Regular daily, weekly and monthly backups should be implemented in any business or situation where you can’t afford to loose items stored on your PC and servers. In the past this could be quite a costly process with tape drives and complex backup software.

However, with the drop in price of hard drives believed to fall by at least a 1/3 every year, the cost of an external hard drive to backup your whole system should now seriously be considered in any business no matter how small. Used in conjunction with excellent open source or freeware backup software available, comprehensive backups can be configured quickly, easily and automatically to your external hard disk.

I am gonna show you how to go one stage further though and backup your vital documents off site with Amazon S3. From Wikipedia:

Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is an online storage web service offered by Amazon Web Services.

S3 launched back in 2006 and offers very competitive rates for file storage. At time of writing S3 cost $0.150 per GB – first 50 TB / month of storage used and $0.100 per GB – all data transfer in. Full pricing can be found here. In short their pricing is extremely competitive.

We are gonna use a bit of beta software called S3Drive which is still in development and requires the .Net framwork.

Backup to S3

All the usual caveats apply, make sure you have everything backed up before proceeding. I can not be held responsible for anything that goes wrong with these instructions.

1. You must have an Amazon S3 account, you can sign up here
2. Download S3Drive from here
3. Run the S3Drive installation program (S3Drive0.6.msi), if you do not have .Net installed it should prompt you to install it but alternatively it is available from here
4. Once installed you will need to configure your S3Drive. Run the ‘Configure S3Drive’ option from the start menu.
5. Click on the first option, ‘Enter or Change your Amazon S3 access information’. You will need to enter your ‘Access Key ID’ and your ‘Secret Access Key’, both found in the Access Identifiers section when you log into your S3 account in your browser.
6. Click on second option, ‘Define your Hard Disk….’. Enter a name for the bucket in the box, create the disk and then assign it a drive letter.
7. Click Finish. The service will then be started

This should create a network share for your amazon bucket and assign the drive letter you set for it. However on first installation I had to manually map the network drive.

If you navigate to My Computer / Computer now you should see this drive which works in the same way as any other hard disk attached to your computer except it is actually located on Amazon’s servers. Try copying a file to it to ensure all is working.

Next it is simple a case of configuring your software to backup to this ‘drive’. I am using Syncback to do this and my other backups. An excellent introduction and tutorial on configuring Syncback Freeware is available at Lifehacker.

There are a couple of  thing to bear in mind, firstly, you are backing up across the web. Unless you have an exceptional connection, backing up your mp3 collection is gonna take days and days. For large amounts of data, I would recommend splitting up and backing up in much smaller sizes. Secondly, this is not the complete solution, this should be run in conjunction with another backup solution too. In my case I back up on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to an external drive in addition to my really vital commercial work stored on S3.

There are paid alternatives to this such as JungleDisk which is available on Mac, Linux and PC. Further, my Mac buddies tell me the excellent ftp client, Transmit,  now offers S3 integration.

Good luck and if you have any questions I will do my best to help.

However just recently the automatice update has been failing with the following message.

Invalid Update Control CTF File

After doing some research and exploring on my machines it appears as though the CTF files have become corrupt in some way and need to be deleted.

How to Fix

Disclaimer: Remember to backup everything before making any changes.

As far as I am aware this only applies to Windows Vista and XP. Navigate to the following locations and delete only the CTF files leaving the BIN files on your PC’s (for me there were two ctf files I needed to delete).

XP: Navigate to “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Avg8\update\download”

Vista:  Navgiate to “C:\ProgramData\avg8\update\download”

Good luck!

It seems after the compatibility issues people have had, the UAC control in vista appeared to be the cause the most frustration. For me its not been an issue, I am happy to have the extra security there and to have peace of mind. The one remaining piece in the jigsaw for me has been Last.fm’s Audioscrobbler, their client for use in their social music network. (This is not the place for an intro but if you have music running through your veins or an ipod plugged into your ear as you read this, you should sign up or at least take a look.) Unfortunately, the Last.fm client on Vista required admin rights when doing most most things which was quite frustrating.

Fix

Well I am pleased to say that after doing a lot of searching, the latest version (from 1.3.2) does actually fix this. If you haven’t updated, hit help and check for updates to download the latest version or download the package from here.

It is worth noting though that if you are still getting the UAC control popping up you may have set the app to run with admin rights which it no longer requires. Right click on the shortcut, click ‘properties’, the ‘compatibility’ tab and untick the “Run as Administrator” check box.

