Release Notes: My Nerdy New Year's Resolutions: 2009 Edition
Release Notes: My Nerdy New Year's Resolutions: 2009 Edition
Posted 01/09/2010 at 12:30pm
| by Will Smith
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Sure, losing weight and spending more time with my family would both be great New Year’s resolutions, but let’s face reality: I’m not going to do either of those things. Instead, I’ve made four tech resolutions—I call them “techolutions”—that I earnestly pledge to follow in 2010 (or at least until the next time I have something more fun to do).
Back Up All of My Data
Right now, with the Windows Home Server I’m rocking at home, I have a pretty reliable, idiot-proof way to back up all the PCs in my house. But these PCs don’t hold all my data. I have gigabytes of stuff stored on computers that are beyond my home server’s reach, in the cloud and on my work PC. This year, I resolve to back up everything at least once a month—this includes everything from my Outlook archive at work to the contents of my Dropbox folder. Just in case.
Take Better Care of My Batteries
Battery maintenance should be much easier, but sadly, it isn’t. This year, I pledge to keep a partial charge on all my Lithium-ion-powered devices—never overcharging, never draining completely, and always unhooking my batteries when I’m not going to use a device for a while. I resolve to do everything reasonable and within my power to extend the life span of my batteries.
Wrangle Control of My Photo Library
Right now, I have photos strewn everywhere. On my computer, on my server, on my wife’s laptop, on my laptop, on my work computer—everywhere. Worse, they’re stored using a wide variety of naming schemes, there are a fair number of corrupt or broken files in there, and many have the default date for my camera. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I had a digital camera in 1999. By the end of 2010, I resolve to have all of my photos stored in one organized place, tagged and labeled based on the content of the shots.
Re-Rip All My Old CDs
If I remember correctly, I ripped my first CD in 1998. It took all night, and I believe I ripped 128Kb/s constant bitrate MP3s. Sadly, I still have those files. Sure, the tags are good and they all have album art, but they sound crappy. AM-radio crappy. Rather than hit Amazon and rebuy all those tracks, I pledge to re-rip all the CDs I’ve bought over the years, replacing the old versions with EAC-ripped, bit-perfect MP3s of all my favorite tracks.
Of course, I’ll probably just back up about half of my photos from Flickr while ripping Abbey Road and Nevermind before I accidentally delete my photo library when my laptop’s battery explodes. That would be just my luck.
What are your nerdy New Year’s resolutions?
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mesiah
January 11, 2010 at 10:41pm
Here is another resolution you should make. Kill whoever thought it was a good idea to put automatic sound enabled adds on your website. I often read articles from this site at work, but I can't have random ads blaring every time I click on a new page and turning my sound off isn't an option. You guys should know that it is bad form to have sound enabled on adds by default. It really makes the site seem amateur. I hope this changes soon, or else I'm going to have to look elsewhere for my tech news.
whitespiral
January 10, 2010 at 10:55pm
Well, I won't ever buy another music player that doesn't support FLAC out of the box, or that can't install Rockbox on it to play them. I play mostly classical music, and mp3s don't do the job. Windows server is gei. There are options out there, and even cheaper. But yes Wll, backups is your best goal this year. Multiple backups stored on multiple locations is the only way to be sure.
bdwoolman
January 10, 2010 at 9:38am
I am with the poster arguing for .wav archives.
Used properly EAC makes great, clean .wav files. I always rip to a .wav then compress it into the format I want for portability -- usually MP3. The collected .wavs make a true backup archive of my CDs.
With storage at about 10 cents US per GByte it makes sense to mirror the audio 100%.
FLAC is a great CODEC, but the referenced three hundred extra GB saved is worth about thirty dollars now. And next year? Who knows? It is comforting to know I have backed up my CDs completely. And in a way that I am confident will allow me to reburn an identical hardcopy should mine be damaged or lost.
Bottom line. I like the solidity of a CD, which I can then use as a pristine master to create an exact digital copy. These days I rarely have to touch them again.
As for New Years Resolutions... How about burning less time lurking on tech blogs?
-----------------
I run with the Dushanbe Hash House Harriers in Tajikistan -- On On!
santosmm
January 09, 2010 at 6:23pm
Only one nerdy resolution... RENEW MY MAXIMUMPC SUBSCRIPTION !!
Santos Martinez Mendoza
Bogotá, Colombia
aluCard1462
January 09, 2010 at 12:05pm
...as follows :
1. Organize all of my spare and extra computer parts, cables, adapters, pci cards, etc.
2. Spray and dust out my pc on a monthly basis.
3. Keep my hard drives squeeky clean, full reformats, disc checking and defragging on a regular basis.
4. Beat all the single-player campaigns on all the different games I'm currently playing
squarebab
January 09, 2010 at 12:09pm
Will,
Why not re -rip your CDs into .wav files? With today's cheap storage you should have no problem fitting all your music onto one drive. I have about 1600 CDs ripped into .wav files on a 1TB drive with about 92GB of free space available and those same CDs ripped into .m4a files 320kbps on a 500GB drive with about 182GB of free space left. Both drives are, of course, storage drives (I use a MPC recommended Patriot M28 as my OS drive: it friggin' rocks, man) and both drives are, of course, backed up on external HDDs. The .wav files are used with WMP for desktop listening and the .m4a files are for my Ipod only. Sure, it took some time to do, but it was worth it. Once you get your existing collection ripped it's easy to keep up with any new CD purchases. I have never enjoyed my music more.
politik
January 09, 2010 at 5:51pm
I can't imagine using wav format when there are much better alternatives. Just because storage is cheap don't mean we have to throw away efficency! FLAC would be a much better solution, preserving the full quality of the track and take up little more than half the space. Or Apple Lossless, or some other lossless codec. You could have almost 300GB free instead of 90GB on that drive had you used FLAC.
squarebab
January 10, 2010 at 12:05pm
That's true about FLAC, but does it play nice with WMP and portable players like Zune? If yes, then maybe I'll give it a try the next time my iPod dies. I love the iPod, but I hate iTunes. If the new Zune is all "they" say it is, then I just might switch. It would be nice to have only one set of ripped files to deal with.
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