This is another one of those very quick tips that’s going to take me a long time to say.

The tip itself is very simple: Back up your data! Your photos don’t really exist until they exist in at least two places. Hard Drives fail. Optical Discs rot. Floppy Discs are tiny. So what do you do? You make sure that you have multiple copies of every single one of your important files. And you really should have one backup copy of all your important data that is quickly and easily accessible, and another copy that is stored at an off-site location that can’t be affected by the same flood, fire, or theft that could get the other two copies.

Hard Drivesare cheap. If you just consider your backup drives as part of your photographic kit (just like the camera, lenses, and these days the computer too) then you will be in a much better place mentally when it comes to buying them. You need all of these things in order to successfully create, manipulate, and preserve your images. It’s just that simple.

How to Backup

This is the long part. I’m not going to tell you how to backup your photos and other important documents. That’s up to you. But I will tell you what I do, and why I do it. Unfortunately, because my system is so robust it is also quite complicated. And that takes a long time to describe…

I recognize that most people won’t even come close to doing what I do. But I hope you will do some of it, because (say it with me) “All Hard Drives Fail“. Even if you only do some of this it will be much more likely that your data is safe.

• First of all I keep the original copies of all of my important documents, data, and recent photos on my laptop. I would prefer to keep absolutely everything on my laptop, but laptop hard drives simply aren’t available that are big enough to do so; therefore, I can only keep my recent work on my laptop and older stuff must be stored elsewhere.
• My laptop and my desktop are connected via a network and I do automatic backups of all my important documents so that they are readily available on either machine. The frequency of these backups varies depending on the type of data.

  The automatic backup is done using AJC Directory Synchronizer. This is a very powerful program that allows you to choose exactly what you want to backup and where you want it to go. It is easily scheduled via the Windows task manager so you can create multiple jobs with appropriate frequencies for each job. I have used many similar pieces of software over the years and I’m much happier with this one than I was with any of the others…

• I have 2 D-Link DNS-323 Network Attached Storage (NAS) cases that each contain 2 Hard Drives. One of the drives in each NAS contains my entire photography library (including the recent work from my laptop), which I can access directly over the network from either computer using Adobe Lightroom or Windows Explorer. The other drive in each NAS contains all of my other data and documents. I do an automatic backup every week to copy everything from the primary NAS to the secondary NAS. This backup syncs any additions, deletions, or changes to any files on the primary. I do this weekly because that provides a nice buffer in case I make a mistake on either of the computers and it gets propagated to the primary NAS before I catch it. I then have a few days to recover any necessary files from the secondary NAS.
• This next part may sound crazy to some of you, but it is actually the most important part of my backup strategy… I use a portable USB drive that contains another copy of absolutely everything, and I store this drive off-site. This protects me in case of fire, flood, or any other major disaster that would impact my house, and which could potentially destroy all of the other backup copies at the same time. I only update this drive every few weeks, so there is always some exposure to losing my most recent files, but I have years worth of work stored on this drive that will always be safe.

  This drive can be stored at your workplace, at a friends house, in a safety deposit box, or even in your vehicle (as long as you don’t park it in the garage attached to your house!). The important part is that it must be an off-site backup, and therefore you have to get it out of your house. With this drive stored somewhere else, my absolute worst case is that I lose a few weeks worth of data.

  Note that I even go to the extreme of taking my secondary NAS off-site prior to bringing in my external drive!
  

Note that if you have a relatively small amount of data, a system like this could easily be created by using 2 inexpensive USB Hard Drives. These are readily available for under $100 if you need 1TB or less. You could use one drive as your primary backup and the other as the off-site backup. In fact this is exactly what I did for a long time before my storage needs outpaced the USB drives that I had. One benefit of using the NAS cases is that they are directly connected to my gigabit ethernet network, and I really like the performance and speed that the NAS is capable of.

The beauty of this system is that it can be easily upgraded by replacing the portable hard drives as your storage needs get bigger. These drives get bigger, faster, and cheaper all the time. Depending on how much storage space you need, you may never have to do this. Or you might need to start off with a multi-bay NAS right off the bat if you already have lots of data and you don’t have a good backup system.

