Tag: pictures

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Backitup 2

Within this communication I essentially told you that my NAS Drive had died and I was reasonably convinced I had lost my data but had a plan to get it back.

I had originally thought I could plug the hard drives into a Sata socket and the PC would be able to read them. It didn’t. This was because they were in a RAID configuration and also Linux so I would need the iOmega NAS to be able to read them.

The data recovery software did manage to find half a terabyte of data but as I explained this wasn’t formatted well and the file names were missing, because the files were RAIDed. This was my last resort really. I have spent a LOT of time arranging the files into a decent directory structure and using decent naming conventions.

Next plan was to order exactly the same enclosure as the one that died and hope I could put my disks into it and it would read them for me to copy the files over to the new NAS drive. I found one on eBay but lost that auction at the last moment because I was busy at that time and my phone didn’t notify me. I was gutted about this.

So, I ordered the next best thing. A complete iOmega NAS drive the same as the one which died. There were no more enclosures on eBay. This was costly. However, it arrived and was as described.

The tricky bit now was wondering whether it would read my existing disks with the data, try to format them or just die in the process. I decided an order of operations which minimised my chances of data loss.

  • Turned of new Synology NAS.
  • Turned on new (but not quite) iOmega NAS. Plugged it into the network and tried to communicate with it without installing the CD based software. This worked.
  • I then called the iOmega NAS the same thing as the dead one. It was running a lower version of firmware and this bothered me slightly. The interface was different. I then turned it off.
  • I installed ONE old HDD into the second hand enclosure and turned it on while connected to the network. My plan was to try and log into the device before it decided to automatically format my data-filled drive.
  • Nothing happened. Just some flashing lights.
  • Next, I tried both old HDDs in the new enclosure and hoped. Once again . . . nothing.

I was quite distressed at this moment. The new enclosure wasn’t reading the old HDD at all and I didn’t think I would get my data back. Then I had an idea. Maybe, just maybe, the old iOmega enclosure would power up? I was convinced it was the power circuitry on the board that had died. I mean there was smoke last week.

So, I thought. I’d plug the new power cable into the old box with the HDDs just slotted in to see what would happen. The fucking thing only went and started and seemed to run just fine. I have no idea what happened last time. I don’t know what the smoke was. All I had to do now was hope that the old enclosure would survive for long enough for me to get data. In all it took about three hours to transfer everything to a HDD inside the PC. Then I had to transfer everything to the new NAS drive. This was quicker as I think it has a far better read-write rate than the old box.

So, the data was restored and I now had two copies.

I had formatted a plan. The Synology is to be the main NAS and storage centre in the house. I have also installed one of the HDD from the old enclosure into the PC and it will have only NAS drive data on it. I can used an FTP program to sync that once a month or so. This way I have a separate copy of the NAS data in a useable format. The next thing will be to get a large capacity USB memory stick and create a shortcut in in the new NAS so that whenever it is inserted into the USB port the NAS will automatically back itself up.

So, ultimately what happened:

  • Old NAS died (?) with smoke and then refused to power up.
  • Synology works really well with excellent data transfer rates.
  • New iOmega NAS works and is currently surplus, being an older model.
  • The old enclosure might be serviceable.
  • I might have just blown the fuse in the old power supply.
  • Enclosures aren’t meant to die, HDDs are.

This incident has caused me over a week’s worth of stress and worry.

I hope my new backitup plan will work. I’m working on two degrees of redundancy, I might include a third with cloud storage.

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Fixed – Hopefully

There haven’t been any new communications in a while because I have been going through about sixty of them to sort out embedded picture links. I wrote about this here, where I explained that some of my OneDrive pictures weren’t really working within my website.

I could see them, but I think that was because my computer was logged into OneDrive or at least had cookies saying it was logged in. When I checked in an “incognito” window the pictures didn’t show.

The main aim of this embedding was to save space on my server and use the space on my OneDrive allowance as I keep pictures there anyway. I’ve just checked my web server space and I have 100GB, I’m currently at I-Don’t-Know! The web managing tool doesn’t seem to have me down as using any space. Strange! I’ll have another look another time.

Anyway, all communications should have pictures that work! If they don’t work then let me know, my units of readers.

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Embedding!

I have noticed while looking through some of my older communications that the pictures aren’t loading. It took a little detective work to figure out that the pictures not showing were all embedded from my cloud storage.

I can’t see this from my computer as when I load the communications the picture still loads due to cloud storage cookies [I think]. When I use an incognito browser the pictures don’t load. They also don’t load on my phone and I haven’t signed in to my cloud storage in the browser application on that.

So, I have decided to upload all the pictures that were stored in the cloud to my web hosting company and then I can re-insert them into all the pages where they weren’t working properly. I suspect this will take around a month of playing a little at a time.

The existing photos need to be uploaded, which is easy. They I have to name them all, again quite easy, and then add them to each communication where they don’t show up from other browsers. I suspect that when I changed the file structure of my cloud storage the picture URLs somehow didn’t work the same way.

I’ll probably announce this update to great fanfare but it doesn’t matter a great deal. I doubt the people out there interested in the minutiae of my life really go searching for things I may have done over a year ago.

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Recent Running Routes

Sometime back I started using the Strava app on my phone as some friends were using it and they weren’t on Map My Run. The Strava app has the ability to use a photo taken as the main picture in the saved area rather than a map. I think it looks quite good and I have been trying to take a photograph whenever I am out running.

Here’s what it looks like shared to twitter:

So, here’s a collection of photographs taken while out exercising.

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Desktop

Sometimes you work with or know people who don’t use the correct terminology. It can occasionally be a minor irritation but also is a problem because using specific language is important to be able to communicate or understand a particular topic. So, in the past, people I have worked with have used the term “screen saver” when they meant “desktop background”. It’s a minor problem but they are wrong. Screen savers are quite specific and no longer necessary although possibly fun.

Below are the pictures I use as my desktop background at home. All were taken by me and so I own the copyright on them. Yes, I am rather proud of all the pictures. Yes, I like aircraft.

I will probably change these over time, but I do want to see many more flying machines. It’s a fascination and passion. Somewhere in these erstwhile communications there are pictures of my iPhone backgrounds, somewhere. Use the search box.

My phone background is currently an obsession with the M’Era Luna festival in Hildesheim.

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Kent Views

Not a great deal of writing with these. Here’s Maidstone bridge over the Medway.

Here’s another Medway bridge this time it’s for the M2 and railway (three bridges really).

Now a picture of a lavender field. There’s another one next to the A229 and from the corner of my eye it looks like an uphill lake!

Finally, here’re some boats, just because.

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Icons

Just put new icons on the mobile version of my website. They are from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. I like them and many thanks to the person who made them. When I remember I’ll link to that site. Link here.
Going to try and find some way of having the icons on my main site, I think that’ll look really cool. At the moment I am still bothered by time out errors and 500 errors. I think my server shares its time with other sites or it spends a long time doing site maintenance. Will try to find out.
I secretly hope that this site will take off and be very widely read but in reality I don’t want that responsibility. I could, of course, post stuff that isn’t well written and doesn’t make sense but in reality I want to use this to improve my writing skills which are currently poor.
Here’s to the web allowing me to indulge myself and make writing feel like fun, even with the iPhone touch pad.

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