Saturday, December 22, 2012

Switching backups...

http://blogspot.thui.org/2011/05/400gbs-and-counting.html

About a year and a half ago, I was using LiveDrive. Since then, I've decided to switch to CrashPlan. Why? For one thing, LiveDrive was consistently uploading at a pace around 300KB/second. I appreciate the fact that they're in the UK and if anything ever happens to the US, I know that my data is safe in England :) However, uploading gigabytes at that speed takes forever. Another reason is that their Mac support totally sucks. Can't say how much it sucks.

I've been using Macs for about two and a half years now and really love how I can do just about everything with it. Most programming languages are available on Mac and if it isn't, I can easily create a VM. Right now, I have about 8 VMs in various OSes and environments. I can experiment with technologies so easily. I've basically decided that for my work and research, I wouldn't use anything else. I've made the switch and I'm not going back. I have some older laptops that are Windows based and when they die, I'm going to replace them with Macs.

My server is still Windows based and that's mostly for ease of management. Although I'm starting to rethink that decision as well. My main purpose for it is to serve files, so I may just get a dedicated NAS. Then the other purpose for the machine is to host VMs. I can do that just as easily with Virtual Box on a Linux machine. A reason to keep the machine around as Windows is gaming.

In any case, support for Mac backups has become very important to me. I have stuff on my machine that I want backed up. I have a time machine, but I want something offsite. And LiveDrive is NOT it. I do like their briefcase feature, but DropBox works more efficiently. So ultimately, LiveDrive is out and hello CrashPlan! And it is cheaper!

Monday, November 26, 2012

A year old!

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Richard's a year old! Time certainly flies. It seems like only yesterday we were welcoming into our lives. And here he is, a year older. Happy Birthday!

His stats: 23.5lbs, 34 inches long, 18.5" head.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Nine Months!

After nine months, or as long as Richard's been inside Li, he's now been outside of Li. He continues to astound and amaze me everyday. Just this morning, I saw him trying to stand. He doesn't even know how to get into a sitting position from a laying down position yet, and he's trying to stand. It's really cute how he gets into a sitting position by first kneeling on something and then turning his body to sit. He's really cute at sitting somehow maintaining balance. This weekend, we went to a restaurant by the ocean and while we took his stroller in, the restaurant preferred we kept the stroller outside given that the restaurant had narrow walkways between tables. They gave us a high chair. Richard was like a gentleman just quietly sitting there munching on bread. We found out that he likes to eat when we're eating as well when we eat outside. Sometimes we go to places that don't have things for him to eat. Whenever we can, we do give him something new to try. Today was not one of those days. But he was just really happy to eat bread. Love the way he just try to put food into his mouth. He's still learning about using his fingers for small stuff. He's really good at turning pages in a book or magazine. We love you Richard! Only three weeks left until you see your grandparents again.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Five Months

It has been 5 months since the birth of our son. He's been a joy to behold. He's such an easy friendly out-going boy. I hope he never changes. What is it about a baby that makes your world turn upside down, not necessarily for the worse. A lot of people say their lives change. Of course that's true. You now have someone who totally depends on you for EVERYTHING!

The part most people don't tell you is the reward you get. Everyone tells you about the problems and the responsibilities. But the parts they want to keep to themselves (for a good reason) are the moments in which your baby connects with you and makes you forget about the problems and the responsibilities. And they come in bunches and in a hurry. Moments like watching him nurse and how awesome it is for baby to get nutrients from his mom. Or when he smiles right before falling asleep. Or the way he giggles at the most simplest of things. Or how he smells. Or the way his skin feels. Or the many many different looks on his face as he's learning or investigating his environment. Or the way he stares into your eyes and you get lost.

I remember on our last day in the hospital and the nurse went over the final checklist for things we should and should not do. Fairly basic stuff. But there was one thing they mentioned and I guess they mention it only because they see if often enough is "Don't shake the baby." We immediately thought who would ever do such a thing to a defenseless little baby? I guess you can say we fell in love with him rather quickly.

He's growing at such a fast rate. We have to slow down and appreciate him more. There's not a day that goes by without us astonished at the things he do.