Month: August 2009

Why I like California

I’ve been pretty harsh on California in the past, and I’ve been criticized for it. Even though I opened one of my most controversial posts with “I like California,” I still get the feeling that I’m somehow sending the message that I dislike or even hate California. The truth is, I like it, and I’ll try to explain a few reasons why.

The climate

Having no significant weather is incredibly convenient. When an outdoor event is scheduled during the summer, the chance that it will be affected by rain is nearly 0%. Back east, I think my family is batting about .500* for graduations. As I’ve more recently discovered, the absence of winter means that I’m able to comfortably ride my bike all year. Which brings me to…

Bicycle access

As both a driver and an “avid cyclist,”** I’m a big believer that bikes and cars don’t mix well. But even though there seem to be more bikers here, the situation is better than most other places thanks to extensive coverage of bike lanes and some pretty good bike trails. I can ride from my apartment to work on a route that’s mostly a paved trail, with only a short portion on the roads which have 100% bike lane coverage.

The people

The people here are pretty chill. In fact, they’re chill enough to use “chill” as an adjective. If you use your turn signal, for example, there’s a pretty good chance that someone will allow you to move into their lane. (I’m of course talking about Northern California.) In general, there is a distinct lack of urgency in everyday activities, and I think it helps people to avoid stress. Of course like some other items in this list, this trait isn’t always a positive.

The work thing

Purely based on my work situation, I’m in the perfect location. My commute to work is less than 10 minutes. Even though we have offices all over the country and around the world, I’m pretty sure that Mountain View is the only place where I’d be able to get away with having such an easy commute and not having to live in a city. And once I get to work, I’m at the famed Googleplex. Even after over three years of going there nearly every weekday, I still often sit back and think to myself how cool it is to be where I am.

In-N-Out Burger

It’s usually the last meal I have before I leave the state and the first one I have when I return.

* I know very little about sports, but I’m pretty sure I used that correctly.
** I’ve joked at work that this is a requirement for being in a product demo video.

LiveDrive

This post bored me as I wrote it, but I’m publishing anyway in case it is useful to someone.

As I mentioned in my video archiving post, finding a good online backup solution was pretty difficult when dealing with files of the size required for my project. Mozy didn’t like my flaky connection and had poor support (they did give me a full refund), and Carbonite capped my bandwidth. I even emailed a popular hosting company asking them to consider offering a private storage solution that wasn’t against their terms of service. (The CEO politely sent a personal response, but told me not to count on it anytime soon.) I rejected CrashPlan at the time because I thought it was only a piece of software that let you back up to a friend’s computer, but after reading a recent review of it I’ve discovered that they’ll host your backups as well, inside a former bank vault. I’ll have to look into it in about a year when my current solution expires, which is LiveDrive.

LiveDrive is a bit more expensive than the other backup solutions I looked into, but it comes with some extra features. First off, it’s not just a backup solution. It’s hosted storage, which means they’re cool with you using it as extra space, and not just for backups. They even have a web interface where you can access your files or even choose to share them with others.

The Mac solution

They don’t have a Mac version yet, but they do have an FTP option, which I’ve decided is even better than a piece of backup software. Of course “better” doesn’t mean “flawless.” First off, it is FTP, and though I won’t pretend to be an expert in network security, I’ve not heard great things about FTP and security. They say SFTP is on the way, so for now I’m willing to accept the risk that someone may view or delete my backups. I’m just uploading video files and just backups, so it’s not like a hacker could mess with anything super confidential or essential. The other issue is that their FTP support is still in beta, which means that it is sometimes unavailable. A little bit of downtime is usually not a big deal, but when dealing with such long transfers, it can be frustrating if it’s being flaky at the time I’m uploading something, which right now is all the time.

Why did I decide FTP is “better?” First of all, it means that LiveDrive will always be compatible with my system. I can upgrade to Snow Leopard the day it comes out and not have to worry about it breaking my backup software. The other advantage of FTP is that I can decide to move my files around (to different folders or even different drives), without worrying about a piece of backup software freaking out and thinking that everything is different and re-uploading files that I’ve already backed up.

