Top 5 Tech Purchases For 2010—#4

Acronis True Image Home.

Yes, I know #5 was also a backup solution. What can I say? Backup is important.

Unlike Crashplan, Acronis True Image does full system backups. Once set up the system runs in complete “set it and forget it” mode. You can tell it how long to keep backups around, how often to run them, etc. It does a mix of full, incremental, and differential backups to minimize space requirements and maximize reliability. Like Crashplan and Carbonite, Acronis does have an Online Backup offering. It’s pricey, though, at $50/yr. for a mere 250 GB of storage. Need more than that and you’ll probably want to do some combination of Acronis and Crashplan. And now you see why they’re both on the list.

True Image has a continuous method too, that seems to be incredibly quick and doesn’t chew up your disk space.

I did have some problems with it not pruning old backups automatically for me, but I recently got an updated version (updates come down automatically), and the problem seems to have been resolved. The real problem for me is that I have so much data that needs to be backed up, and my external backup drive is only 2 TB. That doesn’t allow for many backup versions to be stored. I think I’d be ok with a 4 or 5 TB drive, but those just aren’t available. If you’re not a disk hog like me, you should be fine.

Acronis also offers a family pack which contains three licenses for Acronis True Image. The current pricing for this is $60 which is a great deal. Deal expires today, though.

Pros:

• Set it and forget it
• System backup
• Continuous option
• Automatic updates
• Automatic pruning of backup sets

Cons:

• Offsite storage is pricey and limited in size.

Top 5 Tech Purchases for 2010–#5

CrashPlan.

If you watch FNC or other cable programming, you’ve likely seen ads for Carbonite. I think they advertise on Rush, too.

Well, no offense to El Rushbo, but Crashplan is better and cheaper than Carbonite. They offer a similar service, an online backup mechanism.

One advantage Crashplan offers over Carbonite is that you don’t have to use Crashplan’s servers. You can back up to any machine that has Crashplan installed. So, if you have several computers at home, you can have them all back up to each other. This gives you some reliability, but you’re still in trouble if your house burns down. But Crashplan allows keycodes to be exchanged between its users, and you can backup to anywhere if you have the appropriate keycodes. Thus, if your friend or relative has Crashplan, you can exchange backups there, as well, thus giving you the offsite security necessary for a true backup system.

The cost of all this? $0. Crashplan is completely free as long as you don’t use their servers. But even if you do, it’s cheaper than Carbonite. Carbonite costs $55/yr. per computer. Crashplan’s per computer price is $50/yr., and $120/yr. gets you every computer in your house. Multi-year discounts are available cutting the price even more. This cost is for unlimited data. That’s important when comparing Crashplan and Carbonite with other online storage. Many companies charge you based upon data size. Also, the non-free version of the app has a few more features, such as continuous backups, which can be nice.

In a nutshell:

Pros:

• Price. It’s hard to beat free, and even their $$ offerings are cheaper than the competition.
• Offsite storage
• Version archives. Crashplan allows you to keep as many versions of a file as you want. You also can recover deleted files, and set a time frame for how long deleted files are kept in the archive.
• Paid version can be set to run continuously or to exclude certain times of the day
• CPU/Bandwidth throttles

Cons:

• Crashplan is a file backup, not a system backup. You can’t use it to backup your applications and system settings.
• Crashplan works by doing an initial seed of everything in your backup folders, and then looking for differences. If your initial seed is large (mine was several hundred GB), this may take a while. And by a while, I mean weeks. It ain’t incredibly speedy on restores, either. Plan on spending at least a day or two restoring your data, longer if the data is offsite or very large.

The Streak Is Over

Rats. I was hoping they would make it to 100.

The UConn women lost last night to Stanford, 71-59. This after 90 consecutive wins. Stanford was the last team to beat UConn before the streak as well. Coincidentally, this is exactly what happened with the UCLA men’s 88 game streak in the 70s. Notre Dame was the last team to beat them, and the team that ended the streak as well.

