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Amazon Glacier for the Home User

 

Backup Backup Backup - And Test Restores

Earlier this week, Amazon announced Glacier, which is long-term storage that costs one cent a gigabyte per month. This compares to the 12 cents a gigabyte per month for S3. The basic difference is that Glacier can take between 3 and 5 hours to retrieve data, and S3 is instantaneous.

“Amazon S3 is a durable, secure, simple, and fast storage service designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers. Use Amazon S3 if you need low latency or frequent access to your data. Use Amazon Glacier if low storage cost is paramount, your data is rarely retrieved, and data retrieval times of several hours are acceptable.”

But, let’s go to the pricing. As a home user, we’re assuming you have less than 50TB.

  • Storage
    • Glacier – 0.01 per GB/month
    • S3 – 0.12 per GB/month
  • Data Transfers In – Free on All
  • Data Transfer Out - Glacier and S3 both use the same pricing.
    • 1st GB free
    • Next 10GB, 0.12 a GB
    • Next 40GB, 0.09 a GB
  • Requests
    • Glacier
      • Data Retrievals are Free, however, Glacier is designed with the expectation that retrievals are infrequent and unusual, and data will be stored for extended periods of time. You can retrieve up to 5% of your average monthly storage (pro-rated daily) for free each month.
      • If you choose to retrieve more than this amount of data in a month, you are charged a retrieval fee starting at $0.01 per gigabyte. Learn more. In addition, there is a pro-rated charge of $0.03 per gigabyte for items deleted prior to 90 days

Amazon has promised that there will be an upcoming feature to export from S3 to Glacier based on data lifecycle policies. The details on how this will work aren’t 100% available, but we could imagine offloading from S3 to Glacier based on age. So, you keep the last 1-2 months of data on S3, and the older backups on Glacier. It would allow you to save a good deal of money for backups.

Not everyone, for that matter, needs high availability…especially if you are keeping something that is infrequently modified. For example, the family photo album. You can keep your local backups, and for 1 cent a month, you get a copy that you can access in an emergency.

What we’re missing is that many reports indicated that retrieval is potentially costly. But we found it equivalent to S3, only slower.

But, what would you use this for? We’d like to hear your thoughts.

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Published on August 25, 2012
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Back to the Toilet Technology – Part 3

Nearly two years ago, we took a special trip to the Gadget Wisdom bathroom to discuss dual flush conversion. We came back a few months later to review the MJSI Dual Flush Converter.

At the time we commented, “The nice thing about this design is that it does not require removal of the toilet tank to install. If you have to go as far as to remove the toilet tank, you might as well buy a new toilet with integrated dual flush, which we recommend if you have a really old toilet.”

Flush with our previous successes, despite not being professional plumbers, when our toilet tank started dripping, we decided it was time to dive in again. While there are one piece toilets, most toilets are two piece, the bowl and the tank. The tank is attached to the bowl using bolts and rubber washers that secure the two together, along with a gasket. When these start to fail, they can be replaced.

The replacement parts cost us seven dollars at the local hardware store. But as we had to dismantle the toilet tank anyway, we decided it was time to replace the MJSI Hydroright Drop-In Dual Flush converter.

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The product served us well for two years, but did have two design flaws we knew from the beginning. One, the item attaches around the overflow tube with a plastic zip tie. This did not stay on, and that created problems. There were common complaints about the quality of the gasket. We also had issues with the toilet running, forcing us to press the button a few times, similar to jiggling the handle of a conventional toilet.

So, because of these two design issues, the item’s usefulness degraded over time, to the point it started to waste water, defeating the purpose. So we opened up our browser to look for a new item.

We looked at several items, and decided to give the products at Being Water a chance. Being Water is a small plumbing company based on California. They do make a drop-in converter, similar to the HydroRight. However, it contains several design improvements. Instead of zip tie, it uses a removable base that attaches to the overflow tube with a wing nut. then the unit twists and locks into the base.

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The older your toilet is, the more likely it is in need of new internals. We had discussed another MJSI product, the HydroClean fill water saving valve. This allows better adjustment of the amount of water your tank fills up with initially, as well as offering a sprayer that sits at the bottom of the tank and keeps dirt and debris from accumulating. We’ve had no issue with this product since we installed it.

