I want backup software that does incremental backups at the file level. It might waste more space, but it would be easier to retrieve lost files. It should make a folder for each date-time (YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS) it finds a changed file (continuous backup). It should just store complete files (not a single giant backup file). It should probably also have an XML log / registry in the root of the backups to air a Backup Browser in showing a reconstituted view.

I could then look at the drive and see a \BackUps folder in the root of the drive for all my backuos, a \C folder for files on the C:\ drive, and then \YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS folders for each backup. I could then dig into \BackUps\C\YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS\ or \BackUps\D\YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS\ (D:\ drive, etc.) and fish out any file I needed without using backup software to retrieve the file.

Anyone could then build a Backup Browser (open source or proprietary) to let the backup be browsed reassembled since only the first backup would have all the files. it could look like Time machine’s restore function, or it could look like a Fonder/Explorer window with a date control to look at the file system state on a given date-time. But even without the Backup Browser, you could still get the files.

Windows 7 Backup and Restore (built in backup), Acronis True Image Home 2010, and Rebit, discussed in “Managing Backup: Three Software Solutions Compared : Backup Done Right – Review Tom’s Hardware“, all seem like good options, but if I understand correctly, all require software to look at the files.

If backup software used my standard scheme for storing backups, it would still be helpful to have software to look at the backups in a more meaningful way, but it would not be required — the files would just be there on the drive.

If you want your backup encrypted (which is a weird idea to me, since retrieving the data — the whole point of a backup — could be hampered by encryption), then it would be okay for it to work in the TrueCrypt way. Files are still accessed at the root of a drive, but that drive is an encrypted container somewhere else. Better yet, it could be an encrypted partition. Just make sure the OS and user transparently see it as unencrypted.

I’ve now paid for VMWare Fusion 2 and for an upgrade to 3. It seems the upgrade added a few minor new features. It mostly seemed like bug fixes (like making Windows 7 work properly).

Two big bugs that haven’t been fixed are the problem that Ubuntu’s visual effects won’t work, and when you mouse down to a hidden OS X Dock, it won’t pop up when you’re running full screen.

I cannot wait until the day I never have to watch etrade baby commercials ever again. Makes me want to swear to express how blanking stupid the commercials are. I can’t even give a critique. They’re just stupid. So stupid they’ve lost my business.

(note to self) Remember: never do business with them.

In my iPhone Features Sunday, post on February 22nd, 2009, I gave a list of my top choices. I have to say, I think that they’re past the point of pushing normal users to jailbreak their iPhones. I have no need to jailbreak, but I do like that there’s a way to make sure my hardware is really mine. (The fact that Apple controls which software I’m even allowed to install is just not right.)

Before I get to the leftover features that I still didn’t get, I have something to gripe about. I’m happy to hear that MMS will be included in my unlimited messaging — I’ll finally get closer to my money’s worth (AT&T’s Text Messages Cost $1,310 per Megabyte). I am more than unhappy about AT&T sitting around trying to decide how much to charge me per month to turn on a feature that’s built into the iPhone: tethering. I already pay for data. It’s unlimited, but it’s also capped at 5GB per month (which is a whole matter altogether). If I want to route that data through my phone and to my notebook, then I should just be able to do it.

This leads to the leftover features I still want:

• Not just tethering, but iPhone Access Point to share 3G to notebooks
• iPhone Play nice with Mozilla (Firefox) — let Mozilla write a browser for iPhone
  
• iPhone Route calls over WiFi when cell signal is poor
• iPhone More live updated icons
• iPhone Unlimited Pages for Apps — especially now that I can launch apps using Spotlight
  

I think that we’d end up with a healthier economy if we’d simplify the tax code to just one law.

It should simply be:
For any sale by an American (or American Company), the local government gets X percent, the state government gets X percent, and the federal government gets X percent.

That way the burden of taxes is only on the seller. Income and property (and all other forms of) taxes would go away.

If we wanted to protect our industries, we could still use tariffs for foreign sales, so people wouldn’t be encouraged to just buy foreign.

