Aloha Friday: Backup Early, Backup Often

Aloha Friday, Computers

It is now the first of the month.  As such, it is time for me to back up our PCs.  Awhile back, our desktop PC’s hard drive died.  On that drive would have been all of our photos of us, NHL, JSL, etc.  We could easily have lost everything with no way of replacing it.  Luckily, I had long before implemented a backup routine.

My first backup plan was burning CD’s with the data.  Unfortunately, as the amount of data that we needed to back up grew, the backups became more and more of a pain to do.  First, I had to locate all of the files.  Then, I had to figure out how best to fit them on CDs.  Finally, I had to man the CD burner to take out the old CDs, put in the new ones and check for errors.  Eventually, we got a DVD burner but this just temporarily lightened the load.  Soon we needed to back up multiple DVDs every month.

After researching various solutions, I hit upon a cure.  We bought two external hard drives, each 1TB in size.  All of our data was backed up to one of the drives.  The data on that drive was then backed up to the second drive.  While the first drive would remain at home (for easy data access), the second drive would be moved to an “undisclosed offsite location.”  This way if our house were burgled or burned to the ground, our data would survive.  In addition, we’re protected against a single drive just up and dying.

Recently, a few companies began offering “cloud” backup services.  You pay a monthly (or yearly) fee and get a certain amount of space to store your files.  This might work nicely for a few important documents (and, in fact, I’ve been known to import important documents into Google Docs for quick access and guaranteed backups), but try backing up 10GB of new files to the cloud.  Worse yet, try restoring 200GB of files from the cloud to your PC.  Besides, while Amazon Cloud Drive (to pick a service at semi-random) costs $200 per year for 200GB of space, two 1TB external hard drives cost about $120.  A $120 one-time cost beats a $200 recurring fee any day of the year.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: How do you backup your important files?  Also, how often do you back up?

Don’t forget to enter my Outback Steakhouse $45 gift certificate giveaway!

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha Friday by Kailani at An Island Life

Aloha #94

Plenty of Peppermint

Cooking, Food, Gardening, Photos

IMGP0627 B has written before on our gardening efforts this year.  We planted zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppermint.  (In pots, thanks in part to the low quality of the soil where we live.  Also because peppermint, if given half a chance, will take over your entire yard.)  While the cucumbers have yet to appear and the tomatoes and zucchinis aren’t ripe enough to eat yet, the peppermint is more than ready.

I’ve already broken off some sprigs and munched on the leaves.  NHL and I both loves doing this.  The taste is incredibly minty.  It doesn’t hurt the plant either as it just grows more faster than we can munch them.  We even gave a few sprigs to B’s parents and kept them alive in a cup of water for days.  Those peppermint pieces might just be appropriate for planting in a pot soon.

IMGP0631We’ve grown peppermint before.  A couple of years back, it was one of our only successful plants.  I used it’s leaves in hot water to make peppermint tea and even tried my hand at drying them (unsuccessfully).  I brought the pot into our porch during the cold winter months to try to save it for next year, but the cold must have been too much for the poor little thing.  It never did grow again.

This year, I have plenty of time to consider winter season options.  IMGP0628Until then, though, I need to consider what I should do with our plethora of peppermint leaves.  Most of the recipes I’ve found online call for peppermint candies or peppermint oil.  Never for the leaves themselves.  Perhaps I should puree them and mix them into brownies or into fudge.  Or add to our watermelon smoothies for a minty touch.  Or maybe I should break off a bunch of stems, grow them indoors in small pots and hand them out as gifts.

What would you do with a lot of peppermint leaves?  (And, if you live locally, do you want any?  I’ve got plenty!)

Don’t forget to enter my Outback Steakhouse $45 gift certificate giveaway!

Across Two Playgrounds and Blue Buds

Fun, JSL, NHL, Photos

On Sunday, with the boys going stir-crazy and driving us just-plain-crazy, I put the boys in the car and headed to a park that we heard had a new spray ground.  The spray ground looked really cool and we’ll have to go back there one day.  For today, though, the boys were content with playing on the drier equipment.

 

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After picking up B and going to lunch, we decided to head to another park for another quick playtime.  At this park, the boys’ favorite attraction is the hedge maze.

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Of course, they went on normal playground equipment as well.  As usual, NHL went off on his own while JSL insisted that I accompany him.  Thus all of the photos coming up are of JSL.

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And, just because I like this photo, here are some budding flowers on one of our bushes

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What playground features do your kids enjoy the most?

While you’re here, remember to enter my Outback Steakhouse gift certificate giveaway.

The Story of Noodle Nose NHL, Plus an Outback Giveaway!

Food, Giveaway, Humor, NHL

Often times, when we’re talking to NHL, we’ll call him “Noodle Nose.”  Many people might think that this is a weird name to call your kid, but there’s really a funny story behind it.

When NHL was almost a year old, we went to a local Italian restaurant for my birthday.  NHL was starting to eat solid foods, so we gave him some of our pasta to try.  He, of course, loved it.

All during the dinner, NHL kept sneezing.  At first, we thought that something was bothering him in the restaurant.  B and her mother can be sensitive to perfumes and other fragrances.  Perhaps, we thought, someone at a nearby table has perfume on that is bothering his nose.  The only problem with this theory, though, was that we couldn’t smell anything.

As the dinner, wound to a close, NHL let out a tremendous sneeze and something flew from his nose.  Something that solved the meal-time sneezing mystery.  It was one of my fettuccine noodles.  Apparently, when he was eating them, a piece of one worked its way from his mouth/throat to his nasal passage.  There it lodged.  As with any nasal intruder, his body tried expelling it via sneezes until it successfully launched that noodle clear across the table.

From that day on he has been known as Noodle Nose NHL!

Giveaway

You can win a $45 gift certificate to Outback Steakhouse (does not include alcohol, tax and gratuity).  To enter, simply leave a comment below answering this question: What kind of food do you like eating out with your kids?

You can also earn bonus entries by doing any (or all) of the following items. Just be sure to leave a separate comment for each item that you complete.  (Don’t just leave one comment listing everything you did.)

  • Follow @TechyDad on Twitter. (1 bonus entry)
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  • Tweet about the giveaway on Twitter. Be sure to include @TechyDad, @Outback and a link to this post in the Tweet. (1 bonus entry per day) For example: Share some dinner memories with your kids thanks to @TechyDad and @Outback #Giveaway http://bit.ly/l84cih
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  • Leave a comment on any of my non-giveaway posts from June/July. Leave a comment here letting me know which post you commented on. (1 bonus entry per comment, maximum 3 entries)
  • Write a post on your blog linking to this giveaway. Leave 3 comments about this to get credit for all of your extra entries. (3 bonus entries)

To enter, please follow the rules above within the comment section. Contest starts today, June 28th and ends at Noon EST on July 14th, 2011. You do not have to be a blogger to enter, but must leave a valid e-mail address for me to contact you for mailing address once the giveaway is over. I will select the winner using random.org and contact you via e-mail. You will have 48 hours to claim the prize. If there is no response, another winner will be selected. Open to U.S. and Canadian residents.

Disclaimer: This post was written as part of the Outback Steakhouse Dinner With Dad Experience blog tour.  I was compensated by Outback with a $45 gift certificate.

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