Persistent Inappeasable Mind

How to create an interface with 4 different states and fail

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 08:15:00 +0000

I would really like to say the opposite but some big companies (on at least some of their projects) still don't care much about usability tests. At least it seams so.

Take for example this USB dongle modem and its software. When I first plugged the modem in it took me about 40 minutes to upgrade the firmware even if the dongle was brand new from the mobile provider's shop. Yes, I didn't make a mistake - 40 minutes. It needed 5 firmware updates and upgrades. At the end I installed the modem software and I was done. The modem software is really simple and has only 4 stages which can be seen below on the 4 screen shots.

1. Disconnected stage (in this state the application is waiting for the user to click on Click to connect button):

2. Connecting stage (while connecting a user can click on the Cancel button to cancel the connecting process):

3. Connected stage (when connected a user can only disconnect by clicking on a Disconnect button):

4. Disconnecting stage (when disconnecting a Disconnect button is still active and can be clicked):

The fourth state has a problem. The disconnecting process takes around 15 seconds (sometimes even more). If during this process the Disconnect button is clicked again, it remembers the click and after disconnection it connects again. Note that only the text 3UK by the signal scale changes to Disconnecting ... when changing from the 3rd to the 4th stage. The state of the modem field (Connected) stays the same and is really hard to see the change. Needless to say that at first I clicked the Disconnect button and after while the application went crazy. Disabling the button while disconnecting would solve the problem.

Note also how the text by the signal scale and above the button changes in 4 stages:

1st stage	2nd stage	3rd stage	4th stage
3UK	Authenticating	3UK	Disconnecting
Service available	Connecting	Connected	Connected

Why are Service available, Connecting, Authenticating, Connected and Disconnecting on different parts of the interface if they show the state of the modem is beyond my understanding.

1st state: Service of 3UK is available
2nd state: While connecting it has to authenticate (does the user need to know this information)
Changing Authenticating to 3UK would not hurt anyone as Authenticating is not really informative here
3rd state: The modem is connected to 3UK network
4th state: While modem is connected it tries to disconnect (Italians would say: "Ma non mi dire ..." isn't this obvious)
Changing Disconnecting to 3UK and
Changing Connected to Disconnecting would provide more consistency to the interface.

This way the text by the signal scale would show just available mobile network and its type while the field above the button would show the state of the modem. If authentication would for example fail it would be nice to get the message in red in this field above the button (close to where the focus is when clicking it). A user would expect messages of the modem state to appear always in the same field and not on two as it is done now.

The answer to the title question: simple!

Gesture interfaces - are we ready?

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:10:00 +0000

Gesture interfaces are nothing new. They come alive once in a while with a use of new technologies. Technologies used so far were cameras (regular, depth, stereo), sound in a way (like clapping sound switches (Wikipedia) for switching on and off the light) or different wearable controls like glows. While cameras have been long used for research of gestural interfaces, they are also moving to consumers products (remember Toshiba's TV from 2008 (video on You Tube)). Researchers at MIT turned the whole TV into a camera. The same lab developed also the wearable Sixth Sense (video on You Tube). But these are only a few products in a sea of gestural interfaces.

Now there's a new way to track user's movement with ultrasound.

There's certainly the market for gestural interfaces like video games for example or some short termed interactions (Dart Vader uses gestural movement to strangle people - why is he using his hands if he can do it with his minds anyway?). But there are still some problems that haven't been answered or overcame yet:

Gestural interfaces can not be used for long periods of time as waving hands in the air is not so easy. Gorilla arm (Wikipedia) effect was long known to be a problem on touch screens and all gestural interfaces.
Another problem is misinterpreting gestures. I can not picture myself being still while watching TV. Or waving to someone and change the program I was watching without wanting it :).

None the less gestures are used in everyday applications. Mouse gestures for example are popular in some web browsers (Wikipedia). Then we have trackpads that recognize gestures (Apple.com). And of course already mentioned touch screens that found its niche in info kiosks, ATMs (cashing machines), bars and supermarket cash registers, smartphones, PDA's and even keyboards (You Tube video) to name just a few. There are also projected interfaces used in consumer products (e.g. keyboard (Wikipedia)) which are a bit more specific gesture interfaces compared to first mentioned camera recognized movements.

Looking at all these technologies (and how "intuitive" they are?) it seams that there is still life ahead for standard keyboards and computer mice (or trackpads) :).

