I’m in the market for a new PC.  One of the machines I’m considering is the Dell XPS 420.  Dollar for dollar the XPS 630 looks like the better deal but the 420 is still in the running (as is building my own).  While looking at what Best Buy has to offer online I noticed for the first time that they sell Dell machines including a couple of XPSs.  I had no idea that best sold Dells.

The best buy site is offering a XPS 420 for $899.99 (image here in case it gets changed), only 99 cents more than the base model at dell.com.  But wait… that’s not the base model.  The one at bestbuy.com is 2.66 GHz quad core, a $200 upgrade to the base model’s 2.40 quad core.  It has a 500 GB hard drive, a $50 upgrade to the base model’s 320 GB.  It has the ATI RADEON HD 2600 XT upgrade, another $100 addition to the base model.  It also is listed as having a media card reader ($20) and a 56K modem ($20).  All told I priced the equivalent machine on Dell.com for $1,309 (image here).

Sounds like a great deal and with a best buy only a block away I decided to take my son for a walk and see this monster in person.  It looked like a nice machine.  I was impressed with it’s size (big like I like my PCs).  First thing odd I noticed was that there was no media reader.  Ok, then I opened the system properties dialog and noticed the machine was listed at 2.40 GHz… what?  I didn’t look at the other items because I frankly had forgotten.

I then asked a blue shirt for the specs on this machine.  He returned a minute later with a print out from the website.  I told him that the machine is listed as at 2.66 GHz but the display model was only 2.4. GHz.  He brushed it off as a misprint.  I then pointed out the missing media reader.  He then proceeded to look everywhere for the media reader (including inside).  In then end we agreed the website was wrong and that buying it in-store or online will result in the same base setup.

Returning home I see now that two people reviewed this machine online mentioned that they got a 2.4 GHz model.  No mention of the other features.  Surprisingly they all still give good ratings.  I would have been pissed off if I had purchased this machine online and received the base model.

Update (5/18/2008): I managed to take a look at the box for this computer today.  The label on the box lists all the same specs as the website minus the 2.66 GHz processor.  Apparently the only thing missing if this machine if purchased in store or online is the CPU upgrade from 2.40 to 2.66 ($200 value).  The display model in the store, however, is the base model missing all the extras.

Before even thinking about backing up my data I had to organize my data.  On my PC I have installed two HD (well really three but I’ll get into that later) .  The first (primary) drive holds the OS, program files, and the temp directories.  The second HD stores only data.   I’ve moved the “My Documents”, “Desktop”, etc to the second drive.   The rational behind this is that the OS and program files are replaceable.  I can reinstall them from the source any time.  My data on the other had is irreplaceable.  This is the stuff I really don’t want to lose… ever. With all the data files on the second drive I can focus on backing up that drive alone.  Of course having two having two drives may double my chances of a failure but hopeful each drive will see a little less ware an tear than a single drive would see.  I don’t really know if it works this way but I’ll go with it.

So now that I have one HD that I need to backup where do I back it up?  Well, with several gigs of data backing up to DVD could be a pain and completely impossible on CDs.  For a while I was backing up all my data to a large (but slow) third internal drive.  This was fine but I wanted something a little more robust and potentiality portable.  So I purchased a Maxtor 300 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive.  I was tempted to buy Maxtor 1 TB RAID External Hard Drive.  The 1TB RAID drive is actually two hard drives that can act like a single 500GB drive with redundancy but I got a really good deal on the 320 GB version so I went with that.  The Maxtor dive plugs into my USB 2.0 port and is very fast, portable, and somewhat ruggedized.  This way I can backup all the computers in my house by moving the HD around.  This is much faster than backing up over the LAN.  And in case of an emergency I can grab the drive itself.

The Maxtor drive comes with a simple backup tool.  This software provides for incremental backups (only copies new and changed files) of the directories you specify on your PC.  Even though I already had a backup/sycronization tool (more below) I tries out teh Maxtor software.  I asked the software to backup my “My Documents” folder and all sub-directories.  At first it seams to be working really well.  I was surprised at how fast it was scanning and coping my files.  Then after a closer look I saw that it was not coping some subfolders in the “My Documents” directory including my projects directory.  My projects directory is probably the most vital directory I have and is very large.  No wonder the backup was so fast, it was skipping all the large stuff (damn procrastinating software).  I don’t know why teh software was doing this but I instantly lost all confidence in that software.  Backup software needs to work flawlessly.

So I fell back to the software I was using before I got the Maxtor drive:  SyncBackSE.  SyncBackSE is the best backup/synchronization software I can find and I have tried quite a few.  With this software you have full control (I like control) of the backup/synchronization process.  Unlike the Maxtor software you can specify your own backup file structure.  You can backup from a network drive or an FTP server.  You can even compress the files to password protected zips.  You can also tell the software to ignore certain files or directories based on filters.  Probably my favorite feature is the confirmation of effects before action is taken.  In other words after scanning the directories SyncBackSE can give you a summary of what files you are coping or deleting giving you a chance to cancel or change an individual action.  Never again will I accidentally “backup” my backup data over my source data (it happens).  With SyncBackSE you can perform your backups manually, on a schedule, or from the command line.  I have even setup my Maxtor drive to run SyncBackSE when the backup button on the Maxtor is pressed.  There really is too many great features in SyncBackSE so you should check it out yourself. 

