No-Cost Text Editors
Why a text editor instead of a word processor? This is not a new question. It's one that I've asked and answered previously. I've mentioned that I use a text editor (usually UltraEdit) when I'm writing for TechByter. I do this because I can't apply formatting in a text editor. I have to pay attention to the words. UltraEdit isn't the only choice, though. I'm writing this in the TED Notepad Editor. You have choices and this segment is about those choices.
TED is a most basic editor. Many other editors are available without charge.
RJ Text Editor starts as a Windows-Explorer-like function ...
... then it morphs into a text editor with many useful functions.
Notepad++ reminds me somewhat of UltraEdit because it offers the tabbed interface that I find quite useful. This application also has many additional features such as macros.
The PS Pad free text editor also has a tab interface and it highlights an entire paragraph as you're typing it. Of all the free text editors I've looked at, this is the one that reminds me the most of UltraEdit.
Edit Pad Lite is another basic text editor and, as is increasingly the case even with free applications, it has a tabbed interface that allows the user to switch from one document to another with ease.
Each of these applications has features that the others don't. For example, Edit Pad Lite automatically highlights every instance of any word you select. I'm not sure why I would want to do this on a regular basis, or even an irregular basis, but the person who wrote the application apparently needed the functionality.
I'm absolutely certain that none of these free editors will cause me to stop using UltraEdit because none of them has the wide range of features that UltraEdit offers, but each of them has something to recommend it. I have used each to write parts of this report and I am impressed by the features that are available from editors that are literally priceless.
Download any of these editors:
Rethinking Backup
Technology is moving so quickly that sometimes it's important to reconsider the way you accomplish something to see if there's a better solution. I did that recently with my backup system because my goal is to create the most foolproof backup system possible but still to keep the operation simple.
- In the past I've recommended Acronis Backup with external hard drives that I store at the office and I still think it's an excellent solution in many cases. Even so, I no longer use Acronis but I do use a series of USB disks.
- In the past I've recommended the online backup service called Carbonite and I continue to use it, but a bit differently than in the past.
- In the past I have maintained a local USB emergency backup that can be used to restore a file or to move the entire operation from my desktop computer to a notebook computer. That continues to be a key part of my backup strategy and I've even expanded this part of the system despite my absolute statements that a backup stored at the same location as system it's backing up is not a backup.
Reconsidering Acronis
Among its other talents, Acronis can create a disk image that can be restored to a boot drive. Although I had successfully tested other Acronis backups, I had never tested booting to the recovery CD and activating a USB-based backup. So, several months ago, when an Ubuntu update scrambled the boot manager and I tried to use the Acronis recovery CD, I found that it couldn't recognize USB keyboards.
My bad. I should have tested it. But nobody makes computers these days with the old PS/2 keyboard connectors and, even if Acronis now supports USB keyboards, they were rather late to the party. That caused me to think of other possible issues and the most significant of those is the fact that Acronis uses a proprietary format for backup files. That's not unusual; most backup programs use proprietary formats.
What that means, though, is that the format may change from one version to another and the file formats may not be compatible with each other. Or, if the company goes out of business, the backup could be inaccessible. I started looking for a backup system that would simply copy files to the backup device or create a zip file.
Hold that thought. We'll come back to it later.
Carbonite is the online backup service that I use. Despite the fact that I've left the computer on 24 hours per day, 7 days per week (except when American Electric Power can't provide electricity to my neighborhood) since 10 May 2010 (3 months), I've never had more than 60% of my files backed up.
This is probably because Carbonite is backing up some large files that change frequently. Most of these files are on the C drive and when I told Carbonite to stop backing up drive C, the percentage of files backed up jumped to 70%, is currently just shy of 90%, and probably will reach 100% shortly after mid August.
My goal is to have Carbonite back up critical files: work files, downloads, music, and photographs. These are files that would be hard (or impossible) to replace.
But I've told Carbonite to ignore everything on drive C, which is where the operating system, all applications, and many configuration files are.
Hold that thought. We'll come back to it later.
