Know How... 96 (Transcript)

Netcasts you love, from people you trust. This is Twit!

Bandwidth for Know How is brought to you by cachefly.com.

This episode of Know How is brought to you by lynda.com. Learn what you want, when you want, with access to over 2400 high quality online courses, all for one low monthly price. To try it free for seven days visit lynda.com/knowhow.

And by iFixit. You can fix it and iFixit makes it easy. With free step-by-step repair guide, high quality replacement parts, and all the tools you will ever need. For $10 off your purchase of $50 or more go to iFixit.com/twit and enter the code know-how at checkout.

On this episode of Know-How: if this, then that. We talk all about backup and Patrick and I make fun of crap.

Father Robert Ballecer: Welcome to Know How, it is the Twit show where we bend, build, break and upgrade. I’m Father Robert Ballecer.

Patrick Delahanty: And I’m Patrick Delahanty.

Fr. Robert: For the next hour or so we are going to show you some of the things that we’ve been peeking out to. New stories, projects, DIY makers stuff and hopefully it will bring some knowledge back into your own geek life. Now Patrick, this last week there was a little bit of buzz. A little bit of excitement in the space community right?

Patrick: Yeah.

Fr. Robert: You heard about the space X thing?

Patrick: Yeah. They unveiled the new Dragon capsule?

Fr. Robert: That’s right. The new Dragon Version 2. the first Dragon was actually fantastic. It was a privatized space vehicle that worked well and docking on the space station. It could carry 7200 pounds of cargo. But there was one big thing and that is that it can’t carry a man. If we are going to have some sort of vehicle, especially now that we are not on such good terms with the Russian space agency, we would need something that would not just carry men and women without killing them but also return them to Earth. And that is why we now have the Dragon version 2. Now check this out. This is Elon Musk out in the Mohave Desert explaining to people what the new X Dragon 2 looks like, how it runs, how it works. It was a fantastic event and had space nerds the world over geeking out over what was possible with a little bit of private endeavor. Now this capsule may not look like much, in fact it looks a lot like the Dragon 1 but it is actually very, very different. Whereas the Dragon 1 one could transport 7200 pounds of cargo, it could be pressurized but relied on the ISS for air circulation and it could remain current with the ISS for 30 days. It also had to be captured with the ISS rheumatic arm. It could not maneuver on its own. And it used parachutes to slow its descent before landing in the ocean. Which is pretty much what every capsule has done. The Dragon two is actually entirely different. It can transport a crew of seven, or a combination of crew and cargo. It can maintain its own life support for seven days, for 7 astronauts. Which is important because you don’t want dead astronauts. And here is the big part. It can remain berthed with the ISS for 180 to 210 days, versus 30 days for that other module. This is important because it means that it is the same longevity as the Russian Soyuz module. You can use this as a lifeboat. Not just the ferry.

Patrick: I didn’t realize there was a limit to the amount of time that the Soyuz could stay docked.

Fr. Robert: It is really all about fuel and it is all about expendables. So anytime you have a space craft that goes up it needs to be able to maintain its own environment, its own system, its own power. So all spacecraft have a limit. That is really what you are limited by. Now this has the ability to maintain its own life-support, its own power, for more than half of a year. Which means you could, theoretically, replace the Soyuz with the Dragon 2. The other cool thing about this, is that Elon Musk is saying they are going to come down from the Russian price. Right now we are paying $74 million per seat. So every time you send someone up it costs you $74 million. Elon is saying that if NASA would be willing to buy four of these, you could get the price down to $20 million a seat. Which is significant. That is a huge price savings. Now the other cool thing about this is that it uses side mounted the thrust assemblies to enable automated dock. So you can launch this thing from the computer and guide it in. You don’t need the ISS robotic arm, which always is bad. When you have two celestial bodies coming close to each other it can cause a lot of damage.

Patrick: I've seen gravity.

Fr. Robert: You’ve seen gravity, right. And so grabbing onto something with the ISS robotic arm isn’t great. The other cool thing is this. It can land vertically, as Elon Musk said, “This is the way you should land a spaceship”.

Patrick: All the sci-fi films we've seen that had a capsule of land, this is exactly how they did it. And the future is finally here!