FTP Client

Update: I emailed LiveDrive about my FTP issues and they recommended FileZilla, which is free. It has an ugly definitely-not-born-on-a-Mac UI, but so far it seems to be working out well with the following preferences:

Connection -> Reconnection Settings -> Maximum number of retries: 99
Transfers -> File exists action -> Uploads: Resume

It looks like my connection gets reset by the server every hour, but the transfer is completed eventually. I’ll send my log to LiveDrive and see what they have to say.

The FTP client I’m currently using for these large uploads is an old friend to anyone who has done web development on a Mac. That’s right, I’m using Fetch. I first used it when I was in middle school, allowing me to access my school’s mirror web server from home. An FTP account was one of the benefits of being in [nerd alert!] the Internet Club. I usually use Cyberduck, which is free, for managing my website, but Fetch is the only client I’ve tried which has been able to successfully upload my large video files. I don’t know if it’s just a coincidence (the uploads have failed with Fetch too), but at this point I’m willing to accept superstitious features if they get the job done. The good news is that if you’re using a Mac and you’re looking for a nice FTP client, there are plenty available. I tried a bunch and liked all of them. In fact, I think Fetch is the only one I would have passed on if it wasn’t the only application to complete the transfer. Its UI just feels a little clunky compared to the other solutions. The custom cursor was cute back in the ’90s, but I’ve moved on.

Service experience

The service has been tolerable. Things got off to a pretty good start before I even signed up. I sent them an email saying something like “I want to upload files that are over 20GB each, I want to upload a bunch of them, and I don’t want my bandwidth to be capped. Is this something you can offer?” A few days later, I received a non-canned reply addressing all of my concerns. And they seem to be telling the truth. As far as I can tell, my bandwidth is not being capped on their end; I’m getting about what I get on other services with my same Comcast connection. Each two-hour video takes about 30 hours to upload when it works.

I have a pretty stable Internet connection now (my old modem was one of the reasons things didn’t work out well with the other services, but I was so disappointed in Mozy’s customer service that I’m not going back), but many of my uploads to LiveDrive do fail. Based on what I’ve read from others, and from my own stress testing (yanking the Ethernet cord out of my router) of the FTP clients, I think I can assume this is due to LiveDrive’s FTP service having problems. I hope this situation will improve in the near future.

Why this project is still worth the trouble

Oldest video I found: Christmas 1986. It looks like my parents recorded it over a tape they had been using to record TV shows. After the home video was over, I was treated to commercials for both the Magnavox VideoWriter and the Sega Master System.

– turns out i did need a new modem, so mozy might be a fine choice, but it still doesn’t take care of the re-sync concern, plus i didn’t like their tech support, so i’m fine with livedrive- turns out i did need a new modem, so mozy might be a fine choice, but it still doesn’t take care of the re-sync concern, plus i didn’t like their tech support, so i’m fine with livedrive

Home

A few weeks ago, I spent a week at home in Pennsylvania and it was awesome. For the past three years, whenever I’ve gone home, it’s been for an event, such as a holiday or a graduation, which means lots of running around. That’s fun, but I wanted to spend some time back home without any big plans, so that’s what I did. I got to see my sister on her birthday, visit my grandparents, spend some time with our cats, eat lunch at Dilly’s and dinner in Doylestown, hang out with a vertically gifted friend, hike along the Delaware Canal, and see a bunch of family for a dinner at our house.

They* say that you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, and that’s true. Like lightning bugs. Such a small thing, but they don’t have them where I live in California. In fact, they don’t even have lightning. Well, while I was home I got to ride through a passing thunderstorm and then 20 minutes later find myself sitting out on a balcony on a beautiful afternoon. And man, Beah is right. Pennsylvania is green. That’s really the first thing I noticed on the drive home from the airport. Big yards full of green grass. When I first stepped out onto our patio, I felt like I was in a rainforest. The humidity certainly helped add to this feeling, but the plants were really doing well this year thanks to the rain.

The nature theme continued when we walked along the Delaware Canal’s towpath, where within about an hour or so we saw a deer, a bunch of turtles hanging out on a log, a big snapping turtle, a blue heron, and some ducks.