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Back to Being Water, if, in our case, you have to remove your toilet tank anyway, you might as well go for the tank removal style dual flush kit. This replaces your flush valve and overflow tube. The new flush valve has the locking mechanism built in to accommodate the Being Water dual flush converter. Toilet bowl cleaners may, over time, degrade the plastic of these valves, so you may be better off with manual cleaning and the HydroClean valve we installed. Your toilet won’t have blue water though, if that is something you like.

The tank removal style is thus better in the long term. Being Water provides videos demonstrating the step by step installation, and detailed PDFs explaining the procedure. When you purchase the item, in the interest of not wasting material, there is a minimum in the box.

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The company sells a complete kit that includes their dual flush converter, a replacement water saving fill valve, and a set of replacement bolts and gasket..everything you need. We just ordered the converter, but it included a bowl fill adjustment which allows you to adjust the water usage even more. We got our bolts at the local hardware store. Their kit includes a handle. Left for full flush, right for half flush, which is an improvement over the button of the HydroRight. you can get a button style from Being Water if you wish.

In the end, we’re very happy with the Being Water unit. We did have to call in someone to help, but that was due to an issue with the way our toilet bolts were originally installed. the installation process was very easy.

 

Published on February 25, 2012
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Review: Home Water Filtration

3 Baskets of Bottled Water - Starbucks
3 Baskets of Bottled Water - Starbucks (Photo credit: djwaldow)

Time after time, we start research all sorts of gadgets, from technology to productivity tools to…well, home tech.

This week, we are talking about water filtration filters. Many people buy bottled water. We’re not sure why they do this. Some bottled water is actually tap water. Tap water is actually more regulated than bottled water.

Bottled water isn’t a good value. The cost per bottle is significantly higher than a that of tap water. Bottled water actually has a higher per gallon markup than gasoline, and takes substantially fewer resources to produce. And it must be stored in bottles. which are estimated to total 1.5 million tons of plastic waste each year.

If you don’t like the taste of the local water supply, that is what filtering is for. If you are concerned about contaminants, that is what water filtration is for. Assuming you get water from your municipal water service, this water is already treated to a degree, but filtering in the house can give you a better experience.

Home water filtration began to become popular with the pitcher filter. The quality levels of these can vary, but a single pitcher is usually not enough water for a whole family. We migrated from this to the faucet filter. In edition to not being aesthetically pleasing, these filters can slow water flow significantly.

We chose to go with the under-sink filtration option. The first problem with these filters is that they require, if not a plumber, someone who feels comfortable with plumbing. You can either filter the cold water running through your faucet, or add a dedicated spigot, which may require drilling a hole. Our sink already had a cutout, so we went for the spigot option.

In reading review after review of these types of systems, the most common issues stem from installation. The systems leak, sometimes because of improper installation and because many manufacturers include cheaper plastic parts instead of heavier duty fittings and piping. For this reason, we brought in a plumber to do the job, and empowered and encouraged him to replace all parts in the box with more secure fittings, and to add an extra shutoff valve in the event there was a leak. This may be overkill, but the last time we had a leak under our sink, it turned into a mold issue.

This is probably the best lesson we can give about these filters. Go to your local hardware store and buy better quality fittings than any of these filters supply. The price shouldn’t add much to the bottom line. And add an extra shutoff valve, which will assist when you replace your filters, if nothing else. The cost of a valve is minimal.

There are two other types of filters we didn’t mention. A whole-house filter can remove some basic contaminants, such as sediment and rust, and are probably better if you have a more serious issue with these contaminants. Reverse osmosis filters use a tank under the sink as well as filters, and are the only type that can remove arsenic. However, they are slow, take up a lot of space and waste a lot of water.

We opted for a lesser known brand, but well thought of brand, based on a combination of reviews and research.

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The above is a three-stage filter. The price was reasonable compared to most two-stage filters, and the mail-order price for a years supply of filters was reasonable. It contains no electronic filter change reminder, so we added a recurring reminder to Google Calendar.

The same company does offer a 1 and 2 stage filter as well, but with the installation effort being equal, we opted for the best decision long-term. You will probably be served reasonably well by filters from a variety of different companies, but do your research.