We’d need a force of people (maybe just use the IRS income tax force) to monitor businesses, and leave it up to individuals to be honest (or audited). The biggest sellers would be easiest to monitor, and would bring in the most tax revenue.

This would encourage saving money because keeping money wouldn’t be taxed. No one would loose their farms or houses from taxes any more. It would encourage bartering (though, if that caught on too much, especially between corporations, maybe bartering would be taxed, too). Giving money would not be taxed because whenever that gift was spent, it would then be taxed.

It would take adjusting to create new routes for money to arrive at the programs currently funded by taxes, but after that was ironed out once, it would be a cleaner, easier to monitor system.

My yard is larger than an average suburban yard. I tried a gas powered weed wacker (line trimmer), but it was overkill. I just got the Black & Decker GH1000, and it works quite well, considering it’s one of the most miserable kinds of tools to use. I followed consumer reports’s suggestion, and though CS doesn’t test enough products, this time it worked out for me.

I may have spoken too soon. My neighbor gave me his old GrassHogXP “for spare parts” because he said the electric motor died. He mentioned that this wasn’t his first to die. Two months later, mine died too. According to Amazon, it has a 2-year warranty. I’ll post after I find out how that goes.

I recently got an iPhone and I have found that there are many features at iPhone Features (petitions) that I would really like. The great part is all you need to provide is your Name, City, and Country — Email Address and Comments are optional.

Here are some of my top choices:

• iPhone Play nice with Mozilla (Firefox)
• iPhone Route calls over WiFi when cell signal is poor
• iPhone More live updated icons
• iPhone Unlimited Pages for Apps
• iPhone Access Point to share 3G to notebooks (tethering)
• iPhone Email Search
• iPhone Forward phone numbers trough SMS
• iPhone Landscape Keyboard should be available in all apps
• iPhone MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)
• and of course iPhone Cut and Paste

If Apple doesn’t want people jailbreaking their iPhones, then they need to hurry up and implement some of these features.

If you make your living off of performing arts (or ads or coding) then you may find that at some time you’ll need to get a day job to support your love of this activity. If you can’t find a patron or community to support you, then don’t expect to succeed at forcing anyone else to.

Techdirt: What If Movies Went Away? is related to this.

I really liked Dvorak’s idea to let everyone know about little known software. I’m recommending Filezilla. It does FTP, but it also does file transfer over SSH which means your file transfers cannot be snooped.

(note: This is the 2nd time Netflix has listened to its customers to reverse a decision, and the FAQ has not yet been updated)

At 16:13 CDT I was pleased to receive this in my email:

We Are Keeping Netflix Profiles

Dear Zakhar,

You spoke, and we listened. We are keeping Profiles. Thank you for all the calls and emails telling us how important Profiles are.

We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. We hope the next time you hear from us we will delight, and not disappoint, you.

-Your friends at Netflix

Here’s a link to the post on the Neflix blog about keeping profiles (via digg).

Digg needs to have a feature to cloud articles together around a topic or event, plus a way to vote for which story is the lead story in the cloud of stories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistentialism

Resistentialism is a jocular theory in which inanimate objects display hostile desires towards human beings.

Thank goodness I know the word for this now!

I really can’t stand software that makes me save all the time.  I like the Save As… feature, but mostly so I can set a bookmark of revision (or to make sure I have a revert avenue after any layout or file corruption).  I love how Jeff Johnson describes Save:

One concept that developers often add to software conceptual models despite the fact that it doesn’t exist in most actual task domains is an explicit action for saving the results of the user’s work. When a person writes or draws on a physical piece of paper, there is no need for the person to do anything to save his orher work. Computer software has been addingSave actions to software conceptual models for so long that frequent computer users now consider it to be natural to most task domains. It isn’t.

Software developers add Save actions to conceptual models partly because doing so gives users a way to back out of changes they have made since the last Save. However, the ability to back out of changes could also be provided in other way, such as (1) making all changes reversible, or (2) automatically creating backup versions of users’ data. This is in fact how most computer file managers operate: when users move data files and folders from place to place, they do not have to save their changes. Users back out of changes by simply reversing the operations. Why are file managers designed differently than, say, most document editors? Tradition and habit, nothing more.

