Mid Life Fitness

As time goes by the amount of data I have stored increases exponentially. I could burn it to CD or even delete some of it but I have problems with that because deletion is permanent and CD’s have a lifespan which is certainly finite, either through loss, damage, degradation or technological obsolescence.

The future as I see it is in the cloud where I don’t have to worry about data backup problems, though security is an issue. Until that point my strategy is twofold. Because I have a few photographs I need a fair amount of space for storage.

USB Drives

My current solution is a 3TB USB drive for daily automatic backups and a 1TB USB portable drive for weekly backups. The size means that I can just dump copies of the data parts of the hard drive to them to build up a number of copies. The problem with USB drives is that one day they just stop working. Hopefully that won’t happen at the same time that I lose all the data on my PC.

But that leaves a hole because there is data I’m modifying after the backup and which will get lost. My solution here is to dip into the cloud and use an automatic backup system which makes copies of my documents as I modify them. Now it can’t keep copies of everything because there is too much, but I’ve already split my files into current and archive. You could do this with dropbox, but frankly I prefer a system which allows me to choose which folders I want to save, not have to modify my system even further.

Sugarsync

For that reason I’m using Sugarsync. This has a free 5 GB storage, which if you sign up after clicking on the above link will give you an extra 500 MB to play with.

I like the service I get with Sugarsync, it does for example allow me to sync files between machines so I can work on a blog post on one machine then have it instantly downloaded to another machine, and I do mean instantly because the syncing is very fast (although very large files like video of course are slower).

Sugarsync is for me the missing link which makes me happy that I’m not going to lose work to a disc crash or even the loss of a machine. The free 5 GB isn’t huge but it certainly is worth having. I strongly recommend it.

So we are now well and truly into the new year and already for many the new years resolutions are but distant memories and for others they are starting to despair of keeping up with them.

For me, there are two things which I think will become more important this year. These aren’t new, these are existing trends which have been running for some time, but I think this year they are going to really take off.

Minimalism

Don’t be fooled by the zealots and their 100 items or less lists. Minimalism is the art of having exactly what you need and nothing more. The big problem that it solves is clutter. Clutter drags you down, mentally and physically. Clutter is not just the junk hiding in the drawer;

Periodisation

How many times have you seen something be the latest fad only for it to disappear once it is realised that it doesn’t work in the long run? The trouble is that nothing works in the long run.

The diet industry for example is starting to realise that those much criticised crash diets have their place. Now the realisation is starting to come that a crash diet can be the first phase of a bigger picture.

Like crash diets, muscle confusion got a bad name. But the core idea was right. Something needs to change in every session, you can’t just do the same thing at the same intensity and expect progress.

What I think we will see this year is a greater emphasis on short term tools used as parts of a new type of fitness programming. Cheat days and meals, carb bulking restricted to a couple of weeks, these are the sorts of examples I think are really going to make waves this year.