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frost Crash Plan Remote Computer Server Personal Backup - Subscribe
A few months ago I was in dire need of a way to backup my server, effortlessly and efficiently, as a down server does not generate any income! Since the server is running headless (meaning no monitor attached to it and it had no X Server), the backup software needed to support Linux headless. A friend of mine turned me onto CrashPlan Backup Software, I was intrigued and did a bit of research. The research turned up great results and CrashPlan appeared to be the backup solution that my server required. I decided try the 30-day trial of CrashPlan Pro, as I wanted a Central Backup for my files. Setting up CrashPlan on Linux was pretty effortless (at least for me), just had to download the binary file from CrashPlan and run it on my server. The next step was a bit more difficult, accessing the CrashPlan interface to setup the backups on my Headless Server. Although it took some reading with trials and errors, once I figured it out, I have never second guessed the $5/month I spend on CrashPlan Pro to make sure my server stays backed up. In fact CrashPlan has saved me a few times from stupid mistakes.

Setting up CrashPlan Pro on a Headless Linux Server
The CrashPlan Backup Software setup on a Linux Headless server was actually pretty simple. Once the backup program software has been installed you need to install CrashPlan Software on your personal computer, as the method to access CrashPlan remotely requires an SSH Tunnel over a port, which will give access to the CrashPlan daemon running on your server. If you have ever setup SSH Tunnel's it is a fairly straight forward process. Basically you will take a local port on your own computer, setup the CrashPlan on your computer to use that port, which then connects to port on the server that the server's CrashPlan backup software is running on.

However, before we can tunnel the port we need to make a change to the %CrashPlanInstallDIR%/conf/ui.properties file. Go ahead and open that file up (remember to change the first portion in %'s to be the actual path) and we need to edit the portion that says: #servicePort=4243. Remove the # sign from that line, and then change the port to what you feel like. Just make sure the port is above 1000. I just changed the 4243 to be 4244. The final step is creating a simple SSH Tunnel: ssh -L 4244:localhost:4243 %YourRemoteServerInfo% The 4243 port is the port that the CrashPlan daemon is running on at the server, so be sure to modify that if you setup CrashPlan to run on a different port. Now just open up CrashPlan Backup Software locally and it should be pointing to your server, and you can now setup the backups how you want!

Restoring Files from CrashPlan Pro Backup
Unfortunately, I have had to restore a few files, even a database from the CrashPlan Pro Backup my server does. This was actually a very easy system to use, if you are using the Software with the port Tunneled, you can have it restore the backup right to your server. However, I was not using the CrashPlan Backup Software over a Tunnel and needed to restore a file (as I was on a different computer). The CrashPlan Web Interface, although lacking a bit in functionality, provided me the means to download the file to my local computer, where I was able to SCP (Secure Copy) the file to my server and have it restored within minutes. The Web Interface saved me a huge hassle of trying to find a good backup of the file, which would have taken hours. Fortunately, CrashPlan also versions the file. So even if the backup has overwritten the latest file, you can still go back to clean version of the file by date! A major advantage for when you accidentally copy the wrong file over and overwrite the good file. Needless to say, this made me happy and completely justified the money I spent on the CrashPlan Pro backup!

Want a Means to Backup Amongst Friends?
CrashPlan offers it Backup Software free of charge. What comes with the free version of CrashPlan? Well you can easily setup a cluster with your friends and backup to them, and vice versa. CrashPlan allows you to do backups from Computer -> Computer effortlessly and easily. This feature is extremely handy, especially for families, where their data is not necessarily important enough to do a Central Backup, but want it backed up remotely else where. You just install the software on your families computer and your computer, and viola, you can easily synchronize files between the two (pictures and such) and everyone can have a backup of everyone else's data in case of a fire, flood, hardware crash, or any other type of disaster you can think of. I am extremely impressed that CrashPlan allows you to use their software, free of charge, to backup to other people, friends and family. As well as being a reasonable price for a Central Backup of your highly important data.

Overall
If you cannot tell yet, I am extremely satisfied with CrashPlan's Backup Software and Backup Solution as a whole. It puts my mind at ease, in case of any hardware failures, human mishaps or even natural disasters, knowing that I can easily get my data back and restored. The CrashPlan service has many benefits, one is perhaps a "Send us a harddrive we will copy your data and send it back" system, it costs quite a bit of money to do, but if you need your data back as soon as possible, this option eases your mind a bit more, as you can get your data back up and running in a matter of a day (if overnighted) vs multiple days of file transfers. The multiple options of retrieving and uploading data the CrashPlan offers, mixed in with being able to backup to friends and family, really sets CrashPlan apart from most backup software and to me puts CrashPlan as a must have in my book.
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Mood: obscene
KeyWords: cheap, backup, remote, friends, computer, pc, server, linux, headless, effortless, easy, tunnel, ssh, crash, plan, crashplan, remote, easy, web, web interface, storage, setup, help, central, central backup, software, solution, review, simple, low cost, co

frost Just Dance 2 Nintendo Wii Game Review Jul 4th, 2011 09:54 - Subscribe
Ready to Dance? Well neither was I, until at my parents house for Christmas, my sister brought Just Dance 2 for the Wii. Well, I still cannot dance, but I did have a blast at trying! Just Dance 2 for the Wii Nintendo Entertainment System is a great game to getting you up off the couch and moving with even a bit of a cardio workout if you let yourself get into Just Dance 2. The variety of songs are not the best, but Just Dance 2 does have some fun songs and decent dance songs. So let's take a deeper look at Just Dance 2!



