The following post is a sponsored review of Idrive Online Backup, a solution that I have been using for several years now to keep my data safe.

Let me jump directly into the features of Idrive:

1. Automatic selection of documents, pictures and videos when you first install it
2. Continuous data protection of modified files, compressed and secured via 128-bit SSL transfer and 256-bit AES encryption on storage
3. All files are versioned and never deleted unless you choose to do so
4. Quick search and restore features to get back those files you’ve lost
5. Data retrieval from any computer in any location in the world, even without the software installed
6. Timeline restore to get your files back from a specific point in time

Idrive plans begin at a generous 5GB completely for free. But, if you want more data you can upgrade for as little as $4.95/mo

Starting off is extremely easy, simply grab the account, download the software and you’re good to go.

Hit connect and you’re ready to begin the backup process.

If you think you’re stuck with that list, don’t worry. You have complete freedom to choose whichever folders you want. I have my entire development portfolio including my WordPress plugins backed up along with all important documents that are neatly filed in “My Documents” folder.

So, which backup software are you using. Have you used this one? What has your experience been so far?

For the second time yesterday, I awoke to find my Gmail account locked. This is the second time that this has happened.

The only notification is that it is locked for unusual activity. The “help” page states these as:

1. Receiving, deleting, or downloading large amounts of mail via POP or IMAP in a short period of time. If you’re getting the error message, ‘Lockdown in Sector 4,’ you should be able to access Gmail again after waiting 24 hours.
2. Sending a large number of undeliverable messages (messages that bounce back).
3. Using file-sharing or file-storage software, browser extensions, or third party software that automatically logs in to your account.
4. Leaving multiple instances of Gmail open.
5. Browser-related issues. Please note that if you find your browser continually reloading while attempting to access your Inbox, it’s probably a browser issue, and it may be necessary to clear your browser’s cache and cookies.

I’m pretty sure that I have not violated any of these. In fact since the last time it got locked I made sure that I kept Gmail closed as much as possible, since I thought 4 or 5 above could be a possible problem.

Anyway, I’m pretty irritated with the whole deal and am planning to make the move to either Windows Live Mail or Yahoo! Mail. I plan on continuing to use Google Talk to chat with those I know as well as all the other services of Google.

So, what do you suggest I shift to? Windows Live Mail or Yahoo! Mail or should I create yet another Gmail account?

Have spent the last two nights in college. Returned last morning at around 5.30am and this morning around 6.15am after working the night out on the new College website.

Things are going good, though we should have been complete by now. Ravi joined me in the quest.

Sat for two lectures today after almost two days gap; most of which was spent in front of my laptop in the Admissions room, except for breaks for food and nature and seven hours of sleep in the 48 hours.

I’m zonked today and though tomorrow is the holiday for our vendor, however, we don’t have a luxury of holidays out here in SCMHRD.

Gonna hit the bed in sometime. Good night.

I signed up for Twitter a month back, but haven’t bothered to keep in touch with the program. Rishi told me today that he’s tracking my updates via Twitter, so am throwing up this question to all my readers if you Twitter.

If you do, how do you update your status?

Would you track my updates?

You can add me at http://twitter.com/ajaydsouza
Or simply send FOLLOW AJAYDSOUZA to twitter@twitter.com from your GTalk ID.

Have been waiting a good deal and definitely didn’t expect it to land here so early, but as I mentioned my laptop arrived yesterday.

And as I was really anxious to get started on it, I called up Dell and asked them to send an engineer over today itself.

He came over and completed the installation and checked the entire system. Dell has a nice diagnostic CD that checks everything.

Windows Vista Home Basic Edition seems to be decent so far.

I was a little irritated that the C: is 100GB and the inbuilt shrinker didn’t work. It’s great that I will have (in another 12 hours) an external 120GB hard drive and a 2GB pen drive.

That’s a picture to the right. If you’re looking for more pictures, then check out this Flickr photoset and for those interested, the configuration.

About a week back I created a new feed that collates five of my feeds. This was done with the help of FeedBlendr. It is a good service, but there is a lot of room for improvement. The feed work but it seemed to give a problem with Feedburner.

