twi.gs

Well, I’ve done it.

I have signed up for an Adsense account and plastered my blog with hideous advertisements.

The server that hosts zzq im and phonese2 is starting to run out of RAM. I can’t add any more RAM to the server pronto dedicated server that I use to host these things because the package I use (AMD Value) maxes out at 512M. I have to upgrade to AMD Power ($70/mo) to pay them money to put some more RAM in it.

At this point I’m thinking it’s going to be better to buy my own server and use their colocation services to host these services. It’s only $35/mo to colocate a server with them so now I just need to come up with the couple grand to buy a real server.

Well the zzq im service isn’t thaat popular and phonese2 isn’t awesome by any means, so I have a hard time justifying $70/mo or $x,xxx for a server (plus a lot to ship) so this is where the ads come in.

Some of my blog posts are popular among the google searches pil on os x for one), so maybe I’ll get a nickle or two.

When phonese3 releases they will probably have ads on them too. I would like to make it last.fm style where you can donate $5/mo to remove the ads from your page for everyone and everyone’s page for you, but that will be a future feature.

Hopefully this will offset some of the cost of the snail like growth zzq is experiencing. If it doesn’t, we’ll have to start harvesting human organs and selling them on the black market in Hong Kong.

Tags: advertising, poor

Today at work we got a Time Capsule for everyone’s backups. While this may not be the best answer for a company back up solution, it’s still better than what most companies I’ve worked for have for backup solutions (read nothing). With the the Time Capsule in plain sight of the glass door, and everyone’s files saved on them, it would be pretty easy for someone to break in, unplug it, and have a copy of every file on everyone’s computer.

There’s a solution to this. Encrypt the sparsebundle images.

• Set up Time Machine to back up to an AFP drive. I don’t think this will work with a local hard drive.
• Let Time Machine start backing up, then stop the back up. This will have created <machine_name>_<mac_address>.sparsebundle on the AFP drive.
• Disable Time Machine.
• Open a Terminal and run these commands:
$ cd /Volumes/<AFP Drive>/
$ mv name_mac.sparsebundle name_mac-old.sparsebundle
$ hdiutil convert -format UDSB -o name_mac.sparsebundle -encryption AES-256 name_mac-old.sparsebundle
  It will ask you for a password. Type in a password you won’t forget.
• Double click the sparsebundle in the GUI. You will be prompted for your password. Type that in and tick the “Remember password” check box.
• Open /Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access and find name_mac.sparsebundle. Right click it and select Copy name_mac.sparsebundle.
• Select System Keychain on the left hand side of Keychain Access and paste it in the main area. Allow this action if you are asked. Remember to lock the System Keychain when you are done.
• Time Machine should not have no problem backing up to the encrypted volume. If everything works as planned, feel free to delete the name_mac-old.sparsebundle

Your backups are now encrypted. How this all pans out in a restore, I don’t know. I reckon a fresh install + the migration assistant is the way you’ll have to restore your computer upon disaster.

Now that you’re all secure, don’t forget those passwords.

If you’re lacking a Time Capsule for yourself, you can get one from MacMall for cheaper than Apple sells them.

Tags: backup, encryption, time capsule, time machine