So even if you only get one backup drive, and even if you only backup your data every once in awhile, I hope you are doing something. Do whatever works for you! Feel free to drop me a line if you need some help setting up your backup system!

I love my Popcorn Hour PCH-A110 media player and I use it all the time to watch TV Shows and Movies. This is just one of a class of devices known as a Networked Media Tank, or NMT. I can save my shows on a hard drive or USB device that I’ve installed in or connected to the player, or watch content from any of my other computers that are connected via my home network.

If you want to learn more about this kind of device, I’ve reviewed my PCH-A110 previously on this site.

This is an incredibly useful device, and recently I found a couple of tricks to make the user experience even better!

• MediatankController 1.0 for Adobe AIR – browse and control your NMT from your PC. This is a remote control application for your that runs on any PC desktop. This is actually a cross platform App (built using Adobe Air) that can be installed on almost any computer. It provides a fully functional remote control that sits on your computer. You can also browse the media files available to your Popcorn Hour from a slick window on the desktop. Better yet, the popcorn hour responds faster to the controls on your desktop than it does using the remote, and the app provides keyboard support as well, which is far better than trying to type using the numeric keypad on the remote. This is a must have tool for any NMT owner. Although the app was built and tested on the PCH-A110, it should work on any NMT device.
• MediatankController 1.0 for iPhone – browse and control your NMT from your phone (or your iPod Touch). I actually haven’t been able to get this one to work yet, but many other people have, so I’m sure I just didn’t configure it properly. It promises essentially the same functionality as the the similarly named PC desktop app, but built as web based app formatted for the iPhone. This app has also been tested on the iPod Touch and the Android phone, so any web enabled gadget or computer with a web browser should also work just as well.
• Pure Web Remote Control. This one is a little bit less functional than the others, and a whole lot less pretty. It is a web based app that provides some of the same functionality as the two apps above. The main difference is that its design goal was to provide access to content on the NMT, via a browser based remote control, so that the user could listen to audio with TV switched off. This app also works on any web enabled phone, computer, or other gadget, and I had no problem accessing it with my iPod Touch. I have to say that it’s really ugly, but it works very well. When you consider it within the context that it was designed, it’s actually a pretty cool little app.

This is just one more way to make my life faster and easier. If you know of any other great improvements to make your Popcorn Hour media player (or any other NMT for that matter) even better, please drop me a comment and let me know about it!

My Dad recently asked me about the best way to reconnect his Windows laptop to his wireless network router after the Internet Connection stopped responding. He had been fumbling around and had tried changing various hardware and software settings, including hitting the reset button on his router (don’t do this, it will reset the device to its factory default settings). Although he eventually got his wireless internet connection working again, he really wasn’t sure why it had dropped out in the first place, never mind how he fixed it.

Most likely he had a temporary glitch in the wireless connection and it eventually started working again on its own. Sometimes that happens, but usually not. I get so frustrated with wireless connectivity that I leave my laptop plugged into the router with an Ethernet cable most of the time. My wife complains about losing connections on her laptop almost daily.

Problems are often caused by cordless phones and other wireless devices operating on the same frequency as the router. If you have a 2.4 ghz phone, that could easily be the cause. Even if you don’t have a cordless phone, one of your neighbors might, and that could be enough to occasionally interfere with your wireless connection. Note that if your wireless phone is 2.4 ghz then you might consider replacing it with a DECT phone. They operate on an otherwise unused bit of wireless spectrum and should not interfere at all…

When you lose your wireless connection (and you will), try the following steps (in order):

1. Check to see if the wireless connection is disabled using a hardware on/off button. Most modern laptops have these, and they are usually just above the keyboard, but it may be different depending on your hardware.
2. Right click on the network icon in the Windows system tray. Choose “Diagnose and Repair”. Let it do its thing. Most of the time this will solve the problem.
3. Check to see if you have internet connectivity on another computer or wireless device. If you do, try plugging your computer into the router or directly to the modem. If either of these connections work, reboot your computer and test the wireless connection again.
4. Unplug the Router and the Cable or DSL Modem. Wait about 15 seconds and plug the cable modem back in. Wait another 15 seconds and plug the router back in. Wait another 30-60 seconds and check your laptop to see if the connection is fixed. You may need to try to “Diagnose and Repair” the problem again.
5. Contact your Cable or DSL Internet Service Provider to see if there are any problems with your service area.
6. Start “Windows Update” and check to see if there are any driver updates for your computer. Sometimes these are “Optional” updates that may not automatically install; they might help though so in my opinion they are usually worth installing.