Sitting beside the computer is a 500GB USB hard drive. I use AllwaySync to copy all current files (websites, music, photos, e-mail, downloads, passwords, configuration files, graphics, typefaces). In most cases, changed files are committed to the backup drive within 10 minutes.
If needed, I can unplug this drive from the desktop and attach it to the notebook in less than a minute. Even thought this isn't really a "backup", I consider it an important part of my backup strategy.
How Do These Strategies Converge?
Backup serves several purposes. In an ideal world, you would be able to plug in a drive with a complete and current image of everything on your computer and recover the operating system, applications, and files in just a few seconds. Put in the most basic terms: Ain't gonna happen.
So my second choice is to have a system that allows me to recover documents, data, images, typefaces, and settings quickly. This may require that I reinstall the operating system and all applications, but I know how to do that. I can install an operating system, a couple of browsers, my e-mail program, Microsoft Office, and Adobe's Creative Suite in 2 hours or less and that will take care of most of my needs.
I won't have a fully optimized computer for a week or more, but at least 80% of what I need will be functional within the first 6 hours after a disaster. That's not a guess. It's a number based on experience. The first 80% of the recovery takes the first 80% of the time. The remaining 20% of the recovery takes the other 80% of the time. And that wasn't a typo.
Priority 1: Immediate recovery of critical files
The most common problem is user error. The user deletes an important file or modifies a file and decides that the previous version is better. That's where my emergency backup drive comes into play.
And that's why I have now set a partition on one of the computer's internal drives as a special backup. It's why I've added a second external hard drive. It's why I continue to use the original external emergency backup hard drive.
Disk space is almost free today. When it looked like I would need to use my notebook computer to store Itunes files, I bought a 500GB external hard drive. Apple finally updated Itunes and I was able to move the files back to the desktop. That left a 500GB drive as surplus.
I also had 200GB+ free on an internal partition and, where Linux used to be, an available 100GB partition.
That's the long way of saying that I had a lot of available disk space. You probably do, too. Disk space is cheap. Really. I've seen 2TB drives for around $100. If you lose data these days, the fault is entirely yours.
The challenge is the C drive. It contains your operating system, applications, and a lot of settings. If you can't count on being able to automatically restore everything on the C drive, maybe you can at least make recovery a bit easier.
What if, for example, you backed up the C drive in a way that allowed you to copy files from the backup to a new C drive? You'd still have to reinstall the operating system, but you'd have all of your configuration files backed up.
Enter Cobian Backup
Luis Cobian was born in Santa Clara, Cuba, in 1969. He studied at the University of Havana and at Saint Petersburg University in Russia. If you suffer from xenophobia, that's probably enough to stop you right there. But Cobian is now a citizen of Sweden and he has created a backup application that you may use for free even though it is no longer an "open source" application.
Cobian's backup application can write zip or 7z files or it can just duplicate a directory structure on your backup drive. Both zip and 7z formats can be read by many applications, but simply recreating the disk structure is even better. To recover files, just drag them from the backup media to your hard drive.
Convergence
The multi-part backup system I've adopted addresses the following issues:
- Immediate recovery of files that have been damaged or deleted: Files are on local backup and can be recovered in seconds.
- Data recovery: If the file is no longer available locally, off-site hard-drive backup is available and all critical files are also backed up to Carbonite.
- Operating system recovery: The operating system will need to be reinstalled but settings are backed up both locally and to off-site drives.
Installing
Possibly because Cobian is a Cuban, educated in Russia, his program is available in a variety of languages. Choose the one that makes the most sense to you.
The next step, of course, is to determine where to install the program. In most cases, the default selection will be correct.
The best choice for most people is to run Cobian Backup as a service and to use your user name and password (assuming that your account has admin privileges.)
The program will confirm your settings and then complete the installation process.
Next you need to create one or more backup procedures.
Instead of the default full backup, you'll probably want either differential or incremental backups. The first time you run the backup, Cobian will create a full backup.
On the next screen, you choose directories to be backed up and specify where you want the backups to be stored. Does this seem entirely too easy?