1. Go to ‘Settings’ -> ‘Preferences’
2. Expand the ‘Video’ option and click on ‘Output Modules’
3. Change the ‘Video Output Module’ from the drop down list to ‘DirectX Video Output’
4. Expand ‘Output Modules’ and click on ‘DirectX’
5. From the settings that appear, take the tick out of the ‘Use hardware YUV->RGB conversions’.
6. Save your settings and exit.

Step 3 in the process.

Firefox is still the best browser out there, we all know that, but some of the little features and touches that these guys add are quite simply amazing.

Everyone using Firefox 2 should know that you can drag your tabs to re-organise where they are listed from left to right which is a powerful feature in itself. From an organisational point of view though I quite often work with an Active Collab tab first, my SideJob account open next and maybe my delicious account after with whatever I am reading thereafter. Occasionally I need to move these around if I start browsing something and then get down to work which and this feature is handy and a time saver.

What I didn’t realise until today is that I can move tabs between Firefox windows! In the same way that you would drag a tab left and right to re-organise, you can drag a tab down to another Firefox window, where it would maximise, and then place as you would normally on the tab bar. This excellent feature also works for links, dragging the link to another window and letting go on the tab bar reloads that link in a new tab. Alternatively drop it on a current tab to load in that tab.

Is this another case of Firefox staying more than one step ahead of IE7?

One of the areas I have less control over though, is the hosting of my web sites. While my hosting company has a backup solution integrated into their hosting packages there is still the risk of loosing all my hard work! Not the stuff of nightmares, I mean the risk is low but for sheer peace of mind, there is an answer.

Included with the Wordpress (2.0 +), is the excellent Wordpress Database Backup (WDB) by Scott Merrill. I have been using WDB since Wordpress 1.5 and it offers simple, on demand backups of your tables relating to Wordpress or any other tables in that database for that matter. The backup can either be saved on your server, downloaded to your computer or sent as an email to a designated email address.

Scott also offers a number of other useful plugins though and the one that complements WDB is WP-Cron¹. This simple plugin is designed to run different actions periodically, working essentially as a scheduler. WP-cron when installed offers a seamless integration into WDB though, allowing the automatic backup of your Wordpress installation on a daily basis.

Instructions for Use

1. Download the plugin from here.
2. Extract the ‘wp-cron.php’ file into your plugins folder and upload to your server.
3. Login to your Wordpress dashboard and activate ‘WP-Cron’ from the plugins menu.
4. Click ‘Manage’ then ‘Backup’
5. Scroll down to ‘Schedule a Backup’
6. Enter in the email address to send your backups to. Ensure the schedule is set to ‘Daily’.
7. Tick the additional tables to backup. In my case I simply backup the extra tables relating to my Wordpress installation. e.g the ‘Bad Behaviour’, ‘Tags’ and ‘Search Meter’ tables.
8. Click the ‘Submit’ button at the bottom.
9. You’re all set, sleep easy!

1. Cron, meaning time is derived from the Greek term Chronus and is based on the same premise as the Unix program Cron or Crontab. [back]

With the screen mysteriously dying on my w800i, I decided was forced to upgrade early. It turns out not to be a bad thing and can honestly say I am really impressed with the K800i. The camera is first class, the ui quick and well designed and the hit on size and weight I have taken compared to the w800 is bearable. This truly is the first 3G phone that I would consider having after all the bricks I have seen my friends with.

I digress though…. naturally Vodafone UK doesn’t really push email on the K800i, presumably due to larger margins on their MMS messaging or whatever Vodafone Live options they are trying encourage you to use. The K800i does have a very usable email client though, which is more than can be said about the standard web browser, and is just waiting to be utilised. After a lot of trial and error, reading and re-reading of conflicting forum posts, I have now got my K800i working with Gmail.

I am not certain but I would expect these settings to work with most of the current generations of Sony Erriccson handsets and could be quite easilty adapted to most new mobiles with email.

