Adam’s Tech Blog

Endless technology ramblings

I’ve met and spoke with quite a few persons who believe that RAID is the answer to all of their data-safety needs. There is only one thing I can say about relying solely on RAID: “It’s a horrible idea!”. RAID is a good supplemental protection mechanism in your entire data integrity plan but it is not THE answer.

1. RAID is usually susceptible to double-disk RAID faults. While this may not sound like a normal or even conceivable possibility it is a very real issue that I have personally experienced. RAID-6 offers some higher levels of protection to this problem. Most new 9600 series 3Ware controllers (and most newer controllers) offer RAID-6 capabilities. Choose a RAID-6 able card and, if possible, always run a BBU (Battery Backup Unit).
2. RAID will never protect against file corruption or viruses. 
3. RAID can’t protect against human error. We’re all human, we all make mistakes. If you just hit the delete key on an entire directory of your company’s data then you can probably hit the delete key on your job as well. This is why backups, along with RAID, is the best data integrity solution.
4. RAID will only protect you if you are proactive. Some lower quality RAID controllers do not send email alerts and do not properly alert you of an issue. These controllers require special attention. The more user interaction is needed the less likely you will notice a fault. Having a hot spare or spare disks available for swapping is always a good idea.
5. RAID will not facilitate off-site and disaster recovery scenarios. There are some utilities out there that provide block-level replication.

In summary, the best data integrity plan is to use RAID to supplement your plan. Don’t rely on RAID as your sole backup/data security mechanism. I personally recommend using RAID-6 with a block-level backup of all data to an off-site location. Using software like R1Soft’s CDP will allow for full block-level backups and file-level and bare-metal restores. Remember to always double check your data integrity plan and never be satisfied with your solution! I personally hate loosing data. With drives as cheap as they are today, why aren’t you backing up offsite?

Apparently one of Facebook’s founders, Dustin Moskovitz, is proverbially “jumping ship” to start his own Internet company. This quite possibly the best move for him. I’ve known many people who specialize in starting large companies and keep moving. I believe this is the true way to make money when it comes to entrepreneurial endeavors.

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I just received a letter notifying me that tapes containing data with my information on it were "lost" by BNY Mellon’s archive services vendor. I figured I would make mention of this because it is somewhat technical.  I would assume that they are using some sort of encryption routine to protect the data on the tapes. Chances are that these tapes were lost or misfiled. Who knows. The data is most likely unrecoverable but it just goes to show… Even the big boys make mistakes. They do, however, graciously offer 90 days of service from a credit monitoring company. Thanks BNY Mellon!

It’s very interesting to see what the web was like then and now. Big sites like FaceBook.com and others have been owned by other companies and have looked very different.

Check out a list of the top five web sites on the Internet (as rated by Alexa.)

1. Yahoo

Yahoo went through many changes throughout the years.

October 17, 1996

Feb 10, 1998

Jan 22, 2003

2. Google

Google didn’t really change too much throughout its life thus far. This may be a reason people love Google so much, beside the obvious reasons of course.

Nov 11, 1998 Strange! The first link was to “google.stanford.edu” and the second to “alpha.google.com”.

Dec 02, 1998

Jan 01, 2001 Only 1.3 Billion Pages? Wow

3. YouTube

YouTube has definitely stood the test of time. I wish I would have created a site as popular as this!

May 16, 2005

June 30, 2005

Nov 25, 2005   Nothing too special here. Just them touting about how big a 4GB IPod is!

4. Windows Live (Live.com)

It looks like live.com wasn’t always owned by Microsoft. Check these out!

Feb 11, 1998

Jan 02, 2006

Jan 21, 2007

5. Facebook

It looks like the domain “Facebook.com” was originally owned by a company who created “software to manage your world” in 2003. Facebook was originally called “TheFaceBook” back in the day.

Jun 28, 2003

Aug 12, 2005

Oct 31, 2005 Facebook changes in to the site we all know and love.

Images provided by WayBackMachine.

Most of us text message other people and most of us usually have an unlimited text message plan if you do any texting at all. A new way of searching is here. Enter ChaCha. The name came from the Chinese meaning of Search (Cha). 

What does it do?

ChaCha allows you to call in or text in a question, any question and receive a useful and helpful text message back (160 characters or less).

How does it work?

A real person is sitting on the other side answering your questions. The beauty of ChaCha is that the question answerers, called guides, get to pick which categories and specify keywords to allow the guide to get questions they enjoy answering. For instance, I can specify that I want to answer questions primarily based around the Internet and computers. Now, most of the questions I receive are primarily about computers and the Internet.

ChaCha pays a guide $0.20/answer. I did the math and you can equate this to around $10-$15 dollars per hour. It’s no job replacement but it really gives you something to do with your free time.

How do I start?

Just text message “242242” (ChaCha spelled out) and you’re set. Start asking questions immediately after receiving the welcome message. You can also call 1-800-2ChaCha and someone will transcribe your voice question to text. You will then receive the answer via SMS.

Ask any question like this: “What’s the cheapest gas between Minot, ND and Kansas City, MO?”

An answer will look like this: “The cheapest gas is $3.55 at XYZ Gas station at 000 S. 110th street in Souix City, SD”

Will it remain free?

I’m not sure about this point. I even asked ChaCha directly and it seems to be free since January, 2008 but may be a subscription service in the future. Any way this is a very useful tool.

Visit www.chacha.com for more information.