Wordle - Tags

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:50:00 +0000

Ever tried categorizing information by tags? Tags have become popular with folksonomies - when people started collaboratively taging and classifying almost any imaginable content online. Flickr, del.icio.us, Knowledge Plaza, Jumper 2.0, CiteULike, Connotea, BibSonomy, refbase, discogs.com, imdb.com, LibraryThing, IBM Dogear, Connectbeam to name just a few.

A lot of people advocate tagging as a better organizational structure over hierarchies. Rashmi for example has a nice blog post about how tagging results in lower cognitive effort in comparison to hierarchy categorizing. Tagging also allows information items to reside in more than one category which is not possible in a file hierarchy for example (shortcuts, soft links, name them are not the answer for most users, if not all). A nice paper covering social tagging is Usage patterns of collaborative tagging systems by Scott A. Golder and Bernardo A. Huberman.

But tagging has its disadvantages as well. First of them is the lack of standard set of keywords, misspelling, words with more than one meaning, synonims, ... and spam as well (only social tagging). It was also found that when tagging is used to categorize personal information it often results in keyword tagging. A good study of tagging versus filing of personal information (email in this example) is Better to organize personal information by folders or by tags?: The devil is in the details by Civan et al. Tags have been implemented in file hierarchy as well (TagFS) but it was also found out that people do not find their information faster if it is organized by tags, folders or in a hybrid system.

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Ever wondered what your web site TAGS would look like? Try Wordle. It is not rocket science. It does a word count on an URL, copied text or del.icio.us tags. And it visualize them as an word sketch where words with higher counts are presented with larger font.

Here's how my blog's first page looks like:

Too much information and avoidance of unpleasantness

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:10:00 +0000

I came across an interesting article about how too much information makes us avoid unpleasant and uncomfortable issues. An example the author gives is one of the recent Time magazine covers with 18 years old Afghan girl whose nose and ears have been cut off as ruled by a local Taliban judge. This Time's cover story has for example not reached high media coverage like the story of a flight attendant (steward) who got feed up with a rude passenger.

The idea behind the article is that with too much information around us we are more likely to filter out and avoid such news while our sensors will remain focused on light news we feel comfortable with. We are more likely to miss the whole picture of the world and focus on stories that are not a threat to the humanity.

There might be other reasons (besides information overflow) why our societies avoid such news:

In the past (before Internet age) such news were less likely to come to us and maybe we still do not care much about places far from us. My grandma used to say that there are too many bad things going on in the world after watching news on the TV every day and that she will not watch news anymore. I always replied that this kind of stories were not shown on the TV a few years ago, and if she doesn't like them just avoid them and stick to her old habits.
Media has become more and more driven by capitalism and politics, that even in the so called developed world where the right of speech is thought of as one of the main rights, it might not be so. We might be bombarded with so much unimportant stories to divert our focus from serious issues to more pleasant stories. Military has also become more skilled with media wars as they were in the past!
There are also so many people that try to exploit every possible people's tragedy and natural disasters with fake news and fake money raising web sites, and fake people going from door to door that we maybe try to avoid scamming (or not care about these stories). I still receive emails about the same people that had an incurable cancer 10 years ago. And even if we donate goods to "right" organizations often these goods do not reach the people in need.
Maybe we are just to fearful (and a bit selfish). Although I would not like to say this but we are likely to avoid serious issues even in our close vicinity. I was listening to a BBC radio 2 show a few months ago about how to help friends who were diagnosed with a lethal disease and so many people called in to tell first hand stories of how they avoided their friends in the time of need and were later very sorry (often too late).
A also read a study about how people tend to rely on news from newspapers, TV channels and web sites that are in favor of their political party, vision of the life, world and such. We do this to be more happy as we are likely to be more happy to read a news story that we like than the news we dislike - which has nothing to do with information overflow.

Maybe there are other reasons as well. But on the other hand we do not fear horror movies, violence and blood in Hollywood mainstream production. Is is because we know these are not true stories? Maybe.

Overall I still think a lot of people do not avoid this kind of stories. To have a bigger picture of e.g. the war in Afghanistan we do have to get information from various sources (even the mentioned NPR article) with different insights and opinions (do not fear opinionated stories). We cannot be well informed if we do rely on one source of information only. This is why information overflow on the web is also good. And this is why reading comments on stories is good as well (Web 2.0 really changed the way information is delivered and disseminated). Who wants to get well informed has a chance to do so, while others will remain focused on whatever they think is important to them. We have options and this is what matters. Even if we miss a TIme's cover we can still know (or think to know) the whole picture of the war in Afghanistan.

