Backup routine for safe photo storage

This is how I backup and store all my private photos. Me and my wife have a lot of photos from traveling and other family events which we truly wouldn't want to miss. That's why we, and others in the same situation, should set up a proper backup plan.

This is how we do it:




Photo locations:
A) Incoming photos gets downloaded to our HTPC. This is where we have access to the photos we want to watch. This way we can access the photos via NFS to our computers, ipad as well as watch the photos on the tv with XBMC. Having a fast 11n dual band network makes everything act really smooth.
B) All photos then regulary gets backuped to a Western Digital Mirror Edition disk which mirrors the photos to two disks in RAID mode. If one of the disks fails the disk will alarm us via it's LEDs.
C) If something happens at home. I.e. theft, fire etc, we also have a small 2,5" external USB drive which carries a mirror of the photos on the WD. This drive gets safely stored at an external location (Tips: family, work, friends). If you have crucial private information, I sugges that you somehow secure it. There's some encryption options out there.

Taking care of incoming photos:
Photos gets stored in directories by year. I name all the directories in the following format:
YYYY-MM-DD-DESCRiPTiON i.e. 2013-04-21-ITALY_VACATION
This way I can easily sort all the events by date.
Inside each directory the JPGs gets stored. RAW format gets stored in a seperate directory inside the dir, as well as movies files. I also prefer to seperate files between digital cameras and mobile cameras.

Backing it up:
I use rsync for backing up.

1) For backing up between location A and B I use the following command:
 rsync -vrab --suffix="."$(date +"%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M:%S") --size-only --progress --stats /home/user/source/ /media/USBDISK1/destination/
Explanation:
-v gives verbose information about the copy process
-r recursive copy mode
-a makes sure time and date (modified) gets copied correct
-b makes sure if there's already a file at the destination, but with a different file-size, a backup is made before replacing it. Backup files is prefixed with a "~"
--size-only because some of my local files have wrong modified dates
--progress shows some progress information
--stats shows som nice stats at the end

2) For backing up between location B and C I use the following command:
 rsync -vrab --progress --stats /media/USBDISK1/source/ /media/USBDISK2/destination/
Explanation:
This time size-only gets dropped. This way, rsync will make sure the files looks exactly the same between both the backup drives.

Do you have any tips or suggestions? Please comment!

Also check out my post about free online backup providers. These are great for storing smaller types of backups and making it available on multiple locations.

Nike Pro Fitted Shirt versions (pictures)

I use these tees for training, and apparently Nike has been changing the design for these multiple times. I prefer the previous versions, and in order to recognize them on ebay, I ind it useful to have some pictures of the versions for comparision.

First version (L version pictured):
The logos has been washed out after years of use. Still a great quality shirt!

Version 2 (L version pictured).
Nike Fit logo has changed to Dri Fit Logo. Lower left corner.
I also have a feeling that it has become slightly firmer in the fit
Also changed name inside the collar from "Nike Pro" to "Nike Pro Combat"

Latest version (XL version pictured)
- Notice the new venting system on the sides, and on the back. It uses a different fabric then they used to.
- Also new design inside the collar
- Also known as "Nike Pro combat core 2.0"
- Also notice the seams going in on the stomach unlike the previous versions. This gives the shirt a different feeling whean wearing it. I don't like it, others might do.

Bulkpowders Discount Code

There's a great deal going on at bulkpowders which gives you 5£ off your first order. It's still working, and I will update and remove this post once it doesn't work anymore.

Simply register at the site and use the following referral code. You have to use this code in order to get the discount. The code is A&04716. I just had a friend to test it (6.Oct 2013), and it worked just fine!

The discount will show up before you check out your order to pay.

Enjoy!

Disable flashing wifi led

If your laptop has a wifi led that keeps flashing even when connected to the network, it's possible to disable it.

First you have to find out what wifi driver you are using. It's most likely iwlwifi, or the previous version called iwlagn. Just do a "lsmod | grep iwlwifi" or "lsmod | grep iwlagn" to identify what driver you are currently using.

Then edit /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf or iwlagn.conf, whatever suits you. If it doesn't exist, it's ok, just create it. Then add the following line:
options iwlwifi led_mode=1

Now, restart your computer, or simply just gain root privileges and do a:

modprobe -r iwlagn && options iwlwifi led_mode=1 && modprobe iwlagn

Online Tailored Shirts

I work in the financial business. This type of work expects me to wear a certain dress code. Full suit and

shirt. Since I have the typical athletic body with broad shoulders, I've had a lot of problems finding good fitting shirts which I can feel comfortable in working long days. After some years I've come to the conclusion that when buying a shirt I have to get it tailored either way.

Why online tailoring?
After spending years buying shirts in stores, you will probably find them either getting to wide/tight around your waist and/or shoulders, to short/long or have certain types of cuts and styles you don't like. Many people also find that they have to send the shirts to a tailor to get them custom fitted before they can wear it to work. Getting clothes tailored online is a really easy, fun, practical and affordable way to get good fitting shirts. You get what you want, and it fits! You only have to spend a bit time the first and second time you order to get the perfect fit you want.

How do I do it?
The first time you have to take some measurements. Getting measurements from your current favourite shirts is without doubt the best way. Setting up an excel scheme is probably not a bad idea. This way you can compare your measurements between different shirts, and orders. For first timer you can also take measurements from different shirts. Ie. you can take measurements on the shoulder area from a shirt you find fitting around the shoulders, and measurements for the waist area from a shirt you find to be well fitting around your waist. This is all very well explained in the online tailoring stores.

Where?
You have a lot of options:
- Tailorstore
- Indochino
- Black Lapel
- Modern Tailor

I've tried several of these. My favourite is Modern Tailor. They give you great custom service with a lot of options as well as the ability to give special instructions. The price is also very good. Shirts starting as low as 30$, and full suits for 300$. The e-mail service is also great and they often send you photos of your finished product by e-mail in order for you to confirm if it looks as expected. I will post a review with some photos of my results soon. Stay tuned!

Best online storage solution

The last year I've tried multiple online storage and backup solutions. I've tried them on multiple platforms, and although many boast with lots of space they tend to fail on factors like:
* Portability
* Functionality
* Lack of OS support
* Speed
* Ease of use

My favourite after a year of trying is without doubt dropbox.

Why?

A.) The fact that sharing with other users is so easy greatly favours choosing dropbox  It's also a fact that dropbox is the most commonly used online storage solution.

B.) Dropbox also supports a wide range of systems: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and BlackBerry.

C.) You get 2GB storage for free. By doing some tasks and referring some friends you can easily get above 18GB of free online storage. If you want more, you can easily upgrade to hundreds of more GBs of storage.

D.) The seamless synching works absolutely flawless. You get a directory on your computer which automatically syncs to your dropbox account, and so to the rest of your devices. You can work directly against this directory without a hitch.

Give it a try!

Linux script to mute and unmute both Master and PCM

Updated my debian distro recently, and trying to make amixer mute and unmute only the Master channel caused some problems. Why do I use this cmd for this job? Because I'm linking my multimedia buttons to amixer to mute and unmute my audio.

Created a bash script called mute, which I put in /usr/bin/mute and chmod 755. It looks like this:

if amixer get Master|grep off; then
amixer set Master,0 unmute
amixer set PCM,0 unmute
notify-send "[ ] Mute"
else
amixer set Master,0 mute
amixer set PCM,0 mute
notify-send "[X] Mute"
fi

You can of course decide to remove the "notify-send" cmd, if you don't want any notifications.