Fr. Robert: It is here! Now they called it propulsive landing. This is the part that I really geeked out when I started reading the specs. It uses eight engines. Eight of their super Drago engines. They are printed out of nickel and iron using direct metal laser century. Which is basically that it goes through this fine powder and builds up layers of metal. And you can lose up to 2 engines and still have a safe landing, it also has a backup system so that if it loses any of the engines it will deploy parachutes. So it will do that kind of landing. Or, it will actually do a system check before it starts to land and if anything is wrong it will deploy the parachutes. So it has all this safety built into it.

Patrick: I would ride in it. I don’t know about a Soyuz but this seems safe.

Fr. Robert: Well, here is the thing you are going to love. Those eight engines? They have them in pods. They are on the corners of the capsule, the pods. this is the part that had people kind of laughing. If you look at it, it looks like you have recliner seats with racing harnesses.

Patrick: Those work.

Fr. Robert: They work. So it is kind of sexy on the inside. This is kind of like what you would expect for Apple to design.

Patrick: Have you seen the interior? They have touch screens and everything. If you compare that to the Apollo capsule or even the space shuttles where there is just controls everywhere and the impossibly complicated. Look at this interface. This is beautiful. It is like iPads.

Fr. Robert: Exactly. And those come down. You can actually push them out of the way. You’ve got these giant tablets that give you all your telemetry, and give you all your controls. You push them out of you when you start your docking procedure. The other cool thing is that both the Dragon and the Dragon 2 are launched by the same space vehicle, the Space X Falcon 9. Which is a two-stage launch vehicle. I know there are a lot of people in the chat room who are saying, “Oh just go back to the Saturn V”. Well, there were a couple issues with the Saturn V. First there was a lot of thrust but it was so huge, it spent more than half of its fuel just getting itself into space. Remember, every pound of fuel that you add is another pound you have to get into space. Which means you have to add more fuel. Eventually you pass that best thrust per weight ratio. The nice thing about the way space acts is designing their engines is that they are not just powerful, they are far more efficient than the Saturn V ever was. And they are much cheaper to manufacture. So, folks, if you want to travel to space this is probably how you are going to do it. So what you think?

Patrick: I’m really excited about this.

Fr. Robert: If you had exactly $20 million would you buy a seat?

Patrick: No, because I have to get lunch too. But, if I had the money I would love to buy a seat in this and go up to the international space station.

Fr. Robert: How about if you have $40 million?

Patrick: I’m not sure if I would want to spend half my fortune on a weekend trip to the space station.

Fr. Robert: I don't think it would be a weekend really. Because actually that would just get you a seat to the ISS. You would still have to contract with the ISS for your hotel.

Patrick: There is a geocache up there and I would love to get that sometime.

Fr. Robert: How long would it last if you got that mayorship for ISS?

Patrick: Probably not very long.

Fr. Robert: Because it is moving all the time right

Patrick: They do have foursquare check-in for Mars for the Rover. they probably have something with the space station to.

Fr. Robert: We are going to start a kick starter. We need $40 million to send to Padre and Patrick to space. Normally we would need some for cranky hippo, but he is not here so the cares?

Patrick: Or we could sell T-shirts.

Fr. Robert: I sent padre into space and all I got was this stupid T-shirt? Perfect. Now, we do want to move on. We are doing this really cool module on “if this, then that”. you’ve probably heard about it. It is a very useful tool where you can set certain parameters that make other things happen. Have you ever read the book Demon?

Patrick: No.

Fr. Robert: By Daniel Suarez. It is actually exactly that. The Demon is not artificial intelligent, it simply looks for events in the world in the news feeds that go around the Internet. And then it sets off events of itself. Essentially what you are doing is you are creating a demon.

Patrick: Cause and effect, really. It is as simple as that. If this, then that.

