March 26, 2009 @ 5:23 pm
Anybody who has used The Internet Archive knows that there’s a wealth of information and data stored there that is seemingly unfathomable to the average person. Essentially, it acts as a sort of Time Machine for the web allowing you to view just about any page on the internet beginning around 1996 until now. And even with a few pages missing here and there, the infrastructure needed to hold The Internet Archive together must be pretty impressive.
To show off their robust technologies, Sun Microsystems put together an interactive tour of how they manage to get The Internet Archive up and running smoothly and consistently. By using Sun’s server technology in their Modular Datacenters packed into shipping containers, The Internet Archive is able to continually udpate its database of the web while making sure the past is preserved without any failure or downtime.
A couple of interesting facts:
- The Internet Archive grows at a rate of about 100TB every month.
- The Internet Archive currently fits into one 20-foot shipping container, but additional containers can be added on the fly.
- The Internet Archive database is currently about 3 petabytes in size.
- The Internet Archive is one of the largest (if not the largest) digital archive in the world.
It’s a bunch of nerdy stuff I guess, but you have to admire how crazy and awesome these people must be to want to archive ALL digital data on the internet.
March 7, 2009 @ 8:27 pm
Wow, that initial backup took forever. But after that first one, all of the subsequent backups get finished in no time! I’m really like this Time Machine backup utility. Not only does it do the job it’s supposed to automatically, it also makes the restoring and searching aspect of data recovery fun with its graphical user interface.
If there’s one thing done incredibly well in Leopard, I’d say it’s this. I won’t bother posting a video because YouTube is already chock-full of video demonstrations of the product, so if you really want to see it in action, I suggest you head over there.
March 7, 2009 @ 2:59 pm
Data loss has happened to me twice in the past year and I’m not about to let it happen again. I’m a bit late to the game, but I’m finally taking some steps to make sure I have my data backed up by redundant drives. My teachers would kill me if they knew I was just getting into this now especially since it’s literally been drilled in my head to back up my stuff since the first day of classes.
In any case, I am finally doing it and it’s already giving me some sense of comfort in case anything ever should happen to my main drive (let’s hope not). For the first time ever, I’m making use of Leopard’s built-in Time Machine application and so far it seems to be running smoothly. Although, there’s no way I’ll know for sure until something terrible happens. But from what I hear, it’s as good a backup program as any other one out there. Also, Apple’s demo looks very intriguing.
So here’s hoping that it works as advertised.
January 15, 2009 @ 9:03 pm
Click image to see larger size
According to FlightAware, the status of US Airways flight 1549 — the same flight that crashed today in the Hudson River — is that it has arrived at its destination. I guess it’s half-right, since it also lists LaGuardia Airport as the origin and destination, even though North Carolina was the real intended destination.
And if you look down at the bottom of the FlightAware page (screenshot above), you’ll also see that the plane was only flying for 6 minutes in total before going down.
US Airways on the other hand has simply listed the flight as ‘Status Exception’ and included a phone number for those who may want to call to inquire about family members.