If you want backups to run at specific times, you can schedule them on this screen. If not, you can run backups manually.
This screen allows you to select zip or 7z compression, or no compression. Compressing files should take longer, but it doesn't always seem to. Even so, just a standard copy is the most versatile option.
Here's a backup of the C drive to an internal hard drive (W). My goal here is to capture the settings and other files that will no longer be picked up by Carbonite. This is just one of two backups for this drive, though. The other backup goes to an external hard drive that's stored at the office.
Here you can include or exclude specific files. I've excluded files such as hyberfil.sys (the hibernation file), pagefile.sys (the paging file), and the Recycle Bin.
Each time the application runs, it creates log file entries.
Drives E, F, and G contain a lot of my data files. The first backup of these drives (180GB+) consumed more than 2 hours, but subsequent differential backups take just a few minutes.
This is the log file from a differential backup. The entire process was complete in less than 3 minutes.
Currently I have 4 backup settings: Drive C (less than 60GB) to an internal drive; Drive C to an external drive; Drive D (175GB) to an external drive (also to Carbonite); and Drives E, F, and G (182GB) to an external drive (also to Carbonite).
No single backup system does everything that you need it to do. To protect all of the files on your computer, you need a multi-part strategy.
Bottom Line: Cobian Backup is a free backup system that does what you need it to.
It's tempting to give the application 5 cats, but a rating of 4 indicates that it's a good, solid performer. If Cobian Backup saved some basic user settings and reported more precisely what is happening during the backup process, I would probably give it 5 cats. When you need to restore files from backup, you won't ever regret choosing this program.
For more information, visit the Cobian website.
Short Circuits
Even More Netflix Streaming
No longer is Netflix streaming video just old movies that you'll watch only if you can't find anything else. Netflix will pay about $1 billion to gain access to films from Paramount Pictures, Lions Gate, and MGM. Netflix continues to show that it's willing to be ahead of the curve.
Starting September first, Netflix subscribers will have access to many more streaming movies. The company clearly sees a future in which DVDs will be less important than immediate, online video. Whether that future is 5 years off or just 1, Netflix will be ready.
Currently one of the company's major expenses is envelopes, processing, and postage for physical DVDs. It amounts to about $600 million per year according to industry insiders. Instead of paying for postage, Netflix could pay for the rights to current films.
Netflix has shown a keen interest in streaming video since about 2007. Streaming is available, on a limited basis, even to customers with the $9-per-month economy package.
Netflix appears to be trying to insert itself where pay-TV (HBO, for example) is today. This creates a "new window" for movies and Hollywood has shown interest in it. Can you stream a first-run movie that's still in theaters without cannibalizing theater income? Can Netflix provide a new income stream for the production companies? Currently you'll find more questions than answers.
No matter what, Netflix is putting a lot of pressure on cable operators.
(Opinion) Google Picks Evil
Google says the plan to kill net neutrality that it has hatched with Verizon will save net neutrality. This reminds me of the (possibly apocryphal) statement during the Viet Nam War, "To save the village, we had to destroy it." It also reminds me of "newspeak" as described in George Orwell's novel 1984. Up is down, left is right, war is peace, and we've always been at war with Eastasia.
- Facebook doesn't agree with Google. The social networking site is a success because the Internet is open.
- AT&T, as expected, calls the arrangement between Google and Verizon "a reasonable framework". AT&T would earn enormous profits if the proposal is allowed to be put into effect.
- The New York Times quotes media mogul Barry Diller as calling the proposal "a sham".
Net neutrality holds that all Internet users should have equal access to all types of information online. Does that seem reasonable? Verizon thinks not and Google now seems to agree that it would be a good idea for companies to be able to give priority to some sources or some types of content and to charge customers more for other types of content.
Please! If you haven't yet expressed your opinion to the Federal Communications Commission, now would be the time to do so. If you feel that open communication via the Internet is valuable, let the FCC know.
"Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot." -Joni Mitchell.
The author's image: It's that photo over at the right. This explains why TechByter Worldwide was never on television, doesn't it?