The forty hour work week is only a compromise between indentured servitude and a healthy amount of work a person can do in one week.  It isn’t an ideal number of hours for human labor in one week, nor is it a good ruler with which to measure how long one should spend working each week.

If the number of hours an hourly worker needed before s/he receives overtime was shortened to 30 or 35 hours per week, there would be a number of benefits to society:

1. Increased income for those who do have high amounts of time/energy to devote to earning income.
2. Higher value placed on time taken away from family.
3. More companies who have employees who decide to opt out of the overtime in order to more effectively raise a family.
4. More individuals who would have time to do volunteer work in areas that don’t earn income, but would benefit our world.
5. A new ruler against which to measure the appropriate hours a salaried worker should be working.
6. More think time to see the big picture of human existence (and better plan one’s position within it).

Here are some reasons I can think that anyone (in power) wouldn’t want a shorter work week.

1. More think time to see the big picture of human existence.
2. They think that hiring two people each to do 50% of a job would mean less profit — but I’m thinking it would actually mean greater efficiency of both workers.  I’m guessing that more than 2 people’s worth of work could get done, or that mistakes or accidents would decline.
3. Workers are better at not complaining if they don’t see the big picture (but less efficient, too, since they’re typically pushed beyond the boundary of diminishing returns).
4. Fewer entrepreneurs to compete against.

I have some suggestions for some institutions that give me some access online to manage my account with them:

• Bank of America: Quit it with the SiteKey shit! (If you’re a site that still doesn’t have SiteKey, please, please never implement it). It makes the site less secure, not more secure, and it does not make phishing any more difficult. I am only your customer because you bought out MBNA, and I only stuck with MBNA (and now you) because of the ShopSafe feature where I can set a false limit and expiration date on a virtual credit card number that functions like a partition of my real credit card. Oh, and please don’t ask me the state either. Just require a 12 or 16 digit password, and let me know if it fails on a dictionary attack. You could even let me choose from a list of randomly generated passwords. Then, also suggest to me that I store the password in my browser. That way it will only be filled in on the legitimate site, and not phishing sites. Give me graphs!
• WaMu: I only have a couple minor suggestions. Overall WaMu’s got it right. First, don’t tell me “Welcome back, _________” and then make me have to click “I’m not _________” just so that I can use my browser’s stored password. Second, please allow me to input checks prior to you knowing about them. I can input the check number and the value, and (when the check goes through) if the values don’t match, please flag it for me. I’d like to know my real balance ASAP, and this would allow me to balance my account online. Third, (this would go well with#2) allow me to annotate transactions in my online records. Give me graphs!
• Wells Fargo: Please make it so I can easily make a payment for a student loan even when it’s in deferment. Give me graphs!
• Cell Phone Carriers: What couldn’t you change? Open your networks to all devices. Charge significantly less for bandwidth. De-obfuscate your websites. Make it easier to change plans online. Give me graphs!
• All utilities and services:
  • I don’t care how small of a utility company or M.U.D. you are, you need to have online account management.
  • I don’t care how you do it, but every utility needs a way to pay the bill online with zero fees for doing this. It’s just as convenient for you as it is for the customer and should be offered free-of-charge.
  • Don’t mess with login screens or login page URLs! We want our browser to always know how to save, and then automatically fill in (I’m talking to you Comcast), the username and password.
  • Make every connection to your website https (SSL)! This is how you show us you care about security.
  • Don’t say that the challenge (or “security”) question makes the site more secure.  I started with a unique username and a 12 character long random string, and then you make me give a single word (from the dictionary or baby name book) so that someone (hopefully only me!) can use this as a backdoor to my account.

It’d be nice if someone would write an extension that would make it so loading 20 tabs at once would stagger the starting of loading each tab, so they wouldn’t all connect to their respective servers all at once, but instead do it like 5 at a time and when one finished rendering go on to the next (like the DTA queue).