I decided to give Yahoo! Pipes a shot as I originally intended to. The interface is easy to use but it doesn’t look at all welcoming. I haven’t let a single interface to this date benumb and I don’t intend to let Yahoo! Pipes be the first!

Got down to understanding how Yahoo! Pipes actually works and I was shocked to realize that it was actually really really easy to mix my feeds together!

All you need is a single Fetch module into which you feed in the locations of all your feeds. The output of this module is then sent to your Output module. You save and publish your pipe and you’re done!

I next got the RSS for the pipe and modified the Feedburner feed to point to this new RSS feed.

The result is a faster and possibly more reliable interface. Easy customization in case I wish to add or remove feeds. I’m sure I can do a lot more like limiting the number of articles and so on, but will take a bit more trial.

Have you tried out Yahoo! Pipes so far?

Several months back I popped a question to my readers… Flickr Pro or Gallery 2?. I got a good response with people pointing me to both sides.

For me the question remained unanswered until now.

Bye Bye Gallery 2

A month ago, I knocked off my photo album which was powered by Gallery 2. Gallery 2 is an amazing software, but I didn’t have the time to actually maintain yet another site. I wanted to have a solution where I let someone else do the dirty work of running the gallery.

Yahoo! Photos?

Since knocking it off I’ve considered two options, the first was Yahoo! Photos. I love the interface of the new Photos beta. I’ve got my Dad to host his pictures out there. The in-browser tool works perfectly in Firefox, IE and Flock.

Picasaweb?

About a week back I started using Picasaweb after the storage for free users was increased to 1GB.

Picasaweb is good. The software is well featured, however I faced a big problem uploading photos. It could very well be my connection, since I haven’t seen reports of it elsewhere.

No it’s Flickr Pro

The turning point to Flickr came yesterday when Flickr introduced Collections.

Honestly, the only reason I was reluctant to use Flickr was the inability to create sub-albums. Yes I know in Web 2.0, we use tags, but I like things of Web 1.0 like sub-folders and sub-albums!

Now, you can put several sets into a single collection upto five levels deep (I need to figure out the sub-levels).

I picked up a two year Flickr Pro account yesterday and have immediately started the tedious work of uploading my photos. Until I figure out how to embed the collections and photos successfully on this blog, you can access the photos at http://photos.ajaydsouza.info/.

WordPress Plugins

I’ve got my eyes on two plugins, viz. FAlbum and Photos-Flickr. I had an unsuccessful attempt at using FAlbum on this blog yesterday. I kept getting an frob error.

I like Photos Flickr from what I see so far, however, it doesn’t have the ability to display sets and collections yet. It is based on phpFlickr and I’m currently studying the code to see if I can extend the plugin. My limited PHP skills have been an hindrance so far.

What happens to ajaydsouza.info?

I was hosting my old album at ajaydsouza.info. I plan on building a site on that domain dedicated to me! (I’m a narcissist).
Jokes apart, it will be a one stop site where you can browse to the millions of profiles I have all over. Am also planning on making it a place to “frame” all my work so far.

Let’s see how that turns out… until then it is pointing to my new Flickr Pro page.

Btw, if you are on Flickr add Ajay D’Souza or Ajay DSouza or ajaydsouza to your friends list.

It would be more appropriate to have used the word “ordered” but I think “bought” shall pass. I also intended to post the details later but demand for the same has prompted this post.

I’ve never been a laptop person. I find them too cumbersome and prefer the computer with all it’s individual units. However, MBA makes it necessary for me to have a laptop and so I began my hunt for the same.

I had my eye on three brands viz. Dell, Lenovo and HP Compaq. Dell has a shipping duration of almost a month, while I believe Lenovo and HP are quicker in this respect. But, since I had time in my hands Dell was a good option. Have also received good feedback about Dell from two of my friends. Lenovo bought the IBM Think brand so I guess those are good. And my experience with HP Laptops has also been good.

So the main deciding factor was price in which Dell definitely beat the others.

Enough background details, here is the configuration of the laptop I picked up.

