Month: May 2011

The Burden of files

Okay, there’s a lot of problems:

• Backing up your files is a pain in the butt.
• Every time you upgrade your system, either in-place or a fresh install, it is a royal hassle to restore your files.
• That file looks great on your laptop, but how do you show it to a colleague not sitting next to you easily? Ughh.
• You upload files to a random directory on some web server you have some space on, quickly to show an idea to someone. Fast-forward some time, and you’ve got disorganized, poorly-named files scattered across multiple shell / other accounts all over the web, and you’re not sure what you have a copy of where, or which ones are being referred to from other places, so you’re terrified to delete any of them.
• Well, crap. You’ve made a mistake. You can’t go back, can you? No version control…

I think we all know these problems pretty well. I’ve built a solution using Fedora and Sparkleshare – completely free and open source software – that over the past week has addressed all of these issues and has substantially improved the quality of my computing life. It backs my work files up to an internal corporate server and it backs my Fedora files up to a Fedora-maintained public server. I’m planning to configure it to back up some personal files to my Dreamhost account and some to my NAS at home.