Jeff Billimek’s Journal

I worked from home again today. I couldn’t do the release 4.1 install of our code because management wanted to keep testing another fix in the SI environment. So instead I created a new tuxedo domain to host the enterprise reference services in development. This moves us away from an older shared domain and will hopefully keep things more stable since this is a dedicated domain for the references services. It’s a long-overdue change.

Also today I completed the quarterly backup. I’m now using unison in conjunction with the encrypted hard drives to do ’smarter’ backups instead of just copying a bunch of files. In theory, unison will check both the local HD and the encrypted backup HD to determine what needs to be copied. I have turned to unison in order to do the actual backup. I tried rsync at first but like the flexibility that unison provides with excluding certain files and paths and following links on a case-by-case basis. For example, below is the prf file that I use to backup the mp3s. They are housed on a share that another computer serves up, but that is encapsulated with a symlink in my unison home directory (/home/Jeff/unison/mp3s). The same is true with the encrypted HD mount which is also pointed to a symlink (/home/Jeff/unison/mp3s-backup):

# Include the contents of the file common
include common
 
# force local root to win out
force = /home/Jeff/unison/mp3s
 
# Roots of the synchronization
root = /home/Jeff/unison/mp3s
root = /home/Jeff/unison/mp3s-backup
 
ignore = Name .DS_Store
ignore = Name .localized
ignore = Name $RECYCLE.BIN
ignore = Name desktop.ini
ignore = Name Thumbs.db

One of the main reasons I went this route is because the built-in backup utility in Vista is a complete piece of garbage. it’s a huge departure from the limited functionality of the XP-based backup utility. The new Vista backup utility gives no control or choice. It decides for itself what files you want backed-up - you have absolutely no choice in the matter.

Jen’s Mom and aunt Sandy came over at around 5:30pm I served them something to drink and fed them cheese and crackers until Jen got home. We all went out to dinner to M&T. Jen got a glass of red wine that we both didn’t care for. I ordered the $26 meatloaf and while it was good, it wasn’t $26 good.