3:38 - And I'm back up and running! Everything's looking good, but I learned a lot about my set up and what's needed to make it easier to recover. I'll be writing about that, though, in a future post.

3:23 - That install took a while. I think I need to prune my list of applications. Things are looking good except for some permissions problems on the files.

11:53 - Recovering from the Drobo nicely. Looks like I've got a list of things to add to the JungleDisk backup.

11:17 - I don't think I'm storing enough of my settings on JungleDisk. Nothing's working quite the way I had it working before. I know the Drobo has it all, but that's really not good enough in a real recovery situation. Finishing up some final updates from Ubuntu.

11:06 - Pulling files fine from JungleDisk. It looks like everything worked as I hoped! Going to restart and get the rest from the Drobo since I don't really want a massive Amazon S3 bill.

10:52 - Getting near the two hour mark, most of it spent reading Anathem. Now on to recovering user settings and restarting the computer.

10:25 - Should have looked up before hand how to install a large number of packages in Ubuntu. Updated my repositories from JungleDisk and now install my old system. Says it'll take another 30 minutes or so.

9:57 - Just went on a wild goose chase with TrueCrypt when trying to install it. You need dmsetup installed first on Linux and I thought I had to install from source. No, just apt-get update first. Now to install JungleDisk. Note: I haven't touched my local backups yet.

9:35 - Actually, no. I need to get JungleDisk up first to restore my repository list, so first I need to get my encrypted passwords off of Dropbox and then install TrueCrypt.

9:32 - Base OS install is done. Now to install all my software.

9:16 - Partition tables! Good question. That's one thing I didn't write down before starting. I guess I'll just take the defaults.

9:11 - It has no idea what to make of the drive. Yippie! I've lost all my data! Now to install Ubuntu from the CD. Should take about 30 to 45 minutes.

9:08 - It's in. Let's see if it actually works.

9:00 - Computer shutting down. Getting ready to swap the hard drive.

8:37 - My last JungleDisk backup ran at 9 last night and I did a Drobo backup around 5 yesterday. That should cover everything I need for this morning.

8:32 - Getting ready to start. Got my tea and my Ubuntu CD, what more do I need?

The backup recovery test will start Dec. 13th at 9:00AM. Will it be exciting enough for a live blog? I have no idea.

I'm going to attempt to recover my computer on Dec. 13th from a full (simulated) hard drive meltdown. In preparation, I've developed a plan as to how I'll recover everything from my local and remote backups. I could do everything from the local backup, but I want to make sure the remote backup is working too. So here's my current recovery strategy.

Local Backup

As I've stated many times before, I use a Drobo for my local backups. I backup everything in my local user directory, where all my documents and user settings files are stored, and some applications that I've had to install myself. I plan on not using this right away when I recover, to prove to myself that I can get back on my feet with just my remote backups.

Secure Key Backup

I have a local memory card in a fire-proof lock box that's encrypted via TrueCrypt and has most of my passwords on it, including what I need to access my remote backup, JungleDisk.

First Remote Backup

The first thing I'll need to recover are files off of Dropbox. I have my TrueCrypt volume with all of my passwords on Dropbox as a redundant backup of my local encrypted memory card and I'll need those to get at my JungleDisk passwords. This should be simple using Dropbox's web interface, which will give me access to everything on my Dropbox without having to install the software right away.

Second Remote Backup

My main remote backup is JungleDisk. Once I get my passwords from the TrueCrypt volume, I'll be able to install and start JungleDisk to get my files back in order. After that, it should be smooth sailing (I hope).

Why?

The main reason I have it all set up this way is redundancy. I want local backups that are easy to access and with less hoops to jump through to get them working, but I also need remote backups because local backups won't cover me in case of a fire or other natural disaster (like a spilt can of pop!)

The key is, I need to be able to access everything from remote backups because I might not have anything local to recover with. I have my passwords locally in a lock box, but also strongly encrypted on Dropbox so that I can get them if the lock box is gone. (They're also on the Drobo and JungleDisk, because I really don't want to lose my passwords.)

Any plan you create should allow you to recover a new computer back to your current computer's working state even if you don't have access to your local work area. In fact, I would say that a remote backup is way more important than a local backup because with a remote backup, you should be able to recover from anywhere. A local backup is really just for convenience and speed, not to be depended upon for the really important stuff.

So that's my plan. What's yours?

So, I talked about Dropbox in general, now I'll get to specifics on what I think is one of it's most useful features; versioning.