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Published on February 15, 2012
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Choosing a Cloud Photo Service

How things change over the years is astonishing. A few short years ago, the idea of storing so much of your personal information on remote computers would be

Flickr buddies rememe 2.0worrisome. In fact, the ability to get all that information in the cloud would be limited, with slow internet connections.

Now, everything is Cloud Cloud Cloud. Now, as we mentioned before, never put all your eggs in one basket. always keep copies in multiple places. But backup services are a separate issue for another day.

What we were looking for in a photo service was not what everyone was looking for in such a system. Some people want their photos to be social.

Flickr,, for example, states that its mission statement is twofold…to help people make their photos available to the people who matter to them, and enable new ways of organizing photos and video. There are tons of great images on Flickr, and it has a great community if your goal is creating a community around photo sharing. There are a lot of serious photographers on Flickr who want to share with other serious photographers.

Flickr offers a free service, and a $25 a year Pro account. The Pro account gets you unlimited uploads, storage, and bandwidth, and ad-free browsing. But Flickr is run by Yahoo, and Yahoo’s performance of late has been less than stellar.

Google’s Picasa is also popular, and is transitioning to Google Photo, which is part of Google’s rebranding of their services with an eye toward social. As part of its integration with Google Plus, the service now allows unlimited photos, but the terms of service allow Google to use the uploaded photos to display, and for promoting services royalty free.

Facebook has become one of the most popular places to store photos. However, it suffers from the same pitfalls as other services. It is free, but the quality and organization is limited by Facebook’s desired function.

So, we went to Smugmug. It is the most expensive option, but with that comes reliability and control. Most serious photographers agree that it may not be a place for sharing, but it is a place for photographers.

Smugmug offers unlimited uploads, a variety of privacy and safety options, prints, customization, and is ad-free. You can use your own domain name(Power Account) and customize your gallery theme. All photos are backed up, and you can download your entire collection easily. They offer three levels…Basic($40/yr), Power($60/yr), Pro($150/yr).

The Basic account allows for most of the functionality you could want. The Power account adds the ability to use your own domain name and further customize the site, and it adds video support for clips of 20 minutes or less, and right click protection to prevent people from saving your images. The Pro account is for those who sell their photography.

And if you like to share your photos, Smugmug supports sharing to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Posterous, and WordPress. If you don’t want people to share from your galleries, this can be turned off. You can also turn off external linking of all kinds. So, you keep control of your photos, but you have the power to do whatever you wish with them. It has given us a chance to take our photos out of an archive where they were never seen, and start getting them in presentation order.

What do you use for your photos?

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Published on January 9, 2012
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Firefox vs Chrome

Chrome Needs Color Management
Image by wabisabi2015 via Flickr

We’ve just recently returned to Firefox after some time with Chromium, Chrome’s open-source brother.

In the time since we’ve left, Firefox has iterated so fast. In the last calendar year, it has gone from Version 4 to Version 9. It did so mostly by eliminating minor version numbers. Every version is now a major version.

Over the last year, there have been a lot of changes. Firefox 4 was the first to bundle Firefox Sync, which syncs browser settings. The speed of Firefox has increased sevenfold, and the memory usage, a common complaint about Firefox, is down 50%.

The Browser Wars are an arms race to see who can make their browser faster. Recently, Chrome overtook Firefox for the first time. But it has issues, despite its features.

Chrome creates a separate process for each tab, which protects against any single failure bringing down the whole browser. However, this can have pros and cons. Both Firefox and Chrome have reputations for memory issues, although Firefox is more famous for this, the two browsers use more or less memory at different times, because of this design. Firefox has made a good push to reduce its memory usage.

While our situation might not be typical, the new Firefox is definitely seeming more snappy than it once was. There are things in Chrome that are not currently available in Firefox. One of the nicer ones, although Chrome unfairly calls it an App, are the large bookmarks of commonly used programs on the Blank New Tab menu. We’ve been able to reproduce this in Firefox, however, using a plugin called Fast Dial, which creates the same sort of visual bookmarks.

We aren’t the only ones who enjoy Firefox, while looking for some, but not all, of the features of Chrome. We located a Firefox extension to enable the HTML5 desktop notifications according to the API Chrome implements. This allows an open Gmail window, for example, to pop up a notification.