Fr. Robert: Exactly. Before we get to the Demon, let’s take a little bit of time to talk about our first sponsor on Know How. And that is Lynda. What is Lynda you may ask? Linda is the repository for knowledge online. They are where you want to go if you need to learn new skills. If you need to better yourself, if you need to remember things that you have forgotten, or if you just have a love for knowledge. Now lynda.com helps to keep you up-to-date with software, learning brand-new skills, and exploring new hobbies with easy to follow video tutorials. Whether you want to make the most of your camera gear, learn the latest version of Photoshop, or edit your own video footage using Final Cut Pro, lynda.com offers thousands of courses in a variety of topics. You can learn how to get started with your Maker Bot 3D printer and prepare models for print, and troubleshoot printing issues with the Maker Bot. There is also a course on organizing your photos in Light Room 5, which teaches you how to use the library and light map modules in Light Room to organize your digital photos. You can even learn how to create detailed to antique had drawing through AutoCAD 2015 central training. What I have been using Lynda for is to look at printer box. Because there are a lot out there. And I kind of want to have a little bit of knowledge before I start thinking of getting one for know-how. lynda.com has all the information organized, it is readily accessible, and I can read up on it rather than just watch a video. Which I find fascinating. Now, Linda has over 2400 courses with more added weekly. All lynda.com courses are produced at the highest quality, these are not those homemade videos on YouTube, which we love but if you are trying to learn something you don’t want to be distracted by bad audio, bad camera angle, or bad lighting. You don't have to worry about that with Lynda. They have trained instructors who know their field, right in a studio with real people who make real videos and this is what you get. High quality learning experience. lynda.com works with software companies to provide you updated training the same day new versions hit the market. So you will always have the very latest skills. They have courses for all experience levels, from beginner, intermediate to advanced. They let you watch from your computer, your tablet or your mobile device. Whether you have 15 minutes or 15 hours, each course is structured so that you can learn from start to finish. You can also search the transcripts to find quick answers or read along with the video. lynda.com also offers certificates of completion when you finish a course. Which means that you can publish your linked in profile with your lynda.com certificates so that people understand the training that you have undertaken. So here is what we want you to do. We want you to learn. We want you bring lynda.com into your learning home. Learn something new with lynda.com. It is only $25 a month for access to the entire lynda.com course library. Or for $37.50 a month you can subscribe to the premium plan, which includes exercise files that let you follow along with the instructors projects, using the exact same assets. You can try lynda.com right now with a free seven-day trial. Visit lynda.com/knowhow to access the entire library. That is over 2400 courses, free for seven days. It is all Lynda.com/know-how. We thank Lynda for their support of Know How.

 Fr. Robert: Now Patrick, this is something that you have been cooking up for a while. You have been playing with for a while. You've pitched this to me a couple of weeks ago. You said “Hey, I’ve got this and I’ve got this, and can we put them together on Know-How”? So, tell us what is if T?

Patrick: If this, then that. It is basically a service that gives you access to 103 different services from Twitter and Facebook and tumbler to YouTube. you can make it so that if one thing happens, something else happens as a result. So you get the cause and the effect. The cause could be like somebody favorites one of my tweets, and then I get a text.

Fr. Robert: Okay, I’ve got it.

Patrick: Or, a new episode of my favorite podcast is published, and then I get an email.

Fr. Robert: And so this is all automatic right?

Patrick: All automatic.

Fr. Robert: Anything with an API basically? Any service that lets another piece of software touch their hooks, you can interfere with If T?

 Patrick: Any API that is supported by If T. the chances are if they have an API then they have it in there. There are 103. If you look at the list it is crazy. They've got like, Buzz Feed, Ever Note, Gmail, I-list contacts, Android, LinkedIn, Texts, You Tube.

Fr. Robert: Is it really that simple? You said if someone tweets me, it sends me a text. Or if I get a new podcast it triggers something. Can I do complicated effects? Can I say if this happens on Facebook, and that happens on Twitter, and and that happens on my scale, then do this?

Patrick: No. You can’t get that complicated. It is literally if this, then that. And so it has to be one cause, and one effect.

Fr. Robert: Okay. Guide me through this. It is a cool idea, and I have seen people do it. But show me how you would set up an If T event.

Patrick: Okay. After you have set up an account on ifttt.com you can go and create a recipe. We are going to my recipes. So you will see some that are already set up here.

Fr. Robert: Oh! So I can do that too. For example, if I wanted the people who I am always lamenting that I hate having to post on G plus and Twitter and Facebook, I can just push it everywhere else.

Patrick: Google plus is actually not in here because they have a very closed system. But you can have it posted everywhere else. So we will set up a sample here. Why don’t we do one that is, if I upload a YouTube video, then post about it on my tumbler page. I am never on tumbler, but I do have a Tumbler page. It is very simple. Pick new video uploaded, this is the cause. If YouTube, and now I go to the effect which is that portion. Then I want to post to tumbler, so I select tumbler. I do a video post and it actually auto populate the field. There are other options, and other fields. Like ingredients.

