I would love for this data to be added to product reviews and packaging. I'm with Jeff, and would still buy an SSD drive. An SSD is the single most significant upgrade you can make to your computer. It's quite surprising how much the OS is limited by disk read/write speeds. Computer "speed" used to be limited by CPU cycles, then it was RAM. Now it's disk throughput.
At least data like this puts data backup into the proper perspective.
There has been a bit of excitement over the Dropbox security standards and controls. This is nothing new, but it might be a slow news week. Dropbox has responded with a lengthy blog post. Most of their arguments make sense to me. For example, they must decrypt user objects if they are to be available through the web application:
"The reason is many of the most popular Dropbox features — like accessing your files from the website, creating file previews, and sharing files with other people — would either not be possible or would be much more cumbersome without this capability.
In light of the last post, I think it's my responsibility to highlight some important points about securing a Mac Server. These are also just good ideas for any computer.
Turn on your firewall. It's easy and it works. Check your router port forwarding. Make sure you know where your incoming traffic is going. Specifically, if you do not forward your incoming HTTP connections, then your router is accessible from the Internet.
Things that cost me money* Dropbox------$10/Mo. Spootnik------$3/Mo. MobileMe -----$8/Mo. Shawn Blanc---$3/Mo. Web Hosting---$8/Mo. Simplenote ----$2/Mo. Pinboard ------$7 lifetime Netflix--------$8/Mo. Amazon Prime--$7/Mo. Instapaper------$3/Mo. Things that cost me peace of mind* Google (Search/Mail/Reader) Mint Twitter *These lists may not be mutually exclusive. Nothing is free. EDIT: I forgot about the terrific Instapaper service
Category 2 Data I posted previously about finding your data buckets. It amounts to sifting through all of your digital records and assigning a cost and benefit. The ultimate goal, is to know what you have and how to secure it.
I assign email messages to category 2, along with receipts and warranties. Most email is unlikely to be crucial since I've probably already acted on it in some way. This is very different from family photos or tax documents which are generally irreplaceable.
Google search has been experiencing a slow slide into the realm of unmoderated Wordpress comments. I'm sure Google finds a lot of relavent search results but in general the first 2-3 pages of results is garbage filled with link farm results and Adwords hits.
I've recently been on a quest to replace Google search with something that actually works. I was getting pretty frustrated until I stumbled across duckduckgo.com. So far the only bad aspect of the service is the name.
Do yourself a favor and learn this:
http://www.dpbestflow.org/backup/backup-overview#321
Trust me on this one. The American Society of Media Photographers KNOW how to secure data. I know a half dozen people that took backup too lightly and suffered the consequences. Including myself.
Media is cheap. Memories are not.
From this extremely well written article by John Foreman article1:
First, humans are bad at discerning the value of their data. Personal data just appears out of nowhere, exhaust out of life’s tailpipe, so why not trade it for something small? I’m personally willing to hand over my own GPS location full time just so I have access to Angry Birds and a smartphone flashlight app.
And later:
Linked from Schneier.com. The PDF is well worth downloading and reading.
There is some public discussion of false amplifiers being solely driven by “social bots,” which suggests automation. In the case of Facebook, we have observed that most false amplification in the context of information operations is not driven by automated processes, but by coordinated people who are dedicated to operating inauthentic accounts. We have observed many actions by fake account operators that could only be performed by people with language skills and a basic knowledge of the political situation in the target countries, suggesting a higher level of coordination and forethought.
