Posted 07/03/2009 at 04:59:54pm

I have found that CrashPlan (http://www4.crashplan.com/consumer/index.html) is an awesome automatic backup system that offers a variety of backup options varying from self hosted to pay per gb.  I love the flexibility of backup options such as local drive, another computer at home, remote comptuers, friends computers and more.  Also their response to user requsts such as provideing your own encryption keys, etc. is nice to see.

Posted 01/29/2009 at 01:14:11pm

This should get you started: 

http://www.vandomburg.net/installing-windows-xp-from-usb/

Basicly you get BartPE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/) to boot from USB and install from there.  It works pretty well.