They have seemed a little less dominant this season, so this is probably not surprising, just disappointing for them and their fans. I don’t rate the women’s teams with my computer, so I can’t add data which supports my opinion. Maybe I’ll add that in sometime.

Anyway, hats off to UConn and to Stanford. And good luck to both teams as the season moves forward.

GOP Unveils New House Rules

Read here or here.

There’s some good stuff here and some fluff. Former members can’t use the House gym? I suppose that’s to keep lobbying out of the House, but it seems like window dressing to me.

Reading of the Constitution? Photo op. Blegh.

I like the separate vote on raising the debt ceiling, but there’s no doubt that’s going to be contentious.

But the stuff about committee roll calls, committee votes, and making the text of the bills public all sounds great.

I like the idea of CUT/GO, but then I like PAY/GO too.

Let me repeat. All of that sounds great.

We heard similar things before the start of the 111th Congress. The Democrats repeatedly ignored their own rules. If PAY/GO had been enforced, almost nothing the 111th House did would have ever been passed. We’ll see how the GOP House does. I remain skeptical.

I give it a tentative thumbs up, but will state again something I’ve been saying for months and expect to say often over the next two years.

Actions speak louder than words, GOP. If you think of this as a second chance, you’re wrong. It’s your last chance.

Merry Christmas

And God Bless Us Everyone!

(and I’m not even going to apologize for not being PC)

About That Census

There’s the pic showing who gained and who lost. In short, the GOP. With such a map, Bush would have won 2004 without OH. Also, 2000 would not have appeared nearly as close in EVs, giving Bush a victory 285-253. However, he still would have needed FL.

As Jim Geraghty points out, if we’re looking at a battleground state type of Presidential election in 2012, the GOP is starting with a base of about 248 EVs. Obviously, that’s not going to be the case if Obama wins by 7 points or more again. In such an election, the GOP candidate will lose some of those 248. But in a close one, the GOP candidate would only need 22 votes from the battlegrounds:

Those 22 votes could be won in a variety of ways, but the most likely scenario would appear to be Ohio (18 electoral votes) and any other state (Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania).

Right now (things can change a lot in 2 years), OH looks like it should be pretty solidly red, so President Barack Obama (D-USA) will have to hold serve in all of IA, NM, CO, NV, NH, WI, and PA.

We will definitely look at this again, and look at which GOP candidates might fare best in those states.

Congratulations to UConn Lady Huskies

Yesterday they won their 89th straight game, defeating the 20th ranked Florida State Seminoles 93-62. The Division I record was 88, long held by UCLA, whose streak ended to Notre Dame in 1974.

The word “dominant” barely describes the Huskies during the last 89 games, winning only 2 games by less than 10. Their average margin of victory against teams ranked in the top 25 is over 20 points. They have annihilated the competition at every turn, and barely been challenged. And it’s not like they’ve been ducking the competition. Some victories of note:

12/21/2010 vs. #20 Florida State: 93-62
12/19/2010 vs. #10 Ohio State: 81-50
11/16/2010 vs. #2 Baylor: 65-64 (a close one, but keep reading)
4/6/2010 vs. #2 Stanford: 53-47 (their only other close game, for the national title)
4/4/2010 vs. #14 Baylor: 70-50
3/30/2010 vs. #11 Florida State: 90-50
3/28/2010 vs. #16 Iowa State: 74-36
3/9/2010 vs. #8 West Virginia: 60-32
3/8/2010 vs. #7 Notre Dame: 59-44
3/1/2010 @ #7 Notre Dame: 76-51
2/15/2010 @ #12 Oklahoma: 76-60
2/13/2010 vs. #24 St. John’s: 66-52
2/2/2010 @ #8 West Virginia: 80-47
1/18/2010 @ #7 Duke: 81-48
1/16/2010 vs. #3 Notre Dame: 70-46
1/9/2010 vs. #7 North Carolina: 88-47
12/28/2009 @ #11 Florida State: 78-59
12/23/2009 vs. #2 Stanford: 80-68
11/17/2009 @ #13 Texas: 83-58
4/7/2009 vs. #7 Louisville: 76-54 (national title)
4/5/2009 vs. #2 Stanford: 83-64
3/31/2009 vs. #19 Arizona State: 83-64
3/29/2009 vs. #13 California: 77-53
3/24/2009 vs. #22 Florida: 87-59
3/10/2009 vs. #7 Louisville: 75-36
2/22/2009 vs. #24 Notre Dame: 76-66
2/15/2009 vs. #23 Pittsburgh: 95-42
1/26/2009 vs. #10 Louisville: 93-65
1/19/2009 @ #2 North Carolina: 88-58
11/30/2009 vs. #4 Oklahoma: 106-78