Fr. Robert: This is where you are saying, this is what I’m going to do.

Patrick: So, for caption I could put in author names, add ingredient. It has the description of the video and by P. Delahanty, and I create a description. it gives me the verification, I can title it something different. If new video uploaded by Delehanty, create a new post to tumbler page. It is creating and now it is at the top of the list so every time I upload a video to YouTube, it will post it on my tumbler.

Fr. Robert: So show this actually in action. You’ve created a recipe that if this thing happens, it triggers this other thing. You have also got something that works in the physical world. So it is not just cross posting on the social networks.

Patrick: I mentioned that the scale, it also supports Hue Lights and the Wemo so I can have my lights at home turn on automatically. So what I have here, is called the blink one. This is by Thing M. It lights up. I discovered this at Maker Faire. You don’t have to lower the light. But, I have their webpage here and this cost me under $30. It is just a USB device. You plug it in and you can control it with scripts and it works with if this, then that. You can use it with raspberry pie. There are so many possibilities. Just to make a little light come on. It works great with if this, then that because we can make it do a light or different color, different flashing sequence on different actions.

Fr. Robert: Okay, let us set it up. I want to set it up right now. Let’s tap this into your Twitter account.

 Patrick: Let’s get it set up first before we have them do anything. So what I will set up this, if twitter new follower, so create trigger, choose action, so I will choose the blink. Send blink event. The first time you use any of these you have to go in and tell it you have the module. So I had to previously get the ID of this and put it in there.

Fr. Robert: So if I start out it is going to be empty until I start creating.

Patrick: You will have to verify your Facebook account, your twitter. You only have to do it once. So, rule name. What it needs here is the rule name for my blink one. So there is a configuration tool here in the control panel. I named it blink with follow. I can set the number of colors, and the actual colors that I use. So I sent this to four colors and this is green, off. We will change this to read. And then we will change this one to yellow. And we will turn it off again. Light off. Done. Blink when follow. Save. And now that it is configured I can put it in the ruling here and it knows when I am followed, blink. Create recipe. And so now when people follow me on twitter, it blinks up.

Fr. Robert: How fast is this? I am going to un-follow you right now.

Patrick: There is a bit of a delay. It is not going to be immediate.

Fr. Robert: Basically the refresh of the API. So I un-follow you.

Patrick: It is not like a 15 minute delay or anything, but a minute or so.

Fr. Robert: So everyone, jump onto twitter right now and follow pdelahanty and let’s see how fast we can get this thing to blink. One of the things that has me fascinated is it doesn’t just have to be a light. Any device that can offer if it its API to IFTTT, you can potentially trigger.

Patrick: Yes. Like this wiping scale. I can actually have it tweet out my weight if I really wanted to. Maybe I should do that for motivation. I could have it post to my facebook, my twitter, my tumbler. There are 103 different servers. You can do one in time, weather, from ESPN, etc.., I have one set up so that when the Red Sox win it blinks red.

Fr. Robert: Now, let me ask this. Have you seen a lot of people hacking together some solutions where it can trigger bigger things? Like for example home automation. Trigger alarms, trigger bad things?

Patrick: You could. They have motion sensors so you could make it send the text if there was motion in your house. But again, you cannot do complex recipes. It is one cause and one effect.

Fr. Robert: You kind of understated it. This is fantastic. I love this idea. Being able to leverage a device we already use and somehow extract usable data out of it. Of course the simplest idea is when a new podcast comes out, give me a warning. Or when I get a tweet, flash alike. Or when someone sends me a faced with post, ring a bell. These are the sorts of things that people turn into products. What we are going to do is we are going to go ahead and leave this on. And wait and see how quickly it will reply. There are a lot of people saying that they followed and it hasn't lit up. Oh, there we go. So that took about two minutes. It took about two minutes before it started replying to anything that was happening on Twitter. Not bad. Now if you want to find out more about this, they want to find out more about what you are doing then all they have to do is follow PDelahanty right?

Patrick: They should be following me already.

 Fr. Robert: They should be following you. But if that is not available to them where did they find out more about IFTTT?

 Patrick: They can go to ifttt.com. This blink device you can find that at thingm.com.

