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Warren Shea

Archive for November, 2012

Backing stuff up is serious business

Thursday, November 29th, 2012 at 3:15 am

I recently bought 2x 3TB External Hard drives…for backup purposes.
For me, being as careful as I am, I need 2 backups. That’s always been my plan..though right now, I only use 1. Backups are the type of thing that you regret not having when it’s too late. I can’t be caught unprepared!

My plan is:
4 frequent backups of important files a year
1 backup of important files + less important files a year

Both sets of files above, including the drive with the original files, will mean I need 3 Hard Drives.
Because you never know when your hard drive might fail and it’s happened enough to me, and my friends, to know I can’t be caught unprepared.
And you never know, someone might break in to your place and steal your computer too…

Realistically speaking, these are my “need to backup frequently, cannot be replaced” items.
80 GB of VHS tape conversions
35 GB of Backup files (can’t be replaced, accumulated in the past 16 years – seriously, i still have .wav files from 1996…)
19 GB of Development files (all my professional and personal web stuff and photoshop stuff…20 GB worth of files)
29 GB of Camera Photos
It’s only…about 160 GB worth

My “Nice to backup” includes
36 GB of Kotobishouho Bishoujo PSDs and images (and this is only like, 1/6 of the files)
17 GB of images/”my stuff” (cool images from anime, comics, fav artists, etc)
17 GB of Anime Intro/Outro files (i can re-make these, if required…though I wouldn’t want to)
40 GB of Programs
That’s about 110 GB

And then all my media files:
22 GB Comics
6 GB Manga
542 GB Movies
21 GB Music
2.55 TB (Terabytes) of Anime, Cartoons, and Shows
and while that totals a lot, 80% of it can be re-obtained so I don’t care if I lose them. I just need to create an inventory list of these items with a little help from my friend Command Prompt: dir /b /s > inventory.txt

Anyways, I need to figure out, how these hard drives will all work together. so that I can backup my stuff on 2 separate hard drives. And for the one I only do once/year, I will try to keep it unplugged and far away from my other computer stuff.

.
.
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I know it sounds SO OVERKILL but as a person who spends…a lot of time on the computer, I really don’t want to risk losing my stuff.

Okay, that’s all. Need to sleep, have a 1.5 hours development presentation tomorrow (that I’m leading)! YIKES!

….it’s been a while

Tuesday, November 27th, 2012 at 3:20 am

9 days?! it’s been 9 days since i left a blog post?
Where has the time gone?

Nothing new with me.

Bought 2x 3TB External Harddrives for $120 each. Backing up files is very important to me.
Bought a 64GB MicroSD card for $45, down from $170 (Black Friday deal)
Bought a new office chair to replace my decade old chair for $226

Had a hot pot dinner last Friday and an engagement/wedding type thing last Saturday.

Going to be busy this week with my Facebook App. It’s due in like, 2 days >_< Watching a lot of the 1987 Ninja Turtles lately. Going to the US this weekend I think for some shopping. I guess that’s it. Sorry to disappoint, life’s just been busy.

Insightful thoughts

Sunday, November 18th, 2012 at 12:23 am

These types of…(don’t know what the literary term for these is)…um…short…um…sayings?…have been on my mind lately.
I keep coming up with them!

Joining: “Reliable to succeed. Passionate to excel.
as something that I find incredibly true (even one year later), I’ve been thinking and want to explain these other ones I’ve come up with.

“You don’t know what you don’t know”
Taken from Things Change
That is, you don’t know what else exists because you simply don’t know. I think the more you think you know something, the less you really know about something.
As an example, I’m finding that I know so much about HTML. And that I’m near the end of my learning for it. But I also thought that a year ago. Two years ago. And every year, I get better showing how little I knew before. And with every new thing I learn, it opens up an infinite door of knowledge to everything else.

