[travel] Very Bad Computer
Jun. 1st, 2009 11:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mattbellI have spent lots of time extolling the virtues of my EEE PC. Now I'm going to take a giant dump on it.
First off, I somewhat anal-retentively keep all my data in at least two places in case of theft, damage, or whatever other potential calamity I can imagine. My data primarily consists of my 9900 pictures – my near-weightless replacement for 4 1/2 months of souvenirs, my bank of recorded memories that will aid me to recall minute details of the trip years after it ends. This 40gb wad of data is too big to be uploaded to some online location overnight, especially on crappy hostel DSL connections. As a result, I juggle the data between my camera, my 20gb computer hard drive, my 80gb iPod, my 4gb USB drive, and various DVD backups. Subsets of this data wad are sitting in a pile of DVDs in San Francisco, a friend's iPod in Palo Alto, and a friend's external hard drive in Leuven, Belgium.
Anyway, so I'm doing some routine file transfers, and I need to delete a directory containing a few days worth of photos after copying it over to the iPod. However, something in the Eee's customized KDE-flavored Linux file manager decided that what I really meant to do was to delete the parent directory, the directory containing all of my photos. (There is a safer move-to-trash option, but since the hard drive is almost full, I can save a step by just directly deleting the files) As the little progress bar slowly ground along surrounded by a curiously blank window, I suspected something was up and then saw in horror that entire weeks' worth of photos were vanishing. By the time I had cancelled it most of my pictures were gone. Generally you expect the fundamentals of, say, a file manager, to be bug free, but this is not the case with the Eee PC. I spent the next hour with equipment sprawled across a train station bench, copying the backups back from the ipod, USB drive, and camera until all my data was safely in two places again.
So yeah, don't be like that tourist who misplaced her camera's memory card. BACK IT UP! (your data, not your ass, though if you want you can do that too...)
First off, I somewhat anal-retentively keep all my data in at least two places in case of theft, damage, or whatever other potential calamity I can imagine. My data primarily consists of my 9900 pictures – my near-weightless replacement for 4 1/2 months of souvenirs, my bank of recorded memories that will aid me to recall minute details of the trip years after it ends. This 40gb wad of data is too big to be uploaded to some online location overnight, especially on crappy hostel DSL connections. As a result, I juggle the data between my camera, my 20gb computer hard drive, my 80gb iPod, my 4gb USB drive, and various DVD backups. Subsets of this data wad are sitting in a pile of DVDs in San Francisco, a friend's iPod in Palo Alto, and a friend's external hard drive in Leuven, Belgium.
Anyway, so I'm doing some routine file transfers, and I need to delete a directory containing a few days worth of photos after copying it over to the iPod. However, something in the Eee's customized KDE-flavored Linux file manager decided that what I really meant to do was to delete the parent directory, the directory containing all of my photos. (There is a safer move-to-trash option, but since the hard drive is almost full, I can save a step by just directly deleting the files) As the little progress bar slowly ground along surrounded by a curiously blank window, I suspected something was up and then saw in horror that entire weeks' worth of photos were vanishing. By the time I had cancelled it most of my pictures were gone. Generally you expect the fundamentals of, say, a file manager, to be bug free, but this is not the case with the Eee PC. I spent the next hour with equipment sprawled across a train station bench, copying the backups back from the ipod, USB drive, and camera until all my data was safely in two places again.
So yeah, don't be like that tourist who misplaced her camera's memory card. BACK IT UP! (your data, not your ass, though if you want you can do that too...)
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 08:31 am (UTC)