So far I’m protected against a single HD crashes.  But what if my data drive and back drive crash at the same time, or my computer and backup drive are stolen.  At one time I was backing up my data to a few DVD-RWs.  But DVD backup is slow, manually intensive, and doesn’t protect against fire (or volcano).  I need something completely off-site.  I had considered using my massive 490 GB DreamHost space as an offsite backup but after the recent security breach I decided that wasn’t a good idea.

Last year I came across Mozy online storage.  I signed up for the 2GB of free online storage.  Mozy is a dead simple application that works very similar to the most basic backup tools.  You select the files you need to backup and while your computer is idle it compresses, encrypts, and transmits your new or changed files to the Mozy servers.  Your data can be restored though the Mozy software or accessed online.  Not only that but Mozy keeps previous versions of your files for up to 30 days.  With only 2 GB of storage you need to be selective about what you backup.  For example with only 2 GB I didn’t backup any of my family photos.  However, recently Mozy changed their pricing to be only $4.95 per month for unlimited data.  That really is a price that can’t be beat (it actually can’t… I’ve checked).

Ok, so now I have all my data on my secondary drive, periodically backed up to my backup drive.  I then setup Mozy to backup my backup.  Why not backup directly from the data drive?  In this setup I know that the backup drive is always the latest.  Restoring over the Internet is slow.  I only need to restore from Mozy in an extreme emergency (think volcano).  Second, since Mozy runs somewhat continuously it can be a waist to backup files that change daily or several times a day.  By backing up from the backup drive the schedule I choose for SyncBackSE regulates the backup schedule for Mozy.

How well does this work?  I really don’t know.  Since creating this backup strategy I’ve not had a HD crash, computer fire, or volcano eruption.  If and when it happens I’ll let you know how it works… if I have a computer from which to blog.]]> http://blog.hypercubed.com/archives/2007/07/16/backup-strategy/feed/ 3 http://blog.hypercubed.com/archives/2006/11/25/linux-migrations-three-phase-approach/ http://blog.hypercubed.com/archives/2006/11/25/linux-migrations-three-phase-approach/#comments Sat, 25 Nov 2006 21:57:14 +0000 hypercubed http://blog.hypercubed.com/archives/2006/11/25/linux-migrations-three-phase-approach/

I’ve been a Microsoft (MS) product user for a long time.  It started with MS-DOS 2.11 on my Tandy 1000 EX.  Over the years I migrated through ms-dos 6.0 on my way to windows 95 and 98.  I never had a personal computer with NT or ME but I did and still run windows 2000 and XP.  I’ve always appreciated the MS balance of usability and tweakability. 

I’ve been watching the news related to the upcoming Windows Vist and I have to admit… I’m not all that impressed.  Looks like the main new features are all in appearance.  That’s not something I really care about.   But it is the activation scheme that bothers me most.  I won’t go into details here because it has been discussed many times elsewhere.  In addition I’ve never been a fan of the windows one licence per PC system.  I’d much rather have a one licence per home system.  Having three desktops and and a laptop at home it could be really expensive to upgrade all four machines.  In I any event I thought it might be time to investigate alternatives to the MS products.

I’m not a complete stranger to Linux/Unix.  I’ve needed to access Unix systems every now and then (thank you Harley Hahn) and I occasionally run a browser appliance under VMWare.  So I’m not afraid of Linux but definitely not ready to fully commit.  Therefore, I decided on a three phase approach to Linux migration.  At each phase I’ll deploy Linux in my life at increasing levels.  At the end of each phase I’ll decide based on my experience if I will implement the next phase or abandon the project.

Phase I will be a complete install of Linux as a guest OS in VMWare on my Windows XP host.  Like I said I do have a prebuilt Linux browser appliance under VMWare but that doesn’t give the full experience.  I want to install, upgrade, and maintain a full version of Linux.  I will decide on a distribution, download the necessary ISO(s), and install it on a clean virtual hard drive.  I’ll then customize it as a I would a real system, install desired applications, and maybe even do some development work on it.  I’ll also be looking out for windows applications I need in order to fully integrate Linux in my life.

In Phase II I will install Linux as the only OS on my laptop (currently running Win 2000).  I don’t use my laptop that often and when I do it is usually for accessing the Internet while on travel.  I don’t run any high end applications or games on my laptop so phase II should be an easy bet.

In phase III I’ll install Linux on my desktop PC as a dual boot option.  I won’t overwrite my current OS (Win XP) but add Linux as a secondary OS with the choice of OS to enter at boot time.  This will be the ultimate test for Linux integration in my life.  Will I be able to use Linux as my primary system or will I spend more time in Windows and allow Linux to go dormant?  I’m not at all confident that I’ll be able to reach phase III much less use it more often then windows.  I have a lot of applications that I’ve accumulated over the years some of which I like very much.  For example RoboForm, Windows Live Writer, and MediaMan all may be hard to find replacements for.  Also, because I was once a MSDN subscriber I have a lot of MS software that I use all the time (Visual Studio for example).  Also, I’m that type of person that likes to build custom applications whenever the need arises.  This is one of the reasons that I want to switch to Linux but what about all my old applications… most of them built in Visual Basic.  I don’t want to recode all of them from scratch.  On the other hand, most of my code these days is PHP in Eclipse (cross platform IDE) and all my websurfing is through Firefox so we will have to see.

Well, as I write this I have already implemented some of phase.  Full details of phase I will be in a later post.