Sitting outside at night, I really noticed how much of a luxury the quietness of the country is. I’m so used to hearing my neighbors coming in and out of their apartments, plus the traffic, trains, and planes that I could actually “hear” the silence at home, plus the sound of crickets. Another perk of being away from everyone else is the lack of light pollution. I was sitting out on our patio with my family when I randomly looked up at the sky to see the stars. Just moments after I looked up, I spotted a shooting star. Maybe next year I’ll try to be home during the peak of the Perseids.

Besides just enjoying being in the area, I also took care of some stuff I’ve been meaning to get to. I packed up a bunch of negatives of family photos to be shipped to ScanCafe (I’ll certainly blog about my experience with them at a later point), and I also got a box of home videos to send to California for a similar project. I didn’t send them all, but I should have enough to keep me busy until the next time I go home.

* The Amish, I think.

week at home in Pennsylvania and it was awesome. For the past three years, whenever I’ve gone home, it’s been for an event, such as a holiday or a graduation, which means lots of running around. That’s fun, but I wanted to spend some time back home without any big plans, so that’s what I did. I got to see my sister on her birthday, visit my grandparents, spend some time with our cats, eat lunch at Dilly’s[twitpic link] and dinner in Doylestown[restaurant link], hang out with a vertically gifted friend, hike along the Delaware canal, and see a bunch of family for a dinner at our house.
They* say that you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, and that’s true. Like lightning bugs. Such a small thing, but they don’t have them where I live in California. In fact, they don’t even have lightning. Well, while I was home I got to ride through a passing thunderstorm and then 20 minutes later find myself sitting out on a balcony on a beautiful afternoon. The weather doesn’t change that much over an entire year in the Bay Area, let alone in 20 minutes. And man, Beah is right. Pennsylvania is green. That’s really the first thing I noticed on the drive home from the airport. Big, non-pebbled yards full of green grass. When I first stepped out onto our patio, I felt like I was in a rainforest. The humidity certainly helped, but the plants were really doing well this year, thanks to the rain, which, also does not seem to exist in the Bay Area.
-canal animals/more greenness
And this is more of a city vs. country difference than a California vs. Pennsylvania thing, but I really noticed how quiet it was, especially sitting outside at night. (light pollution, shooting star)
Besides just enjoying being in the area, I also took care of some stuff I’ve been meaning to get to. I packed up a bunch of negatives of family photos to be shipped to ScanCafe (I’ll certainly blog about my experience with them at a later point), and I also got a box of home videos to send to California for a similar project. I didn’t send them all, but I should have enough to keep me busy until the next time I go home.
* The Amish, I think.

Disorganized fun

I don’t really like talking about music, but I will say this: I like Ronald Jenkees. I was first introduced to his stuff when Boing Boing linked to his YouTube channel. I bought his first album on iTunes shortly after, and since then have been following his progress via YouTube and his blog on his second album.

The second album, Disorganized Fun, was released on July 31st, and I downloaded it a little over a week later when it was released on iTunes. I actually didn’t like it that much the first time I listened to it, but I was sick and not even in the mood to listen to music. When I gave it a second chance a day or so later, I became a fan, and am now coming up on my 10th time enjoying the album.

You can preview the songs on his site or iTunes.

Open source toothpaste

When I was in fourth grade, my math class was assigned a book to read called The Toothpaste Millionaire. It’s an old book, originally published in the ’70s, but I thought about it for the first time in years recently when thinking about transparency, open source, and the disruption of industries. It’s a book about how to start a business, but written at a level even a kid (or perhaps especially a kid) can understand. I haven’t read it again, but I’m thinking about hunting down a copy for a second look.

Check out an embedded preview below:

Couple things…

I have a few better blog posts in progress but I just wanted to share a couple of things that happened tonight.

At the grocery store, I saw two people shopping in pajama pants and disapproved. At first I was mad at myself for feeling like a grumpy old man, but then I remembered that both of the pajama wearers were older than me Ai. So, they’re just weird.

Just a few minutes ago, I was sitting with the back of my head against my couch sans cushion, and the back of my head fell asleep. I didn’t even know that was possible.