Hipmunk - the new approach in searching for cheap flights

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:24:05 +0000

We all like to fly cheap. And to find cheap flights a lot of us use flight search web sites. Sites like Expedia and SkyScanner are very popular. But all return results on the list like in the below examples:

Figure 1: Expedia

Figure 2: SkyScanner

It is sometimes very difficult to visualize the flight and compare it with other flights based on takeoff and landing time, the amount of time of the whole trip and other flights that might be available from near airports. I always check for example flights from Venice, Treviso, Ljubljana, Trieste and Pula to Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and London. And then all these routes on different dates. It takes some time to find the cheapest available route.

An answer to such queries can be the new flight search engine Hipmunk. It automatically includes the nearby airports, visualizes time and transfers while all different searches can be held in tabs. On the below example I searched for the flight from Trieste to Liverpool and got results from several other airports in nearby vicinity.

Figure 3: Hipmunk

The only thing I'm missing is to be able to look a few days before and after the selected date. I can do this in a new tab but I have to enter all data again for each date. SkyScanner for example (see Figure 2) allows users to change the date by one day with clicking on left and right arrows around the date. Ryanair for example shows a weekly overview of all the flights from and to choosen airports as can be seen on the picture below.

Figure 4: Ryanair

Other than this Hipmunk really is a nice search engine for the cheap flights. Looking forward for improvements.

EDIT: There's Matrix 2 software of ITA (you might have heard of it because it was bought by Google recently). Besides a list view they provide monthly view of flights as well.

Figure 4: Matrix 2

PS: The searches I did do not make much sense. There are no direct flights from Trieste to Liverpool. There are direct flights to Liverpool from Treviso airport which is the closest to Trieste. Or from Trieste to Birmingham.

PSS: It is also worth checking the web sites of air companies to get some special deals :).

Taps 4

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 11:25:00 +0000

Another tap. This one is a mixed tap and it's of a nice shape. The reason it is mentioned here is its cold/hot water signs which are not visible in a "washing hands position". The blue/red sing is visible only if someone bows and bothers to look under the handle. Which doesn't really make sense - but I did it because I was wondering .... :)

RSS problems

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 09:55:23 +0000

For all of you who read my blog via RSS:

I apologize that all the past posts were marked as unread today. I'm doing a personal research about tags on my blog and I had to install a new plug-in for the blog software I'm using (Serendipity). And I had to update all posts which caused them to reaper in RSS clients.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

How to make a weather forecast interesting

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

... if the weather does not change much?

I use this really nice application which makes me laugh almost every time I check the forecast. But I would guess this was not the authors intention. The software uses external forecast provider. Showing weather together by consecutive days shows the great imagination of whoever writes forecasts.

PS: I won't tell you who provides the forecast. But the application's name is Weather Vane.

3 confusing recycling boxes

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:27:00 +0000

We have three boxes to recycle litter:

Green box with yellow lid: cardboard & glass bottles, jrs
Green box with yellow lid: paper, newspapers, & cans, tins & milk bottle tops
Black box with red lid: plastic bottles

I don't mind recycling. Actually I like recycling because I makes me feel a better person. I had 7 boxes in Sweden to recycle almost everything: cardboard, paper, colored glass, transparent glass, hard plastic, soft plastic, wood and similar hardware. But each one had its own litter box with a picture of what goes inside.

Now I have two identical boxes and no sign of what goes in. Lets look at the example that often happens to me. Every two weeks the boxes are emptied. I know that the plastic goes in the black one. If I want to put in some paper I choose one of the yellow boxes. Then I want to put in some cardboard and I have to check which one is empty. I want to put in some glass later, I have to check the leaflet (which is now hanged on the door to the backyard where the boxes are) if it goes with paper or cardboard and I have to find out in which of the two boxes contains cardboard. An so on. So every time I first check the leaflet to see what goes where and then I have to find the proper yellow lid.

It might be only me but I really think it's stupid to go through this process every time. I thought of simplifying the procedure with writing or drawing a picture on the lid of what goes in the box. But none of the neighbors has done something similar and I'm not sure if I can do it (city council's property). Then I decided to have paper in the left and cardboard in the right box. But I can't never remember what I have decided and mix the two again and again. So I gave up.