I'll be mainly talking about text, but you could easily adapt this to Photoshop files or Word files or whatever you work in. These techniques will work with any file on your computer, but just be aware of the 2GB limit.

• Working
  

  Synced Document in Dropbox

  You'll be working the way you always do, except you'll be working within the Dropbox folder in your computer's home folder. When you're connected to the Internet, every time you save the file, it will upload the change to the Dropbox site as an immediate remote backup. Feel free to create folders to organize your work. Dropbox will keep that file structure on the getdropbox.com site as well.

  When you see the green checkbox next to your file, you know that your file has been successfully saved to your online Dropbox.

• Revisions

  Dropbox will create a new revision each time you save your file. You will have access to all past revisions and can see when they were saved and how big the files are. If you right click on a file in your Dropbox folder, you'll get a Dropbox submenu that will take you to the revision list in your browser. From there you can save any past versions to your computer and, if you want to roll back to a previous version, just copy and paste it over the existing file in your Dropbox folder.

  

  Revision Menu

  One note to be aware of. If you rename or move a file, you will lose the revisions that related to it because Dropbox will think you deleted it. You can get to the old file by going into the getdropbox.com interface and selecting the Show Deleted Files button.

  

  Deleted Files

• Sharing

  If you right click on a folder, you can view it's sharing options. This will allow you to share your Dropbox folder and all of it's contents with another Dropbox user, provided you know their email address. If they aren't already signed up with Dropbox, this will also send them an invitation to join. It's a great way to keep a group of people in sync with important documents.

  More to the point, all versions of a document are tagged with the person's name who made it, so you'll know exactly who changed what within a file. And since every version is saved, you won't need to worry about overwriting someone else's changes. In fact, if two people edit the same file at the same time, Dropbox will actually notify you that it happened and allow you to fix it by giving you both files.

  

  Folder Sharing

  You can also drop things in the Public folder within Dropbox. This allows anyone to download the file through a simple web link. They won't be able to edit and upload the file back to your Dropbox, but it's a quick way to distribute files to users over email or IM to a group of people.

I think Dropbox is what I call an active file backup, meaning it backs up your work as you work on it. In fact, Dropbox is probably the best way of doing this I've seen, mainly because it's also a remote backup. If your computer dies in the middle of what you're doing, you haven't lost all of your changes and you'll be able to hop on another computer, install Dropbox and be back up and running.

You can find more about all of these features over at the Dropbox FAQ.

One of my favorite new online applications is Dropbox. Dropbox's main purpose is to keep a folder of files synchronized between multiple computers. It does this through an operating system plugin that you install, The most exciting part is it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. So no matter what computers you use in a day or what operating systems they're running, you can keep all your files accessible and synced up, up to 2GB worth, for free.

Another feature I love is the ability to have shared folders with other users, right from your Dropbox to theirs. This is very cool if you're working on a project together or just want to share documents with the family. Instead of emailing files back and forth or setting up a complicated Version Control system, you can just share a folder in your Dropbox and work right off of the desktop.

Speaking of version control, Dropbox also stores all of the past revisions of all of your files. That means that whenever you're working on a file, every time you hit save, it stores a copy of the file at that time. Even if you delete the file from Dropbox, you can recover it using the getdropbox.com website.

This is an excellent way to keep a quick remote backup of actively worked on files. I love using it for text due to the built in versioning feature and the fact that whenever I hit save, it uploads a new version of my document. Also, with 2 gigabytes of space for free, that's plenty of room to work with. When I'm done actively working on something, I can move it to another folder that is part of my remote backup and frees up the space on Dropbox again.

My only slight problem is, even though Dropbox uses SSL to encrypt traffic to and from the Dropbox site and then encrypts my data on Dropbox's servers, Dropbox itself still has my encryption keys and can view my data whenever they please. I'm sure they don't, but I wouldn't exactly put my tax returns or a passwords file out there. I'm kind of a stickler for who has access to my data.

Even so, I recommend Dropbox for everyone who actively works on their computers. (Should be everyone, right?) If you do a lot of text editing or even graphic design and would cry if you lost something or overwrote something you're working on, working on it in a Dropbox folder that gets actively versioned could be a real life saver. Also, if you are constantly sharing files with others via email or IM, get Dropbox going on all of your machines and it'll make a world of difference in how you collaborate.

While Dropbox is not a full remote backup solution, it is great for what I call active file backups, incremental backups of actively changing files. I'm sure that it can fit in your workflow somewhere, so go and download it today.