It’s still raining on and off but we’re finally going to try to stick to a schedule. We’ll bike Tuesdays after work (close to Draper) and Saturdays at about 10am (downtown or in mill creek canyon).
Let me know if you’d like to join us. This is the prefect time for a newbie to start mountain biking with us.
The loan guys have officially said that the fact that I’m here with a work visa is no obstacle for me getting a loan. So Carol and I are now 100% sure that we’re moving to Daybreak! I think it will happen in about 4 months (they still have to build the house). Exciting times!!!
Since Vista’s “Backup and Restore Center” sucks and most backup solutions are bloated, I’m using the very light and built-in Window’s robocopy command to create my backups. Here’s how you can do the same:
Here’s the code inside backup-create.bat
echo off set backupFolder=00-backup-in-progress set logFile=last-execution.log REM ---- empty out the existing log file type NUL > %logFile% REM ---- Copy stuff in the user folder call :BACKUP_DIR %backupFolder%\00-mine C:\Users\pete\Documents\00-mine call :BACKUP_DIR %backupFolder%\Desktop C:\Users\pete\Desktop call :BACKUP_DIR %backupFolder%\FileZilla C:\Users\pete\AppData\Roaming\FileZilla REM ---- Copy Pictures, Music, and Movies call :BACKUP_DIR PICTURES T:\Pictures call :BACKUP_DIR MUSIC T:\Music call :BACKUP_DIR MOVIES T:\Movies\saved REM ---- timestamp (datestamp) backup folder powershell Rename-Item %backupFolder% (Get-Date -format yyyy-MM-dd) goto :EOF [Return to OS] REM ------------------------------------------------- :BACKUP_DIR echo BACKING UP %2 INTO %1 robocopy %2 %1 /256 /S /NP /XA:H /R:0 /XJ /LOG+:%logFile% goto :EOF [Return to Main]
This is a brief description of the robocopy parameters:
I finally got a chance to upload the Florida pictures to Facebook. Click here to check them out! Here is a preview:
Busch Gardens:
Clearwater Beach:
The majority of us computer users just want to back up EVERYTHING we have on our Documents folder. And Vista’s built in utility cannot do this for us.
The first backup choice it gives you is whether you want to back up some files or make a copy of your entire hard drive.
If you want to back up your documents folder, you would think that “Back up files” would do the trick. And it almost does, but it has a terrible gotcha: It does not back up EVERY single file on the folder you specify. It only backs up the following:
This does not include *.exe , *.msi , *.bat and others. I’m a software developer so I have weird exe’s and msi’s that were hard to find and a lot of .bat files that I hand wrote.
So this leaves this utility be absolutely useless for me and for many, many people. I guess it’s better than nothing but you will lose information if a catastrophe hits you.
Another thing I did not like is that each time you created a new backup, you were really just throwing all of your files in a “bucket”. If a file with the same name and location already existed in the bucket, it would get overwritten. But files were never taken out of the bucket. So when you did a restore, your restored files would include files you had deleted from your computer but were kept in the backup bucket.
In short, it is a piece of junk. I only wasted my time figuring out how it works. I’m going back to the way I did backups before: Using a backup utility that came with my HP external hard drive.
UPDATE: I ended up cooking up my own solution using the robocopy command.
I just realized that I never posted that I was going to Florida, hey but I’m back with pictures! Carol and I went to Busch Gardens, the beach, and then I had to work for 5 days at a conference in Orlando. But we had tons of fun!
More details coming soon!
For the last month Carol and I have been looking at tons of houses. You know, the market is down and all that so homes prices went down. And we found a really nice, affordable home so we started the process to buy it!
The house is not built yet, we got to choose the lot (see on map) and floor plan.
The lot is located at Daybreak in South Jordan, UT. They have a website where they show the neighborhood’s highlights.
We’re really excited about this and I think the chances of this going through are 98%. There is a slight chance (2%), that my work visa situation will be an obstacle. But I researched online and there are tons of people with work visas that have gotten mortgages. Things are looking good!
I changed the header pic on http://pedroliska.com from this:
to
I’ve been meaning to change it for over a year! I really looked like an absolute Geek on the old pic, plus the lighting was kinda weird.
The pic I have now is from a biking trail close to home. I might be a bit sweaty but what a view, and i feel represented. I love biking and the outdoors.
You can only have a Google Checkout Donation button if your business “has a legitimate tax exempt status and displays this status publicly”.
I don’t even own a business but I saw a couple of personal webistes out there that had “Donate” buttons powered by Google Checkout so I thought I could pull it off as well. But after my first $45 donation, I got an email from Google saying:
———————–
Hello Pedro,
During a recent review, we found that your website http://pedroliska.com,
accepts donations. In accordance with Google Checkout policies at
http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer=75724, you
may only use Google Checkout to process donations if your business has a
legitimate tax exempt status and displays this status publicly. However,
we were unable to confirm your organization’s tax exempt status.
To avoid suspension of your Google Checkout account, please refrain from
processing donations and remove any Google Checkout Donate buttons from
your website.
Once you have made the appropriate changes, please respond to this email
so we can review your account again.
Please visit
https://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer=75724 for
more information about our content policies.
You may wish to check your website against our Integration Checklist at
https://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer=72125, as
following these guidelines will ensure a positive buyer experience on your
website and will ensure that you are compliant with all of Google
Checkout’s program and content policies.
Sincerely,
Pavani
The Google Checkout Team
———————–
This is how my donation page looked like:
I added the “I’m not a non-profit so this donation is not tax deductible” note because that is what I saw on the other websites; one of which claimed that that made Google feel ok about your donation page.
I’m going to use PayPal now, I think I’ll get this working in the next couple of hours: http://pedroliska.com/donate .
Pedro Liska 