Thankfully, city council has come to help me. As of August they changed the rules:

Green box with yellow lid: Plastic bottles, tins, cans, glass bottles and jars
Black box with red lid: Newspapers, magazines, office paper, junk mail, cardboard, catalogues and telephone directories

There will be only two boxes of different color and lids :). Ta!

PIM - Personal Information Management

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:13:00 +0000

The reason I haven't written any posts in the last week is because I have put together a resource page for Personal Information Management.

PIM Resources

I have long thought of how to put together a central resource of PIM research, theory and sources. First I tried to incorporate it in this blog. But it soon grow too big. Then I made a standalone HTML page but it grew too big again. Then I decided to make it available as a Wiki since there are few resource pages about PIM but are either old or not resourceful. Because I couldn't edit these sites I decided to make one myself and let anyone edit it. Everyone who is interested in contributing/editing/administrating this site is welcomed to do so.

There is also a page listing several PIM research prototypes and is (as just mentioned Wiki) a work in progress.

Tab Candy - Aza's new ideas

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 11:14:52 +0000

Horizontal/Linear tabs at the top of a browser were for many users not enough anymore (at least for me, my wife, Andy and Aza). In times when we used browsers with no tabs we had to find other ways for keeping all task related URL's together since the windows toolbar could become cluttered in minutes and other opened applications soon became lost between all browser's windows. Then the general public was introduced to tabbed browsing with Firefox. To be precise, Firefox was not the first browser with tabs but it was one of the things that helped its popularity. It even forced IE 7 to introduce tabs as well even if its developers were asserting us that tabs are no future at the beginning of the development process.

With computer screens expanding horizontally instead of vertically I wanted to get some use of this space. I found a nice extension called Tree style tab which lets me organize my tabs on the right side of my browser window. I got some more space vertically and I have currently cca. 30 tabs opened and I still haven't used half of my vertical browser edge (although only 12 are visible while the rest are nested). It also helps me being reminded of stuff I need to do or want to read (something like a lot of people do when they sent email reminders to themselves or leave unread emails of others as reminders of unfinished things).

The new Firefox's Tab Candy also addresses the problem of linear tabs. The main idea behind it is to spatially manage thumbnails of opened URL's and group/open/close them by tasks (which I'm already doing although not with thumbnails). But it also extends the tab management beyond simply moving tabs around with several other (not yet implemented) ideas:

grouping tabs and create metagroups of groups which can be zoomed in and out and piled up (the idea of computer piles is old)
searching for text in all tabs of all groups (very similar to what I tried to do with a desktop search)
automatic groping (surprise me because I don't believe in it :))
a default to-do group of tabs with reminders
understanding semantics (size, content ...) of opened tabs (and groups) to help users find relevant information (prices, facts, images ...)
tabs/groups sharing with friends and other people
task specific visualizations (something Andy Cockburn did with his Mona email client and visualization of email threads) like showing the links between tabs on how they were opened from each other (also Andy's WebView)
personalize groups to help spatial memory with colours and decorations

A word on spatial management and zooming interface. Spatial positioning was long known to be a good aid for memorizing where certain things are on a surface and Tab Candy uses it well; to be honest - spatial management and zooming in and out was his father's idea behind Archy desktop. And zooming interface was developed way before with Pad++. So a lot of ideas behind Tab Candy are old but are also well suited here (and so underused in mainstream software).

An Introduction to Firefox's Tab Candy from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

The only thing that bothers me is the button that needs to be clicked to access tab management spatial area (or pressing Ctrl+Space keys). As Raskin puts it: out of sight, out of mind. I like all my groups visible all the time that serve as reminders. But this can also distract me from doing what I should be doing as it provides far much information than I need while working on a particular task. And to manage tabs in such way with thumbnails a space reserved on the left of my browser is not enough. Maybe shading groups that are not in use would help.

Thunderbird gets better and better

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 14:57:00 +0000

Last week I decided to upgrade my Thunderbird 3.0.3 to 3.1. It keeps positively surprising me every time I do an upgrade with its interface enhancements. I wanted to write about its search facility which was introduced with the version 3 but I never got to it since I wanted to film its usage. Maybe one day. Nonetheless its indexing copes with 5 email accounts over IMAP and 20.000+ messages. It's amazing! Actually I changed my management from filing email to piling. But more on this issue in one of the future entries.

