Hella Solutions blog: "Document. Share. Inspire."

This morning I was reading an article on the Southern California fires and came across this bit:

The lucky ones will find their homes still standing amid a blackened landscape. Thousands of others are not so fortunate.

Robert Sanders returned to a smoldering mound that once was his rented house in the San Diego neighborhood of Rancho Bernardo.

Among the possessions the 56-year-old photographer lost were his transparencies, melted inside a fire-resistant box, and a photograph of his father.

“I’ve lost my history,” Sanders said. “All the work I’ve done for the past 30 years, it’s all destroyed.”

A not so gentle reminder to always back your work up. What you want to do is store your back-ups off site (meaning don’t keep them at the same location as the originals). This should go for any format you are working – film, audio, written…it can be a bit of a pain to do this but what hurts more is the above example – try restoring your work from nothing. But once you set a routine going it gets easier. The minimum schedule for people doing regular work should be a monthly back up. Be aware that not all storage mediums are equal. CD-Roms are more stable than DVD-Roms but yes they have much less capacity…to read more, WikiPedia has a pretty good break down on the subject.

Why not take this weekend to get yourself backed up…in the long run you will thank yourself.

p.s. one tangental point are those movies on DVD and music on CD you paid a lot of money for. under current law the greedy, shortsighted bastards at the RIAA and MPAA have made it “illegal” to back up your legally purchased media. basically, if you lose it you have to pay for it…again. great deal for those guys but the consumer gets screwed big time. totally bogus, i know. the easiest program i know of to deal with this on a PC is SlySoft’s AnyDVD and CloneDVD. AnyDVD is nice as it strips the copy protection off of both CDs and DVDs and allows you to then back up YOUR media using other burning programs like CloneDVD. CloneDVD is a good program for backing up DVD movies and works along side AnyDVD. For you Mac people’s, a popular program called Mac the Ripper seems to be best. So, what are you waiting for? You have two days to get backing up!

p.p.s. share your back-up success and horror stories using the “Comment” link directly under this text..

Wow…I had this email sitting in my inbox for a day or two and just kept skipping over it. I finally opened it today and it was reporting the news that reggae artists Lucky Dube was killed in a botched car jacking in his native South Africa. I was in South Africa last December and it seems that car-jackings are extremely common there. I was in a meeting with an attorney and he had just been car-jacked and kidnapped by the car-jackerss earlier that week. Fortunately for him he was not harmed (the car-jackers were shot and killed by police). Anyway, it’s very, very sad news to hear anybody being so senselessly killed…but it does seem a bit more painful when it is someone that made such a clear and public stand for living life positively, globally! At least we have his music.

The other day I made some implied statements here (derogatory at best) about the job of sign spinning. While I’m not back tracking on my feelings about me doing it, I do want to say that I can see some fun in it and this guy has some good points. But doing this “forever”? That’s a bit exaggerated in my opinion…but my props go out to Marcus. You definitely make it look fun …

With this being Friday and all I usually try and post something fun. But I just read an article that makes me further hate Comcast (cable T.V. and Internet provider). Apparently they have shown their true colors as the Big Brother, censoring entity they are by being the first Internet provider to break Net Neutrality. Granted this isn’t a law, yet, but the fact that all other ISPs respect the tenants says a lot about what Comcast stands for (Big business, big brother, censorship). What does this all mean? Comcast has blocked the use of file-sharing networks because some people use these networks to share things like music. It’s comparable to your phone company cutting your service because some people use the technology to make “illegal” transactions. DUMP YOUR COMCAST INTERNET TODAY! There are so many other companies to rip you off…seriously.

In my opinion, any day is a good day to BBQ! But it’s especially nice when you have a whole 10 pound salmon, a couple of butternut squashes, some fresh corn, beer, and a few friends to help you digest it all. Check out a few more photos here.

http://www.flickr.com/gp/44866279@N00/346mc4

Wow, if only this really worked! Oh, happy Friday btw

I am a recent graduate of Social Documentation from UC Santa Cruz. I am looking for work…and looking…and looking…and…Anyway, yes it sucks! What is it that a “documentarian” does? Well, I think I have found the answer!

Earn $10/hr holding signs directing buyers to new home developments, with bonuses awarded for dependability and top performance. Need energy and enthusiasm, and be able to stand outdoors in all weather, moving the sign…

Yes, a career of sign spinning! That’s me! Sign Spinner extraordinare……frustration sets in…deep.