Is Just Dance 2 a Workout?
Well this all just depends on you. If you let yourself go and dance for 30minutes +, yea it can be a heck of a workout, I know I work up a sweat! How great of a cardio workout is it, I am not sure. I do not think I ever really lost any weight with it, but it was fun. I could play Just Dance 2 for hours, and I did, many nights. The game has a high replay value, in my opinion, because the game is fun, and I always wanted to try and beat my high scores. Just Dance 2 also has a "Just Sweat" feature, where there is a weekly plan for you to do, and all you have to do is get enough "Sweat Points" for the day to hit your mark each week, to promote doing a workout each day. The sweat meter is judged by how much the remote shakes, so it is easy to trick the system, but if you are doing it, why trick it? Well let's move on to the music.

Decent Music Variety
Just Dance 2 has a pretty decent dance music variety. From the Outkast's Hey Ya! to the Jackson 5's I want you back, to my Favorite, Rasputin they all are a blast. Although were a few songs that I did not really care for, like "Big Girl you are Beautiful" or "Cosmic Girl", mainly because it was for me to get into the groove with those songs, but over all most of the songs are easy to get into and have fun with. The Wii Store offers a free song, Fireworks. My wife seems to love this song, again another song I could not really get into, but now anytime we hear the song somewhere, shes gotta start bustin' out the Wii dance moves. Overall this has been a fun game for the whole family.

A Great Game
Overall, I feel that Just Dance 2 was a great game. It had a great re-play factor and is even funner in a big group where you have "Dance off" competitions and try to stay in the game as long as possible. It allows you to be creative and to have a great family game to play, even my 10 year old niece had a blast and my 1.5 year old daughter even got into Rasputin (I guess that shows how much I played Just Dance 2). I have been very happy with Just Dance 2, and if you are looking for something a bit more fun and exciting for the grown ups on the Wii, that has a great replay value and will have your family laughing and dancing, you cannot go wrong with Just Dance 2!
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Mood: dangerous
KeyWords: wii, nintendo, game, review, just, dance, just dance, just dance 2, two, 2, fun, laughing, blast, workout, cardio, sweat, challenging, family, friends, dance off, competition, exciting, songs, replay, factor, great

frost Cavalry Storage 1TB Harddrive Review from Newegg Jul 3rd, 2011 11:03 - Subscribe
Looking to do complete backups of my computer systems at home, I ventured into buying a new Hard Drive for Storage. I wanted a simple harddrive, that was external, built tough, and would hold up for the long haul. Since Newegg.com generally has the best deals for anything computer related, in my opinion, I checked Newegg first. I came across many different brands, and the brand that struck my eye was one I had not seen before, Cavalry. Cavalry had a 1TB External Harddrive for $80 plus a $20 Mail-in Rebate. Of course a $60 1TB external drive really peaked my interest, since the last backup drive I bought was a 500GB Fantom and it I/O'ed on me the week previous so I decided to buy the Cavalry Harddrive from Newegg. A year later, I can say that I am still extremely happy with my Cavalry drive.



eSata Card
To my surprise that Cavalry 1 TeraByte drive came with an eSata PCI card, included in the price. The inclusion of the eSata card was awesome, as I did not have an eSata port on my old Pentium 4 PC, which only has 1 x AGP and 4 x PCI. The PCI eSata card works flawlessly, and the speeds are great, especially since it is running over PCI. Backing up from the wired network was giving me about 40MB/s which I was ecstatic about. The performance of the included eSata card went beyond my expectations, as many of the competitor drives, such as Western Digital and Seagate, were way more expensive and either did not have an eSata port or come with the eSata card.

The Harddrive Itself
The Cavalry Harddrive has been awesome. I do S.M.A.R.T. checks on it every week or so and it is still running awesome. The drive does get a little hot, but for a 7200 RPM harddrive transferring at decent speeds, I do not blame it. The spin-up time on the drive is nearly instant, since it is just a backup drive, the spin-up time is not hugely important, but nice all the same, since I set the idle timeout at 30 minutes (again because it is a backup drive, I only backup nightly). For the past year, knock on wood, I have not had the drive do any type of clicking, no errors, and the SMART check comes back clean weekly. I am extremely happy, as with harddrives you never know if you are going to have a drive that works for a week or a year or 10 years, I am hoping this is a 10-year drive. I have never opened the case, so I do not know what brand of HDD it is rocking, but whatever it is, the drive is awesome.

