other hand, most of my students have lost a USB flash drive at some point (dropped it somewhere, left it in the lab, etc).  Once again, if all your files are on one drive (hard drive, external drive, USB flash drive) and you lose that drive, all your files are gone.

Given all the digital data we have, personal backups are more important than ever.  If you don’t have an established backup routine, establish one today.  You will thank yourself later.

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Meet Taffy

Posted on October 14, 2008 by Alvin Trusty

Here is the newest member of the family.  Taffy is a Corgi.  She spends her days herding the neighborhood kids around the yard.  The rest of the time she is sacked out on the floor.  You can reach her at taffy@trustyetc.com.

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The problem with politics

Posted on October 9, 2008 by Alvin Trusty

Take a look at the Federal Election Commission‘s web site.

That’s 124 million dollars from the state of California.  Add all the states together and more than ONE BILLION DOLLARS has been donated and spent on the 2008 Presidential Election.  The job pays $400,000 per year plus a few fringe benefits (a spacious home, a few bullet-proof cars and a couple of 747 jets).

Those fringe benefits might add up to several times the salary, but we are still talking about a lopsided cost for a job.  The cost-benefit ratio is something like 500 to 1.  And spending this money only gives you four years of the salary.  If you want the job a second time, you have to spend just as much during the re-election campaign.

You won’t hear a story about this on the news.  Where do you think 99% of this money is spent?  The media isn’t about to bite the hand that gives them the handout.

Is there any question as to why the average person doesn’t trust the government?

Here is something else I don’t understand.  The president sends a three page document to Congress.  Those three pages are incorporated into a 110 page law which fails to pass the House.  The Senate then takes that document, adds 341 pages making the total a behemoth 451 pages.  This is passed by both houses and sent back to the President where he signs it into law.  Who gets credit for this law?  The President’s contribution now weighs in at less than 1% of the final document.

If your work is 1% of a group project in one of my classes, you aren’t getting many points from the final grade.

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FlickLeech now with Creative Commons

Posted on October 8, 2008 by Alvin Trusty

I have been a big fan of Flickrleech for more than a year.  The site uses the Flickr API to search photos on the Flickr site.  The draw is the interface.  Instead of showing ten pictures per page, Flickrleech shows 200.  It makes scanning for a picture much quicker.

Now Flickrleech has added the ability to isolate only picture licensed as Creative Commons.  The feature isn’t obvious on the main page, but once you find it, it’s easy to use.

Do a normal search and then click the advanced search link.  This will open a window with a list of options.  Licenses are at the bottom.

There are six different Creative Commons licenses offered on Flickr.  If you would like to select more than one, hold down the CTRL key while making the selects.

After the search is complete, clicking any photo listed will open that photo on the official Flickr site.  That makes it easy to grab attribution credentials and other information.  The best Flickr search tool just got better.

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Things are about to change.

Posted on October 7, 2008 by Alvin Trusty

Today eSchool News published an article about the nation’s first tech-literacy exam.  In four years, the Nation’s Report Card will include technological literacy of students.  This means schools will be forced to assess student technology competencies.  If it is being assessed, it has to be taught.  I predict a jump in the number of technical courses offered in schools.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this is the answer.  We need technology that is used in the context of every subject, not technology for technology’s sake.  Take a look at the National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S)

Here are the main categories:
Creativity and Innovation
Communication and Collaboration
Research and Information Fluency
Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making
Digital Citizenship
Technology Operations and Concepts

Only the last one (and it’s at the bottom for a reason) easily fits into a technology course.  All the others beg to be integrated into non-technical courses.  For the first time, teachers may be forced to incorporate technology into the curriculum.  This will certainly fail if teachers are not prepared to take on this task.  Read the NETS for Teachers standards.

Technology Operations and Concepts (last on the student list) did not even make the teacher list.  This is because teachers are supposed to be technology literate.  Look at some of the items in these standards:

1a. promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness
1b. engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources
3b. collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation

Here is a good question for an educator.  “What digital tools are you using to collaborate with students, peers, parents and community members?”

Very few teachers have arrived in the “web 2.0” world.  I continually introduce teachers to sites like Delicious even though it has been one of my main digital tools for more than three years.  Few teachers use blogs, social networks, wikis or podcasts.  In fact, many teachers don’t know what all these things are.

When our students are tested for technology literacy, things will have to change.  It is an exciting time to be a teacher.

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