These are scores that you usually see between the #1 seed and the #16 seed in the NCAA tourney, not in games between teams in the top 25. Of the 89 games, one third of them, 30, were against ranked teams. Average score for those games? 79-54.

For comparison, let’s look at this season’s #1 men’s team, the Duke Blue Devils. They are currently 11-0 and have won 7 games by 25 points. Here’s the list:

11/14/2010 vs. Princeton: 97-60
11/16/2010 vs. Miami OH: 79-45
11/19/2010 vs. Colgate: 110-58
11/22/2010 vs. Oregon: 98-71
12/8/2010 vs. Bradley: 83-48
12/11/2010 vs. St. Louis: 84-47
12/20/2010 vs. Elon: 98-72

Not exactly murderer’s row. Their two games against ranked competition?

11/23/2010 vs. #4 Kansas State: 82-68
12/1/2010 vs. #6 Michigan State: 84-79

You often hear sports commentators say things like “we’ll never see anything like this again.” In the Huskies case, that may actually be true. It’s hard to imagine any team being this dominant.

Thank God For The FCC

Yesterday, the FCC voted 3-2 to approve “new rules meant to prohibit broadband companies from interfering with Internet traffic flowing to their customers”. This despite a shot across the bow from the Senate GOP reminding the FCC that they have no such authority to enact such regulations.

You and the Commission’s general counsel have admitted in published statements that the legal justification for imposing these new regulations is questionable and “has a serious risk of failure in court.” It is very clear that Congress has not granted the Commission the specific statutory authority to do what you are proposing. Whether and how the Internet should be regulated is something that America’s elected representatives in Congress, not the Commission, should determine.

So, I say again, thank God for the FCC. We need more corrupt over-reaching executive agencies  to protect our country from freedom and free enterprise. Now if we can get the EPA to step in and turn us all into green, global warming fearing hippies, we’ll be be set for life.

In fairness, this decision was not as bad as it could have been. Chairman Genachowski backed down from some of his most unreasonable demands, such as not allowing tiered pricing for high speed access or pricing based upon data use.

But still, these regulations do require business to act against their own best self-interest, and that kind of thing is always good for consumers and free enterprise. Oh wait. I meant never good, not always good.

The good news? This likely isn’t going anywhere. The Senate GOP is correct that the FCC doesn’t have this authority, and the Roberts court will surely rule that way if given a chance. So, expect in the next few days or weeks for someone to file a court challenge against the new rules. The court challenge will lead to an injunction against the FCC until the case is ultimately decided. So, we’ll sit around for two years waiting for this case to make its way to the Supreme Court, where it will be shot down.

Might actually turn out to be a boon for the GOP, in that it may become a campaign issue for 2012, depending on what rumors we’re hearing then about impending Justice retirements.

Sarah Palin Hits One Out Of The Park

Actually, we’re still waiting for it to land.

Sarah penned an article for the Wall Street Journal last week (yes, I’m behind on my reading, but I’m catching up. It discusses the reports on the Presidential Commission on Fiscal Responsibility.