“I work hard so that I don’t have to work hard”NEW!
Basically, it’s like the opposite of procrastination. I’m finding that professionally, I’m very good at working hard early so that I don’t have to work hard later. I’ve always been like this. I’ll stay late one day and finish up all this work when it’s quiet and I’m left alone….so that the next day, I can just kinda chill and take things easy. One thing I’ve always found is that in the professional environment, you can accomplish more in 2 hours after hours than you could in 2 days during work hours – because of all the distractions, emails, and questions. DEAR GOD LEAVE ME ALONE.
One of my friends said recently that I have “such an easy life”. And well, I couldn’t disagree with her, but I think it’s easy because I make it easy. That is, I don’t put myself into situations where I have to stress…that constant vigilance is key. Do a little bit here and there and you don’t have to do a lot later. Do things early and you won’t get overwhelmed.
That’s how I am with work and professionally. That’s how I am with keeping my condo clean.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t apply to everything. Personal me is very much a procrastinator, doing things last minute. It’s odd because I understand the benefits of not procrastinating…but sometimes I just can’t help myself.

“Good enough is not good enough”NEW!
I’m finding that a lot of people around me, especially professionally, think that “Good enough” is “Good enough”. That they do a good enough effort. But it bothers me when these people expect more than what they get. For me, “Good enough is not good enough”. That is, the mentality of “Good enough” is pretty much as close to satisfactory as you can get.

In Waterloo Co-op, they rate you as:
Unsatisfactory, Satisfactory, Very Good, Excellent, Outstanding

Even at the place I’m employed at, they rate you as:
Below Expectations, Mixed, Solid, Distinguished, Outstanding

And they used to rate you as:
Contribution Below Expectations,Successfully Meets Expectations, Exceptional Contribution

Basically though, “Good enough” – doing a successful bare minimum is just average. You’re not failing, you’re barely passing – but you’re passing. And that’s average – the same as everyone else. But how can a person expect to get promoted, recognition, a raise, or anything like that by doing average? There’s no way. People don’t reward average or satisfactory. They reward those that stand out. The only way you’re going to get things you expect are coming to you is if you do above average. I’m realizing as I write this that it’s actually the similar to “Reliable to succeed. Passionate to excel.” but it’s adding something before that: “Good enough to be average. Reliable to succeed. Passionate to excel.”

Anyways, just getting a little peeved at those who do the bare minimum and think they’re doing an awesome job…and then get pissed when they don’t get money..or power…or women. People should really try to look at other people’s views and feedback…and re-evaluate who they are and who they want to be, if anything. Looking at yourself through your own eyes is the most biased way of looking at things. Try to meet high standards in other people’s eyes. Only then will you know if you’ve been successful.

Again, if a person’s not complaining, then that’s cool. Good enough is good enough for them.

Big change?

Saturday, November 17th, 2012 at 11:41 pm

Possible big change in store for me this month/next month…
I’m super excited.

That is all.

Accomplishments – November.567 2012 Edition

Saturday, November 17th, 2012 at 11:39 pm

Shows / Movies
Good Will Hunting – Complete
Gone in 60 Seconds – Complete
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1 – Complete
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Secret of the Ooze – Complete
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 – Complete
TMNT – Complete
Turtles Forever – Complete
Casino Royale – Complete
Quantum of Solace – Complete
Independence Day – Complete
Jurassic Park – Complete
Catch Me If You Can – Complete
The King’s Speech – Complete
Pursuit of Happyness – Complete
Star Wars IV: A New Hope – Complete
Iron Man – Complete
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cartoon – S1E1-S1E6 & S2E1-S2E8 – In Progress
Currently watching: Walking Dead S3, Initial D Fifth Stage, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory

Books & Manga & Comics
Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship – In Progress
Neon Genesis Evangelion 13 – Complete

worldofwarren.com / warrenshea.com / kotobishoujo.com
warrenshea.com – various copy updates

Gaming

Web Development and Design
Facebook App Creation
Facebook API – JavaScript SDK/PHP SDK for various aspects like: Like Gate Code, App Allow Dialog, Share Dialog
Facebook Open Graph – Auth Dialog
Twitter API – Share Dialog for Twitter
PHP & mySQL – SQL Select, Insert statements

Other

Notes
Spent last weekend on a crazy coding spree, working on this Facebook project with an unreasonable timeline. Learned a lot but would have preferred not to do so much (45 hours) overtime with nothing to show for it other than what I’ve learned.