Overall Satisfaction
I am extremely satisfied with the price of the drive, and the performance. I was worried there for a while, because Cavalry was a brand I had never used before, for such a cheap drive. I am glad I decided to give the harddrive a try, as I have never once regretted buying that drive, even a year later. This is my new trustworthy drive, although I do backup remotely as well. So if you are looking for a new harddrive, I would definitely look into Cavalry, I have been extremely happy with my Cavalry Storage harddrive purchase!
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Mood: empathetic
KeyWords: cavalry, storage, harddrive, hard, drive, harddisk, disk, terabyte, tera, esata, value, price, awesome, speeds, pci, esata, 7200, RPM, grand, backup, backups, fast, quick, speed, reliable

frost BuyVM.Net Cheap Low End VPS Hosting Review Jun 23rd, 2011 23:03 - Subscribe
I have recently occurred a rare $15/year Low End BuyVM Virtual Private Server (VPS) from BuyVM.net (aka Frantech). I say these are rare as when BuyVM has stock, usually within 15minutes their stock is depleted. I got extremely lucky with my purchase. I have been very pleased with BuyVM's support, their staff and most of all the VPS Server.

BuyVM.Net Logo

Cheap VPN
My 128MB $15 per year BuyVM box is used for a Vitrual Private Network (VPN) tunnel for my Phone. I like having the secure tunnel for my phone, especially when you are doing banking transactions etc. The extra layer of security through the VPS puts my mind a bit more at ease. I have used dedicated VPN servers in the past and never had any luck. Earlier this year I was looking into VPS's to create a test site and saw that BuyVM advertised the use of VPN tunnelling, this totally intrigued me, so I signed up for their mailing list and bought one 3 months later (yes I was waiting for 3 months!). For a $15 per year VPN Server, this box is doing everything I want!

Irssi and GNU Screen Please!
To say that I only use the box for a VPN would be lying. I love IRC and I love to keep chat in context without having to join / part all the time. Luckily Linux has Screen and Irssi. This allows me to leave my IRC connections on all the time (well as long as the VPS box stays online), and removes all the annoying parts / joins that usually show on IRC servers. I can access the IRC from my Android HTC EVO with Irssi Connect Bot, so I have IRC at home easily and anywhere with my phone. Perhaps my second favorite part of my BuyVM Box.

Canadian IP
Another bonus to BuyVM is that Frantech is a Canadian company. The servers are not based in Canada, as they are located in Fremont, California. But Frantech does offer Candian IP's. Having a VPN to another country is extremely handy, as it can avoid country set filters like seen in Europe. This allows you to see the full web, in case some sites are blocked, from your home connection! Browsing "anonymously" is something that I love and now I always do. The other awesome part is, if I just want to browse and not have my full connection over VPN I can using SSH Tunnelling. Having all these options for security and privacy is great.

Overall
Over all I am extremely happy with my BuyVM.net Box. The Frantech staff is awesome and fun to chat with in IRC and they are extremely helpful and speedy at resolving issues. I have had some downtime, which for the most part was not Frantech's fault. At one point I was going on 40days uptime, then my VPS rebooted for some reason and was restarted, unfortunately. However, since this VPS is not used for any major websites of mine, and I generally just use my BuyVM VPS for SSH Tunnelling, VPN and Irssi / Screen (for IRC) I got a steal of a deal for $15 per year. I do not think I will ever let go of this box, just too great of a deal. Thank you Frantech for offering great and cost-friendly services!
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Mood: marvelous
KeyWords: low, end, vps, low end, virtual, private, server, vpn, ssh, tunnel, security, privacy, box, frantech, awesome, friendly, service, excellent, review, stock, lucky, $15, per, year, irssi, screen

frost Quit Smoking Now with Ecigs - Top Ecigs Reviews Jun 22nd, 2011 23:31 - Subscribe
A friend of mine recently launched a site with the latest trend called, E-Cigs, an Electronic cigarette, in an effort to help people quit smoking. Moving forward E-Cigs are the future of cigarettes! Electronic Cigarettes are starting to become more and more popular as regular cigarettes are becoming more expensive, not to mention extremely unhealthy. In fact millions of people are switching over so why not you? No tar, no smell, smoke inside... With this new trend of ‘smokeless cigarettes’ there are a multitude of different brands. So how do you find the right one for you? Top Ecigs Reveiws site offers trustworthy & quality reviews of the top brands to help you decide which e-cig is right for you.

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What is an electronic cigarette?
Electronic Cigarettes typically come in 2 pieces; a battery and cartridge. The batteries last depending on what brand you chose and cartridges are usually the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes. Most companies will offer a wide variety of flavors, from traditional to coke flavored and nicotine strengths, from 0mg to 24mg, so you can match the electronic cigarette taste exactly to your favorite real cigarette.

At Top E-Cigs Review they offer Discount codes Up-to-date specials and promotions (including e-mail and RSS subscriptions) Trustworthy reviews to help you find the right e-cig Tips & Tricks to help you clean and modify your e-cig. So why not quit smoking real cigarettes today and give an E-cigarette a try!
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Mood: rude
KeyWords: electronic, cigarette, e-cig, ecig, reviews, review, top, list, directory, accurate, exactly, favorite, real specials, promotions, discounts, battery, power, tips, stop, smoking, quit, smoking