• Dell Inspiron^TM 6400 Notebook
• Intel^® Core^TM2 Duo Processor T5500; 1.66 GHz, 2MB Cache, 667 MHz FSB
• Genuine Windows Vista^TM Home Basic 32 bit (English)
• Intel^® 945 Chipset
• 120 GB SATA Hard Drive
• 15.4" Wide Screen XGA TFT Display
• 1024MB (2 X 512MB) DDR2 SDRAM
• 256MB NVIDIA^® GeForce^® Go 7300 TurboCache
• Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Combination Drive with dual layer write capabilities
• Dell^TM Wireless 355 Bluetooth Module
• Intel^® PRO/Wireless 3945 Dual Band 802.11a/g 5 4Mbps Wireless Mini Card
• 90W AC Adapter
• 6-cell 53Whr Lithium Ion Primary Battery
• Internal 56K Modem

I was able to get the laptop for around Rs. 62,000 including taxes. Dell had a special promo running wherein I saved nearly 10,000 because I got an extra 512MB RAM, the DVD Writer and Rs. 4000 off!

I also made sure I took the 256MB GeForce card to ensure that the laptop stays top speed even if I graduate to higher versions of Windows Vista in the future.

Friday as usual was choir practice. This time in preparation for Saturday’s Silver Jubilee mass and Sunday 8.30am mass.

Managed to cock up “We are here to praise you”. Guess, I’ve got so much running through my mind now a days that certain older stuff just takes a while to recollect

Saturday was a relatively quieter day, atleast till evening.

Picked up James and headed over to Holy Trinity Church in Powai. Heading there wasn’t a problem at all because the roads were perfectly clear. Helped because we left only at 5.20pm for the 6pm mass!

The church is much smaller than our church, but it has an equally bad sound system. Our singing was appreciated, because we got quite a few compliments and even some future requests :O

Since we were at Powai, we decided to drop in at the new Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Powai. My last experience with KFC was nearly eight years back and it wasn’t a very tasty one!

However, with the arrival of KFC in India, one thing that has definitely happened is the additions to the menu. Also, the Hot and Crispy was definitely not bland which was a good thing. The photo to the right shows how much we ate, and that is excluding the sundaes afterwards

Sunday

Sunday was a truly not-good day. Had a moderately decent CET Mock (awaiting results). This is the last one before the Sunday D-Day (are you praying for me?).

As I was ready to get back home, I discovered that the key of the petrol lock of my bike had disappeared. I use the word disappeared because I still can’t figure out how a key can just disappear (damn, I’m repeating myself) of a perfectly intact keychain!

Was able to get a contact of my regular mechanic to open the lock so that I could take the bike home.

Was even more pissed off later in the evening with Hutch customer(I don’t)care. I’ve always complained that Hutch customer care sucks and sucks big time and they never fail to disappoint me. The entire BPO industry is not what it used to be. We’re having more untrained morons handly calls and all they can do is infuriate the customer.
I’ll reserve this experience for a seperate post. Let me trash them in detail!

Monday

Began the day by first getting the bike petrol lock changed. I then headed over to the Hutch shop and got them to cancel the number.

Paid a visit to my stupid internet provider’s office to complain about the crappy connection. I am looking for alternatives…

And finally gave the bike for servicing. Spent the rest of the day at home working on releasing Snap Preview Anywhere 1.2. Choir practice was cancelled so the evening was spent at home, except for a quick visit to pickup my bike.

Tuesday

Tuesday was yet another day in front of the computer. Awoke early, blogged a bit and then hit the bed again as I was really exhausted. Spent a good portion of the evening trying to get the button in the WYSIWYG of WordPress, but finally just gave up and stuck to the button for the quicktag editor. Released Open Picture Window.

It’s just past 3am on Wednesday morning. I sense yet another long day ahead and still more plugin work as well. Should be fun…

Digg.com was one of the social networking/blogging successes of 2006, but recently it’s star has started to dim as people have started to question the efficiency of its voting system, that has actually resulted in a small minority, the ‘Digg Mafia’ deciding what makes it onto the homepage or not, rather than the wider userbase.

Read the rest of my article on Techtites and digg it