There's a lot of bailing out going on.

You've probably seen their billboards on the freeway. Do you know what they do? The best online backup for your computer, that's what. They give you 2GB free, or unlimited space for $5 a month. So for half the price of going to the movies (except for you cheap dollar-theater types...like me), you can rest assured that your entire computer is backed up off-site. What do you spend $5 on? Would you be willing to sacrifice that item once a month to ensure that all your files are safe? Say hello to Mozy (http://www.mozy.com).

Installing and backing up for the first time is really easy. I'll outline the steps for doing it on the Mac, but I'm sure Windows is just as easy.

1. Sign up for an account online. If you choose the free route, they don't ask for your credit card, so there are no strings attached.

2. Download the client for your computer.

3. Install the client and then follow the simple steps on the wizard.

4. This step was comforting:


Mozy transfers your files over SSL (a secure connection). You can use a certificate they sign for you. However, if you have your own company or want to be really secure, they let you provide your own certificate. That's a great option for enterprise customers.

5. After running through the setup assistant, you're ready to configure your first backup. This screen lets you easily see how much space is available in your account and how much you're planning on uploading. (Note: I have more than 2 GB because I referred someone, so they gave me extra space. I believe that deal is still going on.)


Mozy provides you with template backup sets, which is convenient if you don't want to hunt through and find what you want to backup. However, this was one of the few things I didn't like about the setup.

The client takes a long time calculating the file size for each of the backup sets. That doesn't bother me, because it's scouring your hard drive for different file types at the same time and summing their file sizes. However, there is no cancel button for this process. I knew fairly quickly what I wanted to backup, and it didn't include my music and photos (they are too big for my free account). I did want to backup my calendar; however, I couldn't proceed with my backup because Mozy hadn't finished calculating how big my calendar is. It was hung up with the other sets I didn't need that it couldn't work on the ones that I wanted.

That being said, it only slowed me down a couple of minutes. Pretty soon everything was calculated and I clicked "Save Configuration."

6. Now it's time to backup your files!


I was pleased to see that Mozy's client utilizes the Growl messaging system.


The initial upload takes a while. Mine's relatively small at 649 MB. I set up another person's computer with an unlimited account and the backup was 160 GB. It took a month to finish the first upload. Luckily, the Mozy client is smart enough to pick up where it left off if the internet connection is dropped during the upload.


Lastly, Mozy leaves you with a menubar icon, just like Time Machine does, which lets you check the status of the backup as well as do important things like....restore lost files.

So far my experience with Mozy has been great. Knock on wood, I haven't needed to restore any files yet. They do have an online interface that lets you get at your files should you be away from your computer and need quick access to something. It's comforting to know, though, that should an emergency happen and I lose my computer and Time Machine backup, I will still have a copy of some my most important files. (Guess now I need to take my own advice and pony up the five bucks a month for unlimited backup.)

As a side note, I've recently found out that Mozy is running two contests right now to promote their product. The first one has prizes like a trip to Hawaii and a MacBook Pro. The other wins you the prize of a sweet t-shirt. Check them out.

If you don't have any type of off-site backup (or any type of backup at all), head over to http://www.mozy.com right now and set up your free account. You'll be amazed at how much piece-of-mind a simple thing like off-site backup can bring you.

I went to my first Utah Drupal Tank meeting last night. This was for the area south of Salt Lake and was the first one held at ODIN Development. Because it was the first meeting for this group, the agenda turned into impromptu discussion based on people's current needs with Drupal. We laid out a gameplan for future meetings and what we'd like to get out of them. Some ideas we came up with were:

• Build a Drupal evangelist site: Use as a marketing tool to sell Drupal to superiors and friends (since we know a person can't be both).
• Sponsoring an orphaned/dead module and bringing it back to life
• Implementing a certain module/technology: rich-text editing (TinyMCE vs FCKEditor), memcache
• Case study on Drupal implementations
• Scalability of Drupal
• Favorite contrib modules

For any Drupal users out there in Utah, head over to the Drupal Group and join. http://groups.drupal.org/utah More Tank meetings will be happening in the future. There was a great turnout at this meeting (15+), so don't fear you'll be the only one there.

The next meeting is scheduled for Jan 13. Normally they will be every month, but we're skipping December due to the holidays.

Facebook made a great move recently. They now let you customize your advertisement experience. If you are one of thousands who have joined groups such as "Sick of Victoria's Secret ads" you can now get rid of them. Here's how it works:

1. Look at the ads to the right. Underneath each ad is a thumbs up / thumbs down.
2. If you like an ad, click thumbs up. If you don't like an ad, click thumbs down.
3. If you chose to give the ad the boot, you'll get this dialog box. They ask you why you don't want to see the ad anymore. Facebook remembers your decisions and serves you ads that fit your style.



4. Just like that, the ad is gone and a new one has appeared in its place. Finally, I don't have to hear about girls in Provo who want to meet me anymore.

Thanks, Facebook. Now my weekly trip to your site will be much more enjoyable.

My first iPhone application went live today. Took about two weeks for app approval and another two weeks the publishing contract's approval. Needless to say, I'm thrilled. The app is free for now.

Check out the app in iTunes here: http://linktoapp.com/scripture+challenge

If you have an iPhone/iPod Touch download it and try it out. Let me know what you think and leave a review on iTunes.

Drupal is one of the greatest Content Management Systems (CMS) in existence. It's ideal for setting up dynamic community websites. However, it is seriously lacking in one area in which it shouldn't. Blogs.

Blogging is the killer app that has thrust people into online communities. It gave common people a voice which has created a paradigm shift in traditional journalism. WordPress and Blogger provide super easy platforms that allow non-techie people to set up a blog and post images, videos, and more. When is Drupal going to get on board?

Drupal allows for the easy creation of a blog for every user on the site. That is wonderful. However, actually posting to that blog feels like something from 1997. Click "Create Blog Entry" and you're greeted with two text boxes and a submit button. For real?

Here are some features I would love to see integrated into the/a blog module in Drupal:

• Save draft of post. I'm sick of typing up my posts in TextEdit for fear of accidentally changing pages and losing everything (which has already happened.)
• WYSIWYG editing/Rich text formatting. Users shouldn't have to know HTML to achieve this.
• Upload media and display inline with text. Again, users should have to know how to write an img tag. They want to click "Browse", "Upload", and have the image show up in their post.

That would be good enough for now.

Is MySpace losing out to Facebook? I have an account on both sites, have for years, but I only check Facebook regularly. I hop on MySpace maybe once a quarter, and every time I do, there are friend requests pending from random people from my past...and future.

Today I decided to login to MySpace and see if anyone has requested to be my friend. The last time I did this was about five months ago. To my surprise, I had no friend requests. I boiled this surprise down to three possible explanations:

1. MySpace deletes Friend Requests after a period of time
2. I have made all the friends I can in this world
3. MySpace has become pretty lame and people are using Facebook more

We can just throw out option #2 right away...I mean, come on. #1 is a possibility. However, I think #3 is the most likely. I see plenty of headlines about Facebook, but very little about MySpace anymore. While MySpace was hooking teenage boys up as friends with porn stars, Facebook was developing a deep API platform that has allowed them to expand beyond the bounds of their original, dastardly skinny 800px wide frame.

Any thoughts? Is MySpace losing ground to Facebook? Will it still be a major player two years down the road?