The publication of the findings of the president's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform was indeed, as the report was titled, "A Moment of Truth." The report shows we're much closer to the budgetary breaking point than previously assumed. The Medicare Trust Fund will be insolvent by 2017. As early as 2025, federal revenue will barely be enough to pay for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and interest on our national debt. With spending structurally outpacing revenue, something clearly needs to be done to avert national bankruptcy.

Of course, the commission, working under a Democratic administration, could not figure out what to do about this problem. It mentioned making cuts in defense, but neglected to even discuss costly new entitlement programs (e.g. ObamaCare) favored by the administration. In fact, its recommendations would lead to an expansion of ObamaCare, not a cut back (how that’s supposed to save money is a question left unanswered).

Palin brings up the plan presented by Paul Ryan (R-WI-01) last year which he calls the Roadmap for America’s Future. There are a few things in the Roadmap that I’m not in favor of, but on the whole, it’s something I can support. As Palin says:

On health care, it would replace ObamaCare with a new system in which people are given greater control over their own health-care spending. It achieves this partly through creating medical savings accounts and a new health-care tax credit—the only tax credit that would be left in a radically simplified new income tax system that people can opt into if they wish.

The Roadmap would also replace our high and anticompetitive corporate income tax with a business consumption tax of just 8.5%. The overall tax burden would be limited to 19% of GDP (compared to 21% under the deficit commission's proposals).

Obviously I’m happy about the removal of the corporate income tax. And I’ve said many times that I believe that some sort of consumption tax is not only inevitable, but necessary, for this country to succeed in the 21st century.

What does the CBO say about the Roadmap? Emphasis mine.

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Roadmap would lead to lower deficits and a much lower federal debt. The CBO estimates that under current spending plans, our federal debt would rise to 87% of GDP by 2020, to 223% by 2040, and to 433% by 2060. Under Rep. Ryan's Roadmap, the CBO estimates that debt would rise much more slowly, peaking at 99% in 2040 and then dropping back to 77% by 2060.

Put simply: Our country is on the path toward bankruptcy. We must turn around before it's too late, and the Roadmap offers a clear plan for doing so. But it does more than just fend off disaster. CBO calculations show that the Roadmap would also help create a "much more favorable macroeconomic outlook" for the next half-century. The CBO estimates that under the Roadmap, by 2058 per-person GDP would be around 70% higher than the current trend.

And Mrs. Palin summarizes it perfectly.

Let's not settle for the big-government status quo, which is what the president's commission offers. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to make these tough decisions so that they might inherit a prosperous and strong America like the one we were given.

Sorry for quoting so much this time. It’s just that I agreed so closely with what she said. I also apologize for once again posting Palin’s words on this topic rather than Romney’s or Huckabee’s or one of the other 2012 Republican contenders.

When they write something meaningful, I’ll quote them. Until then, you and I are still waiting.

Today’s A Big Day For Congress

No, not because of expected votes.

And not because they’re going to adjourn.

And not because they’re holding a hearing or a press conference.

Today the Census results will be released.

Today we will know which states gain seats in the House, and which states lose. This also affects the Electoral College and the 2012 Presidential election.

From Jamie Dupree:

The biggest change is expected to be in Texas, which is forecast to get three or maybe four extra seats in the House.
"They're going to be the big winners," said Kimball Brace of Election Data Services, a company that specializes in how the Census will change the makeup of Congress.
The big losers could be Ohio and New York, which could both see a loss of two seats, more evidence of the American transition away from the Rust Belt and into the Sun Belt.

I haven’t made much note of it, but one of the lesser talked about issues of the 2010 election was the gains Republicans made in state legislatures all over the country. The state legislatures will re-draw the district lines and eliminate districts as necessary. You can be sure that the party in power will eliminate a district controlled by the other party.

Personally I’m against this sort of gerrymandering, and prefer rectangular districts based upon population density, but that’s a topic for another post.

Anyway, you play by the rules you have and with the cards you’re dealt. Right now the rules and the cards appear to favor the Republicans.

Stay tuned.