Tag: acronis

An update on my Seagate FreeAgent GO drive

So, it’s been over a week since I had the Seagate FreeAgent GO drive in my possession and I have to say that the form factor has actually resulted in me using this drive to backup files more. It’s a little surreal for me because normally, I’m afraid to handle electronics, but the design of this GO drive makes it feel like it can handle the wear and tear of being in my backpack. With my Iomega eGo drive, I felt as if I could feel all the moving parts and I was exceedingly careful whenever I brought it out. Of course, I’m going to handle my gift (Thanks, Siobhan! 🙂 ) with care, but all I’m saying is I feel like I don’t have to handle the Seagate GO drive with kid gloves.

The Seagate Manager comes with its backup program and an encryption utility as well. It’s a pretty straightforward backup program that allows you to pick and choose what folders you want to back up. A huge plus to Seagate for that. Second, the backed up files are not encoded in some proprietary format. If you backup a music or video file, you can browse the Seagate folder and see that your files are still the same. Not knocking Acronis True Image 2009 which stores backups in a .tib format, but sometimes, I just want the folder copied as-is without compression. So, in that respect, Seagate scored points with me. Obviously, a drawback of not compressing files is that you get a larger file size. However, with 500GBs to play with, I’m confident that I’ll have space for awhile. In any case, here is my backup strategy now:

  1. Make whole disc images of my computer monthly using Acronis True Image 2009 (which stores the image as a .tib file) and store this file on my Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500GB hard drive. I will keep at least 3 backups on hand, in case of the unexpected corrupt file.
  2. Using Seagate Manager, make backups of my Documents folder and other files. This can be done even daily if I choose, but I’ve set  a alarm in Microsoft Outlook to remind me. 😀
  3. Using Acronis True Image 2009, I’ll have, at least, 2 recent whole disk images of my laptop on my Seagate FreeAgent GO 500GB drive just in case I’m away from home (where the Seagate desktop drive lies) and I need to restore my computer (and this has happened quite a bit!).

That’s it for my ‘strategy’, barring any unforeseen circumstances like me being lazy and forgetting to do it. 🙂 Thankfully, speed is not an issue with this Seagate FreeAgent GO Drive because I was able to backup my Documents folder within 45minutes (it was just shy of 5Gbs in size). I’m on the go a lot and this drive suits my needs.

In a nutshell, I would pay for this drive, given what I know now about it.

Disclosure: The Seagate FreeAgent GO 500GB drive (~ $147) was received as a thank-you for participating in a case study. The links to this product have my Amazon affiliate id in them as well i.e. I get a little something if you use my link to purchase this product. 🙂

Wiping off Windows and installing Ubuntu

Welcome back to part 3 of my foray into the Ubuntu/Linux system. To recap:

  1. I installed Ubuntu/Linux as a virtual machine on my Windows Vista Ultimate Laptop using Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. Things worked really well on it that I decided to give the Ubuntu/Linux operating system a more thorough look.
  2. I decided to partition my hard disk (cue pain and suffering) and I fell even more in love with the Ubuntu/Linux operating system’s ease of use and ‘quickness’, for lack of a better word.
  3. Now, I decided it was time for a complete switch-over to Ubuntu.

This was actually the easiest thing to do. I popped in the Ubuntu Live CD and restarted my laptop. Your computer’s BIOS should (by default) boot from a  CD/DVD if present and that is what my laptop did. I booted into the operating system and once I had an internet connection going, I began the installation process by clicking the “Install” icon which was on the desktop (default behaviour).

After answering standard questions about the user name, time zone, etc, the time came to select what partition to install Ubuntu to and this time, I selected “Guided partion – use the entire disk”. Again, be very aware that this will wipe off everything that was on the disk before. As I’ve said so many times:

  1. I have, at least, 2 current disk images of my previous Windows Vista installation, thanks to Acronis Disk Image. I also created an Acronis Recovery Media Disk which I can use to restore my disk images (this is part of the Acronis True Image home product).
  2. I have copies of the actual exe or msi files that I can use to reinstall all my prized Windows programs so that I don’t have to cough up any more money.
  3. If my Disk Image restore failed or got corrupted, I’ve got file backups of my documents so that I can simply restore Windows via my computer’s recovery CD/DVDs and then, copy over my files.
  4. I did all of this before I started tinkering with my windows partition, etc so I’m reasonably assured that the files aren’t corrupt.
  5. That out of the way, i confidently hit “Start” and in less than 2 hrs (could be less), I had a working installation of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Wireless connection

The first thing I did was to install all security updates that were presented to me. Clearly, to do this, I had to get my internet connection going and it was as simple as clicking (left click) on the network connection sign (a series of bars) by the clock (top-right corner of the screen). I identified my home network’s SSID and clicked on it. Bam! I was live on the intarwebs. 🙂 Installing the updates was a breeze and I simply restarted the computer when it was done.

Next, I set up the bluetooth pair between my laptop and my hp bluetooth mouse. The key to this was performing the pairing operation after all updates had been installed on the laptop so that the system had the most up-to-date information. Thus, when I hit “setup a new device” after right-clicking the bluetooth icon, my mouse was detected and I set it to be always visible.

I’m still working on trying to get some sort of functionality out of pairing my Palm Treo 750 with Ubuntu. I already have my contacts pulled off the phone, but I would like to be able to access my palm treo as a virtual filesystem, perhaps. It’s confusing, but I’m willing to learn. 🙂 I’m still working on not missing a bunch of my prized Windows utilities like TechSmith‘s products (Camtasia Studio 6 which I used for producing short videos and Snagit for screen captures), Acronis True Image (for set-it-and-forget-it file and whole disk backups), Microsoft Office Outlook (for managing my email, appointments and my phone contacts), etc.

Up next, an overview of programs I’m getting used to in Ubuntu as replacements for my Microsoft Windows staples and difficulties I have encountered with the Ubuntu system. 🙂 Cheers!