Main interface changes and features I like in TB3 are:

indexing and search in real time with a time scale helps me find even 10 years old emails (I have not idea and control of what I have in 30 folders or so) in seconds
emails can be now opened in tabs which I thought I would be using more but I actually have two tabs: one for email and one for Wave; searching results and tools are always opened in a new tab and emails from search results as well which is a good thing not interfering with normal email view
threaded discussion of search results: when opening an email as a search results, TB tries to show it in context with other emails in the same thread (context is very important for reminding and re-finding)
the move of Reply, Forward ... buttons to the email header instead of them being on the main toolbar (I know a lot of people did not like this change but IMHO the Reply button is a part of a message and not a part of the main toolbar)
really neat filtering messages on a folder bases (introduced in 3.1)
new simplified account setup wizard in one window (I newer understood why entering name, email address, password, incoming and outgoing servers NEEDED 5 steps PROCEDURE in 5 WINDOWS), while I do not like it when it wants to find server names by itself I can still stop the process and do it manually
column headings can be set and emails ordered by on a folder basis
entering people I write to in address book automatically (this was a part of TB2 already) and simplified entering and inline editing address book entries by simply clicking a star by sender's or recipients' names (instead of opening address book, searching for an entry and editing it)

With such simplifications of interface I always remember the typical HCI question I use to ask students: how to create the easiest interface to a converter - e.g. from Fahrenheit to Celsius and vice verse. One field and no buttons do suffice.

I don't use smart folders and archiving options. But that's part of my email management practices.

Counting RSS subscriptions

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 06:51:00 +0000

The reason for this entry is more to show how interesting can it be working with a command line interface than to actually count RSS subscriptions. Counting is entirely based on my assumptions.

A friend asked me how many RSS subscriptions this blog has. I got hooked up by how to count them. I googled a bit and I could only find referencing FeedBurner. But it seamed to much work to go through. So here's my simple estimate (which might be very very wrong).

First I wanted to see how many times the RSS link was accessed in the last month in my Apache logs:

$ grep index.rss access.log | wc -l
6479

Then I wanted to divide these entries by IP addresses:

$ grep index.rss access.log | awk '{IP[$1]++;} END {for(s in IP) print IP[s], s;}'
1 207.46.204.229
1 66.249.67.227
1 207.46.195.238
7 72.30.142.219
1201 72.14.199.79
3 188.92.75.82
2 207.46.204.236
.....

Count them:

$ grep index.rss access.log | awk '{IP[$1]++;} END {for(s in IP) print IP[s], s;}' | wc -l
266

Count those with only one entry (write all command in one line):

$ grep index.rss access.log | awk '{IP[$1]++;} END {for(s in IP) print IP[s], s;}' 
      | awk '{if ($1==1) print $1,$2}' | wc -l
137

If these people check my blog once a day and a month has 30 days this would give me 4 people dynamic IP's as DSL dynamic IPs change once a day. Mobile IPs change with every connections and some people access the blog more than once a day. So all IPs that have accessed the RSS between 2 and 10 times (80% only 3 times) should be counted as the above.

$ grep index.rss access.log | awk '{IP[$1]++;} END {for(s in IP) print IP[s], s;}' 
       | awk '{if ($1>2 && $1<10) print $1,$2}' | wc -l
56

And there are another 17 IPs that belong to counts between 9 and 99 which I'd add here (if for example their RSS reader requests RSS feed once an hour or more). This is 137+56+17/30 approx 7 users with dynamic IPs.

Some IPs have a count of more than 100 (some even more than 500) which might be RSS readers often checking the RSS address during the day from a fixed IP. So every IP that has a count of more than 100 counts for one user.

$ grep index.rss access.log | awk '{IP[$1]++;} END { for (s in IP) print IP[s], s; }' 
       | awk '{if ($1>100) print $1,$2}' | wc -l
16

This would be now 7+16=23. And because this sounds to much to me I'd divide it by 2 and get approx 11 users that read my blog through RSS feeds (me included).

But I might be entirely wrong with my guessing. Let's see what has the world say about it in comments.

PS: Google analytics counted 400 unique visitors in the last month.