 Fr. Robert: I still kind of prefer If T. It’s catchy. Well folks, when we come back we are going to be showing you a little something with backup. But first, I thought maybe I should bring you back to Maker Faire 2014. Patrick, one of the big issues that a lot of people have with becoming makers is that they don’t have a place for their maker lab.

Patrick: I have that problem too.

Fr. Robert: Exactly. Space is at a premium in most places, especially if you live in a city where you can’t just build something really quickly. You end up with people imitating out old Dan’s or garages. Which is not ideal.

Patrick: I am trying to make a group costume and I don’t have a place to do it.

Fr. Robert: Exactly. You want a place where you can set up your gear, set up your tools, and just have it ready to go. For example, I have a friend right now in San Francisco who is a great maker. But, his lab is the kitchen table. So he always has to move his stuff in and out.

Patrick: I know that issue.

Fr. Robert: What if I told you that you didn’t have to do that? What if I told you that you could just drop something in front of your house, no permits or anything and that becomes your maker space.

Patrick: Really?

Fr. Robert: Yeah. If you are going to be a maker, you need a maker space. Now you can try to repurpose something in your home. Or you could just build your own. I am here with David Wilson at Avava and we are going to talk all about the Folly 1. This is a unique product. As centrally it looks like a pre-fad but it's not really.

David Wilson: This is what we call a flat pack construction. It is preassembled. And we have 18 parts that make up the main structure that you see behind me. The idea is that anyone, any two people can put this together in a matter of minutes using common hand tools.

Fr. Robert: Now we just saw you both disassemble in about 10 minutes and put it back together in about 13. It is designed out of wood, it is designed to be compressed down into an 8 x 12. Which means that you could shove roughly 15 to 20 of these in the back of a 40 foot trailer.

David: Yes, that is the idea. That we can put a lot into a small space and then make them into bigger spaces down the road wherever you need them.

Fr. Robert: I get that. It is cool. I love the ability to sort of pop up a little structure when you need it. What are you selling this for? What market do you want it to go to? Is it is a disaster preparedness, is it just temporary structures? Where do you see the Folly 1 finding its niche?

David: We really don’t have a niche. We are looking at the entire market. We are looking at pop up buildings, rear yard offices, and additional rooms. Pretty much anything you want to do with it. It is your space. You do with it what you want.

Fr. Robert: Okay. Let’s geek out for a second here. Now you chose all wood construction. Why is that? I know a lot of others would say, let’s go with plastic or some high impact materials. Let’s use a lot of metal in it. But you went all natural.

David: The reason is because we think wood construction is about 100 years behind the times. We think that with the engineered wood products that we are not taking advantage of the properties that are inherent in the products. So we designed the joist lock as a way to use the inherent properties of the eye-joists to lock them together at the intersections and create moment frames. That is something that no one else has done.

Fr. Robert: Let’s get down to brass tacks. People are going to say how much does one of these structures cost? How many permits am I going to have to get to drop this in front of my house so that I can have my own little maker space?

David: The structure you see behind me is the basic Maker Faire model. It is the do it yourself. We give you a rough, we give you a floor, and we give you the four corners. The basic kit comes in a flat pack that is 4' x 8’ by about 30 inches off the ground. That goes for $2500. The more deluxe versions go anywhere from there up to about $10,500, which is the one behind me which is the one we called the test model.

Fr. Robert: What about that permit issue? I know there is a lot of people that say I can just drop something in front of my house and have the city go crazy on me.

David: Well that is the entire reason we designed the shape and size the way we did. Because it is 8 feet by12 feet which gives you 96 ft.². That is less than hundred square feet which is most places require permits at. And it is less than 8 feet off the ground. That is one of the reasons we use pressure treated wood for the floors so that you can actually put it on the ground and you don’t have to worry about coming into contact with water.

 Fr. Robert: So for $2500 you don’t have to worry about permits and you can build your own space.

David: That is correct.

Fr. Robert: Now obviously there is some profit built into that. Because $2500 for that it a little steep. But, you also have to remember that it is not entirely profit. Those I Joyce are expensive to build, there is some structural steel in there. But more than that, the ability to assemble and disassemble a structure means that they are going to have to spend a little bit of money to make it robust. This is not just a couple of two by fours nailed together.

Patrick: I wish I had the space for that.

Fr. Robert: You don’t have a 12’ x 10’ space?

