greentheo

Now that ownCloud has a desktop syncing client, creating reduntant local/remote file systems is easier than ever!

But, perhaps now that you've gotten a tast of backups and redundancy you're reminded that your web servers, your Mac, your EC2 (to a local copy of course) instances and etc. don't have an "ownCloud" or drop box to backup to.

Local servers should be backed up remotely, and remote servers should be backed up locally. Redundancy is your friend in case Amazon explodes or your house catches on fire...you're good to go!

S3

For this setup we're going to assume that Amazon is indeed going to be fairly stable and use their s3 file storage system. It's cheap, reliable and easy to work with.

rsync

If backups are old hat (but perhaps s3 isn't) then you're familiar with rsync.  rsync is a great command line tool which makes incremental and smart synchronization between file systems on unix machines (and there's some windows ports).

But rsync doesn't work directly with s3 sad...

duplicity

Luckily, these smart guys made an rsync like tool which DOES work with s3 (and a host of other file storage services). http://duplicity.nongnu.org/

Using this guide http://icelab.com.au/articles/easy-server-backups-to-amazon-s3-with-duplicity/ we can see that it's quite easy to create a crontabbed backup script.

Here's the code I ended up using for my script.

#!/bin/bash

export PASSPHRASE=your_gpg_passphrase
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your_s3_access_key
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your_s3_secret

export MYSQL_PASSWORD=your_mysql_password

mysqldump -h localhost -u backup_user -p${MYSQL_PASSWORD} --all-databases | gzip > /var/dbdumps/AllDB.sql


duplicity --include /var/www --include /home/usernames --include /var/dbdumps --exclude "**" --full-if-older-than 30D / s3+http://com.mycorp.myhost.backup

Crontab

Then after making it exectuable I added a line to my crontab (crontab -e)

0 0 * * * /path/to/backupScript.sh > /path/to/backupScript.sh.out


and bam... every night we have a backup to my s3, and every 30 days I get a full backup.

I'll report an exact cost... but whatever the cost my mind is now at rest, and that's worth a considerable amount!

Remote to Local

Last supposing you have some remote servers that you want to synchronize locally simply modify script to use ssh, scp or sftp:

duplicity --include /var/www --include /home/usernames --include /var/dbdumps --exclude "**" --full-if-older-than 30D / sftp://username@localaddress/location

That's easy!

At long last, one is no longer beholden to DropBox or hacking away on command line with rsync for a convenient cloud file storage and synchronization service!

While DropBox is a great service, it's not free past 2GB and it's also prone to security flaws.  Simply put, when you give your data to a 3rd party service you increase your risk of compromise.

Owncloud is not quite as easy to setup as DropBox, but given their consistent development it wont be long.  In the mean time follow the steps below to achieve a proprietary DropBox service hosted by you (or a friend).

1. Download and Install ownCloud file server / storage on your Apache or windows server (very simple to setup).
2. Find a webDav client that syncs to a local folder.  On Mac CyberDuck works great, and it's also available on Windows.  Android has a few webDav apps, as does iPhone.
3. CyberDuck or the like wont run in the background so either create a startup script to get it going, do it manually, or wait until the ownCloud Desktop plugin is released.
4. As a bonus, the web interface to ownCloud includes a media player (and I imagine a video player might be forthcomning), giving one the ability to carry their media library with them.

Enjoy!

In the field of solar concentration there are essentially two options... a parabolic reflector or a fresnel type reflector.  Parabolic troughs and dishes are great but often constructing one can be difficult.  Furthermore there is a huge advantage in the simplicity of the flat layout of Fresnel lens.

I wrote the following scripts (fresnelSim.r and reflective_fresnel.r) in R to help calculate what angles and distances to place the reflecting mirrors at given a Focal length and mirror size.  And I made a nice screen cast to help explain it!

The tea party wants to slash government spending and lower taxes.  Thankfully I have some good ideas that even the leftest of the liberals can agree with to help the tea party along in their quest.  However, I say, why stop with government?  Let's cut spending across the nation and with all the money we save lets spend time investing in our communities and fun!

Goats and Sheep for lawn mowers!

Instead of paying for gas and labor to mow the lawn why not let our fuzzy friends do the work for free?

Furthermore, the dung would fertilize and build the soil requiring less water to keep it green.

And while we're at it, how about these low tech low cost solutions?

• White Roofs to lower building cooling costs in the summer.
• Solar Hot water heaters to reduce heating costs not only of water, but the building as well.

Finally got my barrelponics project really working well and thought I'd post a video of it working away.  Haven't gotten any plants in this year, or fish for that matter.  But as spring is springing it's going to be about time.  Can't wait.

Notes on construction:  cost about $50.

• Pump $30
• Various Plumbing $15
• Gravel Free... but going to get it was a pain
• Lumber and cinder blocks, $5 from Resource 2000

The green movement is often chiefly characterized by solar panels, CFL's and Global Warming.  But it's so much more!  I've been working with hydroponics recently and have started reading a great online magazine, Urban Garden Magazine.

This article is a great summary of what being green should stand for, with economic theory to support itself as well!

The interesting thing about local, grain-based currencies was that they lost value over time. The people at the grain store had to be paid, and a certain amount of grain was lost to rain or rodents. So every year, the money would be worth less. This encouraged people to spend it rather than save it. And they did. Late Middle Ages workers were paid more for less work time than at any point in history. Women were taller in England in that era than they are today—an indication of their relative health. People did preventative maintenance on their equipment, and invested in innovation. There was so much extra money looking for productive investment, that people built cathedrals. The great cathedrals of Europe were not paid for with money from the Vatican; they were local investments, made by small towns looking for ways to share their prosperity with future generations by creating tourist attractions.

And you thought being green meant you could just get new light bulbs

Most conservatives think marriage is great because it's traditional and often because it's what their spirituality holds in high esteem.

A liberal likes marriage because it's the ultimate expression of love and choice and also what their spirituality holds in esteem (contrary to popular conservative belief, liberals love the idea of marriage... why else would they be so adamant about giving everyone straight or gay the right to marry?)   .

I like marriage for both reasons...

and...

because it's green.  Think about it... married people carpool a lot.  They live in smaller spaces per person and share most everything (nope... married people don't have two toasters because that would be silly... we're smart and share one!),  And instead of going out and finding things to consume married people are always broke... so they stay home and cook, make gardens, ride bikes and according to TV, on occasion they sit in separate bathtubs and watch the sunset together.

And with combined finances, married people are much more likely to start a local business with 1 person's salary and the other's ingenuity.  Local business is the lifeblood of an economy and is far greener than outsourced economy.

So why do you like marriage?