If none of the above steps work then it is likely that your problems are much more serious than usual. You may have a faulty router or modem, or a bad network card in your computer. Try rebooting all of the devices again, including the router and the modem. Try testing with another computer or device, such as a friends iPod Touch or laptop. Try contacting your Cable or DSL Internet Service Provider again.

If you go through all of these steps, you should be able to get your wireless connection working again. If nothing works then you may need to get an expert in to help. Good luck!

The controversy over “Net Neutrality” is all over the tech media these days. If you haven’t heard about it there are some great articles on Wikipedia to help you learn more:

• Network Neutrality
• Network Neutrality in Canada
• SaveOurNet.ca

The second Wikipedia article specifically about Canada is important because the Canadian telecommunications companies, who happen to be the largest Internet Service Providers, are on the leading edge of Internet Throttling (aka Bandwith Shaping) technology and they recently won a landmark ruling by the CRTC allowing them to continue this practice. The ruling does place some rules around the practice and also puts the onus on the telcos to prove that they are doing it only when required (eg. “as a last resort”) and only after fair warning has been given, but it still allows a practice that many users find abhorrent. This decision is precedent setting and will likely become the template for other government regulatory bodies in the near future.

My summary of Net Neutrality: Net Neutrality is a principle that argues that a given user should be able to access any web site or service with equal bandwidth as any other site or service, within the limitations (eg. bandwidth caps) of their internet access service plan. This means that ISP’s should not be able to limit or reduce the bandwidth available for access to certain types of service (eg. video on demand, torrent streams, or audio files) preferentially over other types of service (eg. email, searches, or blogs).

My Take on Net Neutrality: In this day and age of tiered internet access packages, where users pay different monthly fees depending on the instantaneous and monthly bandwidth quotas allotted to them, there should be no need for bandwidth shaping or traffic throttling. To do so is a form of discrimination. If a user pays for a certain amount of bandwidth then she should be able to freely choose how she distributes her use of that bandwidth. If she exceeds her monthly bandwidth cap then of course she should be charged more than another user that lives within his quota. But her decision on what sites or services to access should not be dictated by her internet service provider.

A Concrete Example: I choose to pay for the Hi-Speed Extreme package offered by Shaw Cable in Alberta, Canada. This package gives me up to 15 Mbps for downloads, 1 Mbps for uploads, and a monthly quota of 100 GB. Shaw also offers a Hi-Speed package (7.5 Mbps down, 0.5 Mbps up, 60 GB/month) for a little more than half the price of the extreme package, or a Hi-Speed Warp package (25 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up, 150 GB/month) for 4 times the cost! If my neighbor is paying 4 times as much for his internet service shouldn’t he be able to access whatever sites he want? Shouldn’t he be able to use all of his 25 Mbps right up to his 150 GB per month? If he exceeds 150 GB in a month then I totally understand charging him more, but if not, then what right would the ISP have to decide that a Video on Demand service offered by one company is more important than a similar service offered by another company?? It shouldn’t matter what package a user chooses to pay for; we should have the right to access the full bandwidth we’ve paid for, right up to the monthly quota included in that package.

If an ISP simply can’t accommodate users actually using the bandwidth they have paid for, then they should limit how much bandwidth they are selling, not what their customers do with it!

NOTE – I’m not getting any kickbacks from Shaw to post this here, and by no means should this be considered an endorsement OR a criticism of Shaw. I have been totally happy with the service I get from them and I haven’t seen any personal impact of Traffic Throttling or Bandwidth Shaping in the few months that I’ve been a customer of Shaw. I have heard a few complaints from other users though…

This may seem overly simple, but why should somebody else decide what sites or services are more important than others?? How do you feel about this? Am I missing something? Please use the comments to tell me how you feel about this.