So, in the end, Chrome and Firefox both offer compelling features, and we’ll keep them both installed, but we keep running back to Firefox. It just suits us. And it suits many others.

What do you use and why?

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Published on January 1, 2012
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Why are People Against the Kindle Fire?

Amazon Kindle Fire in the Box
Image by IslesPunkFan via Flickr

Last week, we picked up a Kindle Fire. It was a ‘gift’ for an older relative. But, in the name of ‘configuring’ it, we played with it for three days before delivering it. The Kindle Fire is a great device. We’re not sure why tech writers are coming out against it left and right.

The Kindle Fire is a solid device, solid enough it doesn’t really need a case. It has two small speakers, a headphone jack, a USB connector, and a power button. Simple and good. The headphone jack allegedly supports an external microphone, although the Appstore is not aware that it is sound capable.

The Amazon Appstore offers a good selection of apps, but not everything. We could live without the Android Market, although we paid for a lot of apps there we want to use. But we immediately side-loaded Gmail and the Google Services Framework, which can be installed without root access. If you are a Google mail user, apps or gmail, the Gmail app is superior to most third-party email apps, as it is customized.

The fact that the Amazon Video app is not available in the Appstore for non-Fire use is a mistake on Amazon’s part. Even if it is just for the streaming part, and not offline store and play. We tried downloading a few things, and see this as a great feature, if you are willing to buy.

In the end, handing it to an older relative, we preloaded it with Gmail, with dozens of Kindle books, with music, by hooking it into the Amazon account. We also loaded up some of their favorite apps from their cell phone. And while it is limited compared to their phone, the bigger screen makes it easier for them to read and do related surfing and apps. And it plays Wordfeud wonderfully…and if that is what you want…it’s great.

The one big annoyance is the carousel in the launcher. Visually it is pleasant, but anything you do ends up in this carousel and you can’t customize or remove it. Better off installing a ‘real’ Launcher.

Not everyone wants or needs a fully featured tablet. You can live without GPS, bluetooth, etc, if they aren’t things you need in daily life, and be perfectly happy.

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Published on November 28, 2011
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Kindle Fire isn’t a Full Tablet, but the Price is Right

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 28: Amazon founder J...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Everyone wants to compare the Kindle Fire to the iPad, or some other tablet. The truth is…it isn’t comparable. But for those interested in owning a tablet, it is a good solid option at an affordable price.

The Fire runs a stripped down version of Android 2.3, but we predict that the hacking will commence immediately, and with the recent release of the Ice Cream Sandwich source code, someone will quickly enhance the software side of things.

We did not buy a Kindle Fire, but it might be a consideration as a gift. It is a great option as a media consumption device. Magazines, videos, music…all are customized around Amazon’s media offerings.

Whatever you can say about Amazon, they offer a good variety of media services, and if you pay for Amazon Prime($79/yr), you will not want for videos to watch, even if they are not current blockbusters, Amazon is committed to adding new content.

If we do get a Fire, we’ll have more on this. In the meantime, there are a lot of reviews out there. The bottom line, it is a good product for the price, and a great entry into the tablet world. If you are trying to compare it to an iPad, which is several hundred dollars more, the comparison is flawed.

We own a Nook Color, which we’ve hacked into a full fledged Android tablet. The new Nook Tablet is pretty much, except for the guts, identical to the old. It is the closest comparison to the Kindle Fire. To be honest, Amazon is offering a more integrated experience, but the Nook Tablet offers its own advantages.

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Published on November 15, 2011
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Making a Decision on Music

Music guitar
Image by doug88888 via Flickr

Recently, Google, Apple, and Amazon all got into the Cloud Music business. We tried Google and Amazon out, and decided on a lesser known service called Moozone. Moozone natively supports Ogg Vorbis, a format we use, and it even supports true Ogg streaming at up to 500kbps.

Lesser known companies often have the chance to offer features that would not work in the mainstream. Google Music supports Ogg, but it encodes it to MP3.

It offers the same advantage as Amazon…namely that you can buy songs and the storage will be provided for them at no extra charge. But unlike Amazon’s service, which is rental based, Moozone allows you to buy storage at a flat rate.

Moozone has problems though. It was launched in beta in 2009, released an Android app in January of 2010. At the same time, Moozone signed with MediaNet in order to provide additional music sales. In the last year, there has been little change though, and Amazon, Google, Apple, etc have all launched cloud music storage.