Patrick: If I give up the patio.

Fr. Robert: Yeah. I’m sure your fiancé would have no problem with you just giving up the patio. Seriously, the idea of being able to set, what is essentially a shed. A city permit doesn’t normally kick in till 100 ft.² so you could just put this up. No permits whatsoever. The other cool thing that I saw is that because the floor is also in panels, you can pre-and stole all your electronics in the floor. So even if you have to pack it up you could literally be back up with the network, wireless power and everything within about 20 minutes. It is a fantastic system. I am thinking that even if they don’t make it, even if Avava isn’t the name that becomes synonymous with these sort of maker spaces, eventually people are going to get sick of having to make do with what they’ve got. They are going to find high-tech sheds. All right. Once you have got your maker space, the question is what do you do with it? Which is why we are going to take a break and talk about the second sponsor of this episode of Know How, and that is Ifixit.

 Fr. Robert: Now, when you have your maker space, when you have your place to play you are going to need the proper tools to play with your gear inside that space. That is why we are taking a look at the ProTech screwdriver toolkit and this magnetic map. Now, iFixit, if you haven’t ever watched any Twit programming is that free online repair manual store for everything. They have more than 10,000 prepared guides for everything from electronics like your smart phone and your tablet and your games console to your home appliances, your clothing and even your bike. They also have foolproof instructions to fix all your stuff. If you have shattered your iPhone screen, need to repair the red ring of death on your Xbox, or swap the battery in your galaxy S3, iFixit has got you covered with parts, tools and repair guides. Today we are introducing two new iFixit tools. This is the ProTech toolkit and this is the magnetic project map. The ProTech screwdriver set is one screwdriver kit to rule them all. It is a lot smaller than the other kit that we have been playing with, which is nice because the experts over at iFixit got together and said what are the 15 tools that we need? The tools that we absolutely must have. And they put it all in one set. These are all black oxide tips so you are not going to have to worry about stripping them, or chipping them. They’ve also got this nice pivot vortex on the back so that it gives you better leverage along with this rubberized coating so that you always have a grip on the things that you are repairing, disassembling, or putting back together. The custom tool room makes this a handy portable toolkit for amateurs and professional fixers alike. At $59.95 with a lifetime warranty it is a perfect gift, especially for Father’s Day. Now this is actually very understated. I really like this. This is a magnetic project map. If you’ve ever had this tub of screws that you come up with at the end of the project, you understand why this is cool. One bump, one trip, one drop and all of your screws go everywhere. Even in a container like this, you don’t remember where these went. But what you can do with this is put them on the project matt and separate them into the quadrants that you took the devices for. this is a dry erase board, so I can label where the screws came from in my individual projects and, because it is magnetic I don’t have to worry about my screws going all over the place. We will never lose another screw. And for $19.95 it is not a bad deal at all. Now with iFixit you can fix it yourself. Visit iFixit.com/twit for more than 10,000 free step-by-step guides. I fixed that also sells every part in tool that you will ever need. Enter the code note how at checkout and you will save $10 off of any purchase of $50 or more. That’s ifixit.com/twit. And we thank I fixed it for their support of Know-How.

Fr. Robert: There are a couple of nonmagnetic screws here.

Patrick: That one is plastic.

Fr. Robert: All right, now. Let’s get away from iFixit, let’s get away from our maker space. One of the questions that we receive from our audience over at the Google Plus community page is all about backup. Specifically about 3-2-1. You’ve heard about 3-2-1 right?

Patrick: 3-2-1 contact? I used to watch that all the time.

Fr. Robert: No, no. Gosh, you people are weird. No I am talking specifically about 3-2-1, that is the backup methodology, the idea that if you think you have a backup that you don’t have three copies, on two different types of media, at least one being in a different space, being you really don’t have a backup. Right? That is how it works. If you don’t have those three copies, you just have to assume that you are going to lose your data at some point and you are going to be very, very unhappy.

Patrick: Yeah.

Fr. Robert: Do you follow 3-2-1?

Patrick: No. I should. I have backups, but they are all in the same place.

Fr. Robert: So, you understand the problem there right?

Patrick: Yeah. If my house burns down while I am here and then I’m in trouble.

