I recently heard about JungleDisk (hat tip: Ryan), and decided that might be the backup solution I’ve been looking for.

I’ve got thousands of pictures, hundreds of megabytes of source code, and documents dating back several years, all of which I’d like to ensure I never lose. So far I’ve shied away from all of the online backup solutions due to the expense. But JungleDisk uses Amazon’s S3 service for storage, complete with its rather inexpensive pricing model.

With that pricing model, JungleDisk has the potential to provide most of what I need, and some extras that are quite nice; all at a better price. So far, I’ve looked at two options:

1. Use an online service. Much lower startup cost, but comes with a recurring fee.
2. Build a backup server. This will require at least 1TB of fully redundant storage. I’ll also have to identify software that will meet my needs. Much higher startup cost, but only minimal maintenance costs after that.

JungleDisk has a few upsides, the biggest for me is that I can access it from anywhere that I can install the client, not just when I’m connected to my home network. With a low price, simple, but flexible interface, and a great storage system on the back end – it certainly sounds like a winner.

Though, there are some features I’d like to see, that it doesn’t offer:

• Access to files without installing software.
• Incremental backups. This would make backing up PST and similar files far more reasonable.
• Store multiple versions of a file.
• Compress data before uploading. This would save a fair bit of bandwidth for me, as I backup things such as conversation and chat logs.

Will these missing features be enough to not use the service? I don’t know yet, I’ll give the service a couple weeks to see how it goes. So far I’m fairly impressed, though wish it offered more features.

Once I hit the two week-mark, I’ll post a status update; and my final decision as to whether I’ll continue to use it.

Well, it was a while back that I said I would start writing again – that just never quite happened.

Much interesting has happened in these months, a few co-workers left the company, a few new faces came in; there was also a promotion and a number of new projects. Oh, and there’s a new relationship, and a fair bit of time now going to my old profession and now hobby of photography. Between all of these, spare time isn’t something I have much of – if any.

With all this in mind, many people would give up and walk away – but I see this as being important enough to fight for. It’s a matter of priorities and time management. For a developer, being active in the community is important; it’s easy to be left behind once you find yourself outside the loop. So, I’ll simply have to make community involvement a higher priority than it’s been. As for time management though, the story isn’t so simple.

I’ve been using Tasks (which I highly recommend) for a while now to keep track of what I’m working on, and for that it is quite effective. For time management though, I need to reevaluate how I work completely; find a method that allows me to be as productive as possible. I’ve seen a number of articles, guides, and books on the topic, so I believe I’ve a fair bit of reading in front of me. As I go through this process, I’ll write about my findings, and share any solutions I find.

If anybody has advice on how to make time for everything, I would certainly like to hear it. Hopefully, this time when I say this blog is coming back to life, it actually will.