1. First up, log into Gmail / Googlemail and enable POP for your account. Click on ‘settings’ in the top right hand corner and click on the ‘Forwarding and POP’ tab. I would recommend selecting ‘Enable POP only for mail that arrives from now on’.
2. To send Mail using Gmail you need to download and install two certificates. Equifax_Secure_Certificate_Authority.cer and ThawtePremiumServerCA.cer, these can be downloaded from here. To install either send them to the phone using Bluetooth or the supplied cable and S E File Manager software. For the latter, connect the phone to the PC, keep it in phone mode, open File Manager and drop the file individually on the icon and follow the on screen (phone) instructions.
3. Navigate to Messaging\Email\Settings on your K800i and create a new account called ‘Gmail’ -though this can be called anything.
4. Edit the account and alter or confirm the following options:

   • Connect Using : Contract Internet
   • Email Address : (Your full Gmail or Google Mail email address)
   • Connection Type : POP3
   • Incoming Mail Server : pop.gmail.com
   • Username : (Your full Gmail or Google Mail email address)
   • Password : (Your full Gmail or Google Mail password)
   • Outgoing Mail Server : smtp.gmail.com
5. Select Advanced settings and alter or confirm the following options:
   • Download S+R : Subjects only
   • Encryption – Incoming Server :SSLOutgoing Server :TLS
   • Outgoing Username :(Your full Gmail or Google Mail email address)
   • Outgoing Password : (Your full Gmail or Google Mail password)
   • Icoming Port : 995
   • Outgoing Port : 587
6. That’s it you are done! Try sending and receiving to download your messages and then sending a couple of test emails.

1. Open up regedit from using the run menu.
2. Locate ‘HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ Folder\ shellex\ ContextMenuHandlers‘
3. Add the following as a subkey: ‘{a2a9545d-a0c2-42b4-9708-a0b2badd77c8}’ (without the quotes!)
4. Exit regedit…… (Continued)………

Now, simply hold down the shift key when right clicking on any folder to show the updated context menu. From the menu click the ‘Pin to Start Menu’ option to add to the start menu. In my case I can now do the Windows key and ‘M’ key followed by enter to open the desired folder. This also works with your documents and programs as well.

One use may be having the ‘European Sales Invoices’ for last 30 days as one saved search. At any one time they are instantly available yet keeping the mail in the same place. Further examples of saved searches could be introducing a ‘flagged’, ‘important’ or, the one I find most valuable, ‘unread’ mail folder into Thunderbird. The micro management of these saved searches is down to you, though the customization is limitless. Fortunately creating saved searches is straightforward and can be completed in a number of ways:

First up, when you perform a search from the quick search box in Thunderbird, click on the down arrow to show the drop down list and select ‘Save Search as Folder’ (1).

When you perform a detailed search with more conditions select ‘Edit’ -> ‘Find’ -> ‘Search Messages…’. Customise the search and click ‘Save as Search Folder’ (2). Alternatively, a quicker variation the above is to select ‘File’ -> ‘New’ -> ‘Saved Search….’

Lastly from the view menu above the message contents, select ‘Save View as Folder’.

Filtering is an effective way to manage your email. Whether separating your work email from your personal mail, your eBay messages from your (genuine) bank messages or your DVD rentals from your squash club newsletter, filters can be used to manage your time more effectively. By setting up message filters in Thunderbird you can automatically organise, file and sort your incoming mail in many different ways. Fortunately filters are also quick and easy to setup in Thunderbird.

• From the ‘Tools’ menu option, click on ‘Message Filters’ to open up the filter dialog box.
• Select the account you wish to filter from the drop down box.
• Click on the ‘New’ button to open up the new filters dialogue box.

• Give the filter a name.
• At this point you can begin to refine the selection process based on what you require the filter to do. The filter system allows you to add multiple conditions based on your requirements. Select from ‘Match all of the following’ or ‘Match any of the following’.
• The first section allows for your conditions based on the variables entered. For example ‘From’ ‘is’ ‘info@anysite.com’. Further conditions can be added using the ‘+’ button.
• The second section is where you decide on the action of the filter. This can be configured to move to a specific folder or the addition of labels or flags. Further actions can be added using the ‘+’ button.
• Clicking Ok adds the filter to the ‘Message Filters’ dialogue box. This filter can be ‘run now’ by selecting the filter and clicking the corresponding button at the bottom of the dialog box.
• From this dialogue box you can also edit and delete existing filters at any point. Messages are also run in the order they are listed and so they can be arranged in the order of preference by using the adjacent buttons.

Message filters can also be run at any point by selecting the ‘Run Filters now’ option from the tools menu. Filters can be set up based on an email address quickly by right clicking on the email address in the message window and clicking ‘Create Filter From Message….’.

Whats up next? We’re moving into really making the most of one of the power features built into Thunderbird, Saved Search or Smart Folders.