What are your current obsessions?

[wonder_lander]

My server had a mishmash if disks in it and I use stable bits drive pool to combine and then handle balancing and duplications. Again for speed isn’t the priority and I can choose to place files on more than 2 disks if it’s even more critical to me.

I also have 2 x 200gb iCloud plans for all the images that are captured on our phones. These again are also synced down to my server and swept up into local and other cloud backups.

 

[Edwin]

All this talk of backups usefully reminded me that I hadn't imaged my system disk for ages, so I've taken a snapshot and am now bang up to date.

Worth thinking about, because most backups are all about preserving data, but it can be a pain in the proverbial to have to start reinstalling Windows+software from scratch (although sometimes it's a must to resuscitate a slowing system - thank you, Microsoft!)

 

[wonder_lander]

All this talk of backups usefully reminded me that I hadn't imaged my system disk for ages, so I've taken a snapshot and am now bang up to date.

Worth thinking about, because most backups are all about preserving data, but it can be a pain in the proverbial to have to start reinstalling Windows+software from scratch (although sometimes it's a must to resuscitate a slowing system - thank you, Microsoft!)

That’s what I use Veeam for. Daily images of all pcs and servers to allow bare restores!

 

[RobM]

I tried Backblaze but unfortunately it wanted to back up a lot of stuff I didn't care about and, although I could exclude those bazillion files and directories, I couldn't actually add files I wanted. So I then tried Carbonite - so far so good I got to choose what I backup and it also backs them up as I change them.

 

[martin-s]

Carbonite used to really slow down our test machine. Maybe they've got better.

 

[Edwin]

Carbonite used to really slow down our test machine. Maybe they've got better.

True. Before Mozy before CrashPlan before Backblaze, I now recall having used Carbonite briefly. Gave it up for exactly that reason. But that was years back, so as you say, things may be very different now.

 

[martin-s]

All of this talk about backups has prompted either my dev server's RAID controller or one of its disks to fail

 

[Edwin]

All of this talk about backups has prompted either my dev server's RAID controller or one of its disks to fail

Ouch! Hope you can get it sorted without too much hassle.

 

[wonder_lander]

Just thought I'd give a quick update to this. I've recently added 3 NEST protects to our smart home and also I've done a Magic Mirror install in the kitchen (without the mirror) https://magicmirror.builders/ to give a household overview of 5 google calendars, heating, smoke alarm status, weather and to-do lists.

 

[ian]

Just thought I'd give a quick update to this. I've recently added 3 NEST protects to our smart home and also I've done a Magic Mirror install in the kitchen (without the mirror) https://magicmirror.builders/ to give a household overview of 5 google calendars, heating, smoke alarm status, weather and to-do lists.

Sounds interesting, where did you get the screen itself from and was it easy to integrate with your smart tech?

 

[bonusmedia]

.

 

[wonder_lander]

It’s running on a Raspberry Pi 3 connected to a wall mounted 22” hdmi monitor with speakers. I could swap the screen for a touchscreen but would rather use Alexa integration.

Will post up some pictures tomorrow but a lot of the integration is simply installing 3rd party modules and configuring them. https://github.com/MichMich/MagicMirror/wiki/3rd-Party-Modules

 

[RobM]

Lol all this technology and it's not dog-proof

 

[wonder_lander]

Here's a screen shot from this morning

Top left is a 5 personal Google Calendars merged into one list and colour coded and icons to identify who they are for.
Under that is a dedicated Birthdays Google Calendar
Under that is Tado which we use for our heating and hot water control.

Middle column at the top is the clock and date
Bottom middle is the status of our 3 Nest protects

Top right is a weather module for today and the next few days ahead
Bottom right is a module that pulls a todo list

 

[ian]

Looks super cool, sure I have a spare Pi knocking around (maybe version 2), and have a spare 24" monitor as well. Might see how badly I can fook it up

 

[wonder_lander]

It's pretty straightforward in all honesty.

I've got an MQTT server running on there too and will be looking at introducing some Arduino projects into the mix too

 

[martin-s]

Very cool, nice one. It sits behind your bathroom mirror?

 

[wonder_lander]

Very cool, nice one. It sits behind your bathroom mirror?

That's the original idea from the magic mirror concept but for me it's to be a household "dashboard". Every year we had to re-write out calendars and with 2 children it was difficult to know what was happening and when.

Ours is installed in the kitchen, on the side of a cabinet, but I may well build one for the bathroom too.

 

[wonder_lander]

I've just added a 3 camera Blink XT installation to my setup.

Dead simple to setup and runs off batteries. Got 1 camera covering the front door, one the garage and one over the back door.