A friend e-mailed me...

[My Wife's] crt stopped working so I took a look around making sure everything was still plugged in, etc., Then I took a look on top where the cat likes to sit on the cooling vents to keep warm and found a pile of cat barf. After removing the monitor I found liquid had traveled from the top to the bottom, shorting out the crt.

I would have sent a picture of the problem but the dogs ate the barf.

No one ever wants to believe their computer will fail them.  You can try to make yourself feel safer... your computer is new, it's under warranty, you take good care of it... but make no mistake, your computer will fail, and probably at a really really bad time.  Here's something that may help you make up your mind: I received a brand-new laptop at work in July of 2002, by September of 2002 the hard drive had failed completely.  Brand new hard can fail and older drives will fail. You must have a back up solution.

I can hear the whining already: Back ups?  Are you sure?  Making backups is such a pain.  It's too hard.  I don't know how!

a) Backing up your data can be easy
b) You aren't safe

People who have tried back up solutions in the past which require swapping floppies in and out or copying data to CDs will no doubt agree, backing up data can be a long tedious process.  Corporate backups used to be made to tape drives, also time consuming and definitely expensive.  There is good news: the plummeting price of hard drives has made back up much simpler and cheaper.  Couple an inexpensive external drive with some inexpensive software and you have yourself a backup solution.

This past winter vacation I set up a very simple backup solution on both my parents computers.  I used an external hard drive connected via USB (yes, simple plug in, just like a digital camera) and some straight forward software from Symantec called Norton Ghost 9.0.  It took a bit of time to format the hard drive (not difficult, just had to wait, it takes time) and no time at all to set up Ghost.  The software will automatically back up a computer on a schedule you specify.  It couldn't be more simple.

The best back up systems will protect you from:
1. Hardware failure (the inevitable drive failure)
2. Theft (it happens)
3. Hardware destruction (house fire or clumsy nephew with a can of Coke)

You love your digital camera, don't you?  You take a whole mess of pictures.  Now... what happens if your hard drive crashes?  The hard drive contains what amounts to negatives for all your digital pictures.  Having your hard drive crash is really like having your digital house burn down.  Eeek!  If your real house burns down you will loose all your pictures and the negatives, but you can easily protect your digital negatives.  Take your external back up hard drive to work with you for added data security.

So, here's the recipe:
1) Determine the size of the hard drive inside your computer
2) Find an external hard drive equal to or larger than your computer's drive (try Price Watch for good prices)
3) Select some backup software (list of options at bottom)
4) Install both and set the software to run automatically

Most computers have hard drives smaller than 80 gigabytes, an 80 gigabyte USB drive found on price watch: less than $70.  Backup software can be had for less than $50.  I'm sure the data on your computer is worth more than $120 and an hour of your time.

Here are some possible back up software solutions:

• Norton Ghost (I installed this for my parents) - http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/
• Dantz Retrospect (I use the pro version) - http://www.dantz.com/en/products/win_express/index.dtml
• Argentum Backup (Rated a best buy by PC World at $25) - http://www.argentuma.com/backup.html
  

We rented a few last weekend, here's the good, the bad and the ugly (make that the crappy, the fun and the long).

Hard Cash
Hey look!  An action movie with Christian Slater, Val Kilmer, Daryl Hannah and William Forsythe.  Paula, Mark and I looked at each other, shrugged and rented it.  Don't you make this same mistake.  I now understand why this stinker went straight to video.  It starts off crappy and low-budget and then... well, it sucked so bad we turned it off.  I got my good deed for the year out of the way early... I took the bullet for you on this film. 2005 is looking great already (it certainly can't get any worse).

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
The Christian Slater stinker left a bad taste in our mouth, a little mindless fun in the form of a sequel to a movie based off a video game was in order.  The Cradle of Life is a fun, fast action flick with a likable cast of characters headed up by the smart-Alec, butt-kicking Croft (played by the first lady of lips, Angelina Jolie).  Okay, I've gotten over that she used to carry around Billy Bob Thorton's blood in a locket and it no longer creeps me out to look at her.  The acting is great across the board and the great cast does what they can with a mediocre script.  Don't expect a detailed thriller and you won't be disappointed.

The Return of the King (Extended version)
Make sure you set aside more than four hours to watch this fluffed up version of Peter Jackson's final installment.  Either add the extra time or get a mini-fridge and a catheter for your TV room.  Though it is long, it is a fun watch (and given the choice, I'd rather sit through this than Gandhi).  The added scenes don't add significant plot points from the book but merely suggest them (e.g. there are some added scenes with Eowyn and Faramir in the Houses of the Healing, enough to remind book fans of the romance between the two but not enough to give people who haven't read the books an idea of what happened).  My major complaint remains that Peter Jackson changed some significant and not so significant story-lines that I thought did add to the books.  In particular I was disappointed by his handling of the Saruman sub-plot and when the undead army appeared (the whole point in the book was the suspense of the pirate fleet landing... the movie tells you in advance that the pirate fleet is friendly).  One big plus of the extended DVD:  they've extended the scene of Peter Jackson getting stuck through the chest with one of Legolas's arrows... it's a cathartic (but as far as directors screwing stuff up goes, I still think George Lucas is more evil).  

Ice Cube... and... A Ditty.

Do you ever install a new piece of software and find that it breaks something else?  This person had the same problem. :D

Icon Story

Paula Little, you've just finished your first semester of graduate school... what are you going to do now?

Imagine a lens for your camera phone that is very small and has no moving parts yet is still able to focus and zoom like the “huge” lens you already have.  French startup Varioptic has come up with a technology that makes zoom lens elements which have been shrunk down to a couple millimeters in size... but they say they'll go smaller.

The technology is very cool.  They sandwich a couple of liquids of similar density into their element and move the edges of the liquid “bubble” by applying electrostatic pressure.  The surface tension forces the shape to bulge, focusing the element.  Clever.

Now maybe that Dick Tracy watch can really have a video phone!

Get the whole picture on this story at the register.

Thanks Denise for the tip on this Jamba Juice coupon: http://jambajuice.com/menuguide/featuredproducts.html