We are back

We are back after testing out our data resilience backup plan. I was uploading the new version of this site and my laptop's hard drive died mid way through!

I put up an offline index.html page and walked away for a couple of weeks because my wife and I ended up having a baby on the same day.

I felt no rush to get back online and it did feel good to be unplugged for a little while ;)

Tech Recovery Details

I used an external hard drive enclosure to interface with my unbootable hard drive to another working system. The case is IDE and SATA compatable, so if you ever find yourself in the situation where you need to try and access a dead drive the external enclosure is your friend. You can use another desktop to do the same, but then you will have to open the case and be sure you are not carrying a static charge when you reach in with your wool sweater!!

Another thing to be aware of, if you have an operating system link Windows that will try and "fix" your broken drive, is to be sure to plug the external dive into the system AFTER you have booted up! If you don't and are running Windows, the chkdsk program will try and fix your data, which may wreck things further.

I was lucky that I was able to get most of my data from the drive and only lost some archived emails that I have had since 2007. Yes, I am a digital horder!

One big saviour for me was that I use a repository for all of my clients and work that I do. I use Subversion for all of that and my information is stored on at least one other system. THIS was KEY for me to be up and running in a day and most of my effort went into installing all my favourite applications. I think I will create a new repository for my archived emails for next time this happens.

UHS Site Updates:

What I was doing just after my baby girl was being born was multi-tasking, and yes I know I should not have been on the computer at that time, but I knew that that was my last chance and I wanted to get things done.... lesson learned: next time just stay offline and only make major changes to a site when you have the time to focus completely on it. In my defence I knew the upload would take a bit and I like to keep my computers working on tasks when I am away, I was also trying to send out pictures of Baby Samantha to relatives..... anyways back to the site updates:

The new site will have more images and examples of urban homesteading that I am hoping will inspire you. While attending my Permaculture Design Certificate course at O.U.R. Ecovillage, I took some photos of some very hardworking and inspiring folks and their urbanhomesteading projects in Victoria, BC. There are many permaculture projects that are springing up all me and I am super excited and comforted by that fact.

I am also working with a great group of folks at Transition Cowichan and will be posting my personal thoughts on various transition topics. Ironically, one of those topics is data and knowledge resilience in our "knowledge" based society.

Take it easy and happy transitioning!

Cheers, Tim (TNT) Taylor