I like to watch TV.  My computer is setup in front of my big screen so that when I’m editing photos or otherwise geeking out (which happens a lot) I can have the TV on in front of me.  I watch a lot of live sports, especially NFL in the fall, the Tour de France in July, and the Olympics ever second year.  And of course I watch NHL hockey.  I’m Canadian…

But other than watching live sports, I live a very busy life and I normally can’t find the time to sit down to watch TV at the same time my favorite shows are on (prime time is an imaginary thing in my world).  And I don’t like to watch most of the garbage that’s on outside of prime time which is generally when I do finally get to sit down to watch TV.  So that’s why I like to watch pre-recorded shows such as those available for download from many, many resources on the internet.  (I’ll leave it to you to Google “download TV” to find some of those sources.)

One major problem with downloadable media (including movies, music, TV shows, and even other web distributed content such as video feeds from YouTube, Vimeo, and Viddler) is that it comes in a wide variety of formats, qualities, and aspect ratios. And most people have no way of getting that content to their television without going through major hurdles.

There are many ways to get that content onto the TV, but until recently none of them were very easy.  Over the years I’ve gradaully migrated from being forced to watch the content on my computer, to being able to burn VCD’s (video CD’s) or eventually DVD’s to watch on my DVD player attached to the TV.   Burning discs has never been fast, and for most people it involves converting the downloadable AVI files (also known as DivX or Xvid files) into a DVD format that the DVD player and the TV could recognize.  This can take hours even for a typical episode of a TV show.  This got better when DVD players started to be able to play DivX and Xvid files without conversion (even now those players are pretty rare), and better yet when you could plug in a USB thumb drive containing your content (extremely rare).  Unfortunately these players are only as good as the firmware they come with, and they typically don’t keep up with the newer media codecs.  That results in media files that can’t be played on the player or that pop and skip and lose synchronization between the audio and the video.  Not to mention that it can still take significant time to copy the files from the computer to the device.

What I’ve really wanted for a long time is to be able to directly connect my computer to my Home Theatre AV system using my local area network.  I really don’twant to have a separate computer in my living room (ie. a media center PC), and I don’t want to be limited to the codecs that Apple Supports on the AppleTV.

There didn’t seem to be an ideal solution until I recently heard about the Popcorn Hour products, which belong to a class of devices known as “Networked Media Tanks” (NMT). These are uber gadgets for the uber geek, and they do exactly what I want:  they play almost any visual media format I want to display on my TV; they connect to my network, wired or wirelessly; they are very small and very quiet; they work.  As a bonus they are basically small computers (running an OS variant of Linux), so they are infinitely customizeable and they can be seen and controlled by the other computers on your network, and even from over the internet.  They are UPnP and DLNA compatible (if you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it; it’s a good thing) and they can stream media to AND from your other network devices.  In short, they are awesome!

I recently picked up a Popcorn Hour PCH-A-110.  It came in a nice box with everything I needed to hook it up to my TV, including an HDMI cable (it works fine with standard def TV’s too).  I added an old laptop hard drive that I had lying around (it will accept most 2.5″ or 3.5″ SATA HDD’s, but you don’t even need to install one if you don’t need it), and I plugged it in to my network with an ethernet cable.  I’m still working on getting it connected wirelessly, but that’s not a big deal for me right away.  In a very short time I had it up and running on my network and I was able to watch TV shows and movies directly from the other computers on the network.  I was even able to watch some episodes of MASH that I have in Matroska (.mkv) format that up until now I’ve only been able to watch on my computer using the VideoLan VLC media player.

The audio and video quality is amazing and I’m extremely happy.  My favorite part is that I was able to copy all my TV shows and movies over to the internal HDD for instant access, I’ve got utorrent setup to automatically download new episodes of my favorite TV shows onto it, and I’ve programmed my Logitech Harmony Remote to control it.  It fits seamlessly into my existing Home Theatre setup and my life just got a little bit easier.  I’m a very happy Popcorn Hour owner.