Fr. Robert: Which is why we always want to make sure we have that 3-2-1, but one of our audience members by the name of John, he wanted to know, he watched an episode of TWIET where we were talking about 3-2-1, we were talking about back up for SoHo for TWIET. It might be a little outdated. 3-2-1 worked really, really well when we had a couple of floppies worth of data. It worked really well when we even had a hard drive or two. But now that many of us have multiple terabytes or even petabytes, 3-2-1 is really, really tough. Imagine, just in my lab, not including the stuff that I have done here at twit. Just in my lab alone I have over 5 PB worth of data. There is no way I am going to be able to make three copies of that. It is not going to happen. A lot of that is static, but still trying to buy 15 PB worth of storage space is going to be crazy expensive. And not only that if I ever have to sync and I have to keep that data in at least one other place…

Patrick: It is going to take a long time to sync up all that stuff.

Fr. Robert: It is a nightmare and I personally think that 3-2-1 great idea when you can have it. That I am now pushing a more graded view of backup. So, this is what I think. The idea of three copies, two different pieces of media, and one other place is the ideal. I think you should still do that on anything that is mild. So for example in my personal network if I have documents and personal photos, things that are absolutely irreplaceable I still follow 3-2-1 to a tee. I always have three copies, they are always going to be on two different types of media, and I am always going to have something that is off-site. But when I start dealing with things like assets, video assets that are important but they are kind of replaceable. Sure, the stop I shot down in Brazil and what I shot in Russia, that stuff is hard to come by. I am going to start weighing the importance of that data against the fact that that I don’t want to back up 4 TB. So this is what I do. This is how migrated system works. Backup your critical data using 3-2-1. Cloud service counts as a copy but it does not count as a nether physical place. In other words, I will count the copy that I keep in one drop box as an additional copy but I don’t count it as additional medium and I don’t count it as the off-site backup.

Patrick: Why not? Because it is off-site.

 Fr. Robert: It is off-site that we have seen with some hacks recently that the problem with cloud is that all your deep vices can affect cloud. If someone gets a hold of one of your devices, or if you accidentally delete something from one of your devices that is syncing to the cloud then you have just killed it. In other words, my critical stuff is 3-2-1 but it is un-synced 3-2-1. In other words, I want the ability for one of my devices to be completely totally compromised, not just losing data but if some four year old sits down at my computer and thinks it is funny to delete my documents. if that is linked up to the cloud, it is going to delete it out of the cloud as well and then I am screwed.

Patrick: The cloud is still good if you want to get to your documents from somewhere else.

Fr. Robert: Exactly. Which is why I counted as another copy, I just don’t count it as a separate medium or the off-site. Now one step down from that, personal data is 3-2-1. no longer mission-critical, that personal data. I do think you should use 3-2-1 but now I count my cloud service as a copy and as another location. In other words, even if someone goes crazy and deletes it off my computer, theoretically I should still have another copy somewhere else that I can get a hold of. I am not all that paranoid. Then I have vitals. So I go for mission-critical, too personal to vital. My vital video assets are divided between 3-2-1 and 2-1-1. So finished files have a copy because they are very kind of compressed. But if they are raw files I do 2-1-1. I have two different copies, it is on one other type of media and it is in one other location. And one of those locations include something like this.

Patrick: What is this?

Fr. Robert: This is an ioSafe 214. This is a 2 bay ray device. it is mirrored. So I have two exact copies of the data on two separate hard drives that are in there. I have two 4TB hard drives. This thing can survive 30 minutes at 4000°. It can survive submerged for several days.

Patrick: Let’s try it!

Fr. Robert: Actually I have. We accept these things on fire. We have run them over with tractors. They do survive. Now the cool thing about this is I can have one of these alongside one of these. So this is just a standard four terabyte external drive. I can have this connected to this and this is keeping a backup. This is perfect. If there is a fire and these two are together this is can a die. But, this is not. And I still have a third copy someone else connected on my network. Typically it will be on the campus but far enough away that any localized disaster is not one to take them both out. The advantage of doing it this way is this is crazy fast and if I have both of them on my network I have what is called high reliability. If one of the arrays drops out it automatically switches to the other. I also have more reliability built into this. This is a mirrored array. So if one of these drives fails, I still have the other. I don’t count this as a backup, but I do count it as another place to store my data. So a couple other things that you should know. Make sure that if you have a NAS, right now there is nothing better than the Western Digital Red series of NAS drives. Seagate just released a new NAS series. They are almost there but I what really like about the Red series is that they run pooled. In fact you can go back to one of the quick tips we did on Know-How a few episodes back and we compared the running temperature of the red to the green to the black to a couple Seagate drives. This beat them by up to 20°. And of course, cooler temperatures means longer live drives.