Bateries and cables

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:05:00 +0000

A week ago a news about the new MS patent was circulating the web: Microsoft Enables Batteries To Be Inserted in Either Direction. Which is nothing more that a sophisticated battery terminal for cell batteries (AA, AAA, D, C) which I recall being suggested before; we as kids were trying to do a similar thing. And for many people it would be much easier to insert the batteries with no hassle and need for glasses and no worries to make mistakes and break appliances. Reading small + and - signs on batteries and on appliances where signs are usually the same colour as the surrounding plastics and engraved is really a nuisance. But sadly I have read many comments how this feature is useless.

Similar products that could be plugged or inserted in any way or that can not be plugged or inserted in wrong way already exist. Some cordless phones could be placed in a holder in any position. Their bottom was round and the charging connector was round as well. Most of present cordless phones allow to be placed in a holder only with a keyboard facing the user - but placing the phone is still easy. I do remember one of my phones that was often left on a holder in a way that contacts for charging batteries did not touch those in a holder - often the phone was discharged and I realized this only days later - a real bad design! A lot of electrical tools have batteries that can be inserted one way only but are easy to plug as well (with huge connectors and with one battery only and not few equal in a roll).

Other easy-to-plug examples are cylindrical DC connectors that can be inserted in any imaginable way (imagine Nokia's phone charger or a charger for most laptops). There are others DC connectors which can be connected in only one possible way. While later don't allow users to make mistakes, former are also easier to plug!

Some audio connectors are a good example of a good design. TRC or audio jacks are easy to plug (only one possible way). RCA or cinch are also easy to plug but there are always two colours (red and white) which have to match sockets (and even if sockets don't match sound still works). While the same connector for video signal has only one (yellow) plug. These are simple to plug. But there are other audio/video connectors with thin pins that can get easily twisted like DIN connectors and are hard to plug in as well! Similar to these (regarding pins) are VGA, S-video (DIN), DVI, SCART and similar video connectors that have to be carefully inserted in a socket because their pins can get easily twisted. Improved video/audio connectors are Firewire and HDMI. They also can't be plugged in any possible way but are much more robust.

AC power connectors can also be inserted only in one (e.g. British power plug with three rectangular pins) or two possible ways (e.g. European power plug with two round pins) but at least their pins are more robust (but I already managed to twist e.g. US power plugs and I broke many Europeans plugs).

I could go on but I think I made my point. Easy-to-use-and-make-no-mistake holders/batteries/plugs do make sense (even if some claim that +/- position is not hard to understand). Easier plugs we have, less hassle is needed to use them. What it bothers me about this patent is that such things should be widely accessible and not patented.

When backup software fails (Time Machine)

nospam@example.com (Matjaž Kljun) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:17:00 +0000

It is very important to have daily/weekly/monthly backups of own information. I know many people realize the importance of backups only when worst happens - disk failures and a lot of studies show that users do not pay atention to this particular problem until they have to face it. A long time ago I used to monthly or even less frequently burn DVDs of files I assumed I wont need them for a long time (see the About this blog part). And I recall searching through DVDs to find a particular file which can take a long time. In present times I don't even burn my photos to DVDs anymore. There are so many now that if I wanted to show them to someone I had to scan a pile of DVDs. With cheap hard drives I keep them on two computers and an external drive. Three copies should suffice and I do my copying manually every time I empty cameras' memory cards.

I use rdiff-backup to do backups of my laptop to a machine at work to a NTFS partitioned disk. It fails sometimes (due to NTFS disk) and I do have to rebuild the whole backup from scratch. Rdiff-backup never failed me in 7 years when doing backups of ext partition (my desktop machine) to another ext partition (external drive). Once in a while I remember checking the logs and so far so good!

I'm also using the Time machine to backups of my laptop at home. So far I thought that Time Machine can't fail since so many people praise it. It hasn't failed me so far backing up on a USB external hard drive and I do have 200GB of small files. But it might have some issues if used over the wi-fi (Time Capsule) or if it is stopped due to hibernating/sleeping. If having issues with these three cases:

(i) TM is still saying ‘preparing’ after leaving it overnight!

(ii) TM starts to transfer to disk, but then gets stuck part way:

(iii) if you look in the Time Machine preferences it says the backup has failed

then check out this tips.

Checking regularly if a backup software works is AS important AS backing up itself. So many people think that with setting up an automatic backup procedure they have dealt with the job forever. But it often isn't the case. Even the best backing up software (whichever this is for you) can fail!