While we appreciate the resources that a large corporation can put behind a service, smaller companies can offer attractive niche features. Take MP3tunes, started by the man behind MP3.com, which got sued out of existence. It offers an open API, support on a variety of hardware devices, etc.

We love to support the underdog, and we’re hoping we didn’t gamble on the wrong company. Either way, never put all your horses in one basket.

 

 

Published on July 31, 2011
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Amazon Partners with AT&T to Offer Kindle 3G for $139

Kindles at The Unquiet Library
Image by theunquietlibrary via Flickr

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We love the Kindle. And it continues to get less expensive. There have been predictions that a new Kindle will come before the end of the year, that the Kindle will go sub $100, that Kindles will come free with Amazon Prime, etc.

But Amazon launched the Kindle 3G with Special Offers, sponsored by AT&T for $139. That is the same price we paid for a Kindle Wi-Fi last year, so we bought one.

Many have complained about the Special Offers, but they are nonobtrusive. And, global 3G data for life is a useful thing to have. Of course, we have a smartphone, but it has a monthly fee for data. Any tablet would have a monthly fee for data. The Kindle is not for games(although it has some great simple ones). The Kindle is for reading. But some reading, for example, news, is best delivered whereever you happen to be without need to hunt for an internet connection.

Conversely, there is a value to disconnecting and focusing on one thing, rather than switching. Multitasking, some say, is preventing us from giving proper focus to any one item.

Argue as you might, but the Kindle has a place in our society. And we’ve already taken advantage of our first special offer…a book for a buck.

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Published on July 15, 2011
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Switching From Dropbox to Wuala

Image representing Wuala as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

We were once a big booster of Dropbox. But recent events have caused us to doubt them. On July 1st, Dropbox revised their policies. This was in response to a well publicized authentication breach where, for several hours, access to accounts was permitted without valid passwords. This followed the realization that despite assurances, Dropbox employees can access your data, but only to the extent that they need to(or so they say).

Does this mean we doubt the sincerity of the company? No more than any other company. But we’ve decided to move on…to Wuala. Wuala is a secure online storage service that provides many more features than Dropbox, if less supported.

There are three core principles of Wuala:

  1. Security and privacy
  2. Bridging web and desktop
  3. Economic technology

In terms of security, Wuala offers client-side encryption, which means that the encryption is performed on one’s one computer. During the upload, data is split and stored in multiple locations. They promise that because your password is never transmitted, no one, including their employees, can see private files.

Wuala offers a desktop app for Windows, Mac and Linux, and mobile apps for iOS and Android. There is even a web version. You get 1GB for free, and you can gain additional storage by paying for it, trading your local storage for extra storage(more on that in a moment), or inviting friends to join Wuala.

Wuala offers both backup and synchronization options. Backup saves local files regularly into the Wuala Drive, at an interval of your choosing. The backup are read-only. Sync allows you to sync files and folders across multiple computers. Dropbox provides sync only.

If you want to pay for storage above the free 1GB, it is $29 a year for 10GB, $49 for 25GB, and so on. You can also trade for storage. You can trade up to 100GB on your computer in exchange for 100GB in the cloud. You get whatever you provide multiplied by your online time. You must be on for at least 4 hours a day. As they put it, this doesn’t give you extra storage, but you give up storage locally to gain it elsewhere, which has its advantages.

We’ve set up the Wuala client on our headless server to trade storage. It also resides on our desktop systems to sync our files. We have plans to expand the headless part, to generate backups of the entire Wuala sync and send it to a secondary backup site as well, but that is for the future. The Wuala client allows it to be mounted as an NFS partition for that purpose.

There is an Android client we have tested. It lacks many features of the Dropbox app, including directory download/sync/upload and support for the Android sharing functionality. Of course, the Wuala developers have acknowledge this as a desired feature, but there is no timetable for its implementation. If they are slow in doing so, there would be hope of a third-party app, however, the Wuala API is in Alpha and only supports GET requests. It has been in this state for over a year.

When it comes down to it, Wuala is not perfect. But it offers a more complete feature set than Dropbox, if a less mature API and Android client. But, like many things, it is a matter of what is more important to you.

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Published on July 5, 2011
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