Patrick: And less cooling costs. So cheaper just to run.

Fr. Robert: So, this is a long, long way to get around to the fact that 3-2-1 is still important and I still like being like these 6 TB Seagate drives. And I will use them in my arrays, but I think we need to start looking at a graded system of backup. It is not so clear which needs which copies. You have to decide what works for you. If you use mine you would be dividing them between mission critical, personal and vital.

Patrick: I agree. But with photos and some videos I do want to make sure that I have those backed up as many places as I can. But a backup of Photoshop? No, because I can just reinstall it.

 Fr. Robert: There are certain things that need to be synced more quickly than others. So, folks I guess what we are saying is just use common sense. That is kind of a letdown. All right, well how about this? We are going to be closing the show room. We are running out of time. But before we do that we have this new thing we are doing called the parting shot. We scour the Internet for things that we find interesting and…. hey Korea! You are full of poop! Inquiry a day have decided that plungers are dirty, nasty and disgusting. So instead they use this thing to create a seal around the toilet. Now this is important to check the seal multiple times. It absolutely has to be sealed to the basin and then you flush, and this is my favorite part Patrick, here we go. NO!!! What are you doing? Don’t push it again.

Patrick: This could go very bad, very quickly.

Fr. Robert: There you go. I don’t have a plunger but now I have a very nasty piece of plastic.

Patrick: Do they have to be brown in this demo?

Fr. Robert: Okay now, we all applaud cool ideas and innovative ways to deal with common problems. This is kind of innovative. But here is the thing. There are a few things that are wrong with this. One is they use brown water. The other thing is, only one little poking tear or one bad seal from having a horrible, horrible day you’ve pressurized the poop. That is not a good thing. It is plastic, so I can imagine someone being a little over zealous and saying why won’t this flush? Okay. And even if it works at as advertised here is the other problem. You know how water comes out of the top of the bowl into the bottom question you are allowing it to go all the way to the top and you are pressurizing so essentially you are pushing the crappy water back up into the water reservoir, which means you are giving yourself an upper necker. No.

Patrick: Okay. So that happened. Did you see I set up a if this, then that for if there is a new item published in the Know-How HD feed then it goes to blink? And it is going to make this blink when this episode is published.

Fr. Robert: We will put this on a cam so you can watch it. Now one quick parting shot, we are going to be doing a couple of episodes on Know How coming up that are all about lists. folks, if you grew up like me building remote control models and you were disk eking out over them guess what? There is a lot of lessons to be had in remote control models about the DIY lifestyle, about making stuff. We are going to be building some high-performance models, some really cool flexible models and then Brian and I are going to break stuff. We will see who gets to sponsor us. Until next time remember that you can always find our show notes. I know we covered a lot of material here and you can find them at twit.TV/KH and there you will find not just all our episodes but you will be able to see the notes that we have published for each one of those episodes. For example what Patrick did with IFTTT is going to be a little different and you are going to want to make sure what is going on. What I am going to be doing with a backup, those notes will be in there too. Make sure you check it out and make sure you find what we are doing and make sure that you follow us. Also you can’t reach us on email. I mean you can write us at twit.tv but we are not going to answer. instead what you should do is go to our G plus community. That is gplus.to/twit KH and there you can join 6600 people and growing as we discuss the things that are important to us. You can talk about cool new technology, cool new tools that you have seen, and answer the questions too. It is all a part of being a know it all. Also you can find us on Twitter, it is the easiest way to find out what we are doing in the next episode is follow me twitter.com/padresj. That is @PadreSJ. Or you can find our sometime show host at…

Patrick: @PDelahanty. You are probably following me already if you followed our advice.

Fr. Robert: That thing is flashing like crazy. Oh by the way, also follow our TD Alex @anelf3. Alex you want to say something?

Alex: No.

Fr. Robert: Until next time, I’m Father Robert Ballecer…

Patrick: And I’m Patrick Delahanty.

Fr. Robert: And now that you know…

Patrick: Do it now!