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Incremental Backups with Google Drive

Elyas Kashfi / May 20, 2012 / Internet, Review, Software / Permalink

With Google Drive out (my take on it here), I was looking for what to do with the free 5 GB of storage. I do not want to store anything sensitive on it, neither do I want to use it to store media since I have much more than 5 GB worth of that. One thing I am paranoid about is having a backup of important stuff which I store in a folder that syncs across all of my computers (using Wuala, a great multi platform service).

I thought, how could I store a backup of this folder on Google Drive, while at the same time keep it encrypted with a password known to me only? Most importantly I need something that can do backups incrementally to save time and bandwidth. I could simply throw everything into an encrypted 7zip archive and password protect it. However, if changes are significant it might require uploading the archive over and over for simple changes (emphasizing the need for incremental). Then there is the issue of scheduling the whole backup process, logging into my Google Drive account and uploading the backup.

Then I came across an excellent backup program for Windows called Duplicati. In a nutshell Duplicati can:

Encrypt using 256-bit AES (which is very hard to crack, assuming the password is strong ).
Performs full and incremental backups.
Multiple upload destinations.
Rules and filters if you don't want certain file types to be uploaded.
Splitting files, better for unstable connections.
A wizard: Probably the most important feature to bind everything above!

The wizard is very easy to go through. You basically select what you want to backup, choose a password for encryption (optional), select the destination, enter authentication for destination and you're basically ready.

Tip: In case you want to backup to Google Drive, you should set the destination to Google Docs in the wizard (remember Google Drive is still being rolled out). Now you know how to backup safely to your Google Drive .

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Google Drive: Too Late or Innovation?

Elyas Kashfi / May 14, 2012 / Android, Internet, Review, Software, Technology / Permalink

It has been a few weeks since Google launched their new service, Google Drive and I decided to give it a try. I actually found out about it a week after it was launched. The signup process is painless if you already have a Google account since all you need to do is sign in. At the time I signed up however, the signup was not immediate and it told me that the service was not widely available yet but I would receive an email once I get "invited". A day later I checked my email and it confirmed that I could now use Google Drive, not as bad as other Google services when they launched (remember Google+ ?).

It might be surprising to see Google decide to launch Google Drive these days since there are a plethora of services that basically do the same thing as Google Drive: Dropbox, SugarSync, Wuala just to name a few (check out my Wuala review here). There was a rumor going around about Google Drive for many years.since 2006 (6 years, an eternity on the Internet!). Note, Google Drive has nothing to do with GMail Drive (not officially from Google) which is a Windows application that can be used to store files on your GMail account. So is it too late for Google to be joining the online storage and sync market?

The Good Stuff About Google Drive

1. They are giving away 5 GB worth of storage for free. Other services offer considerably less, though you can earn more storage if you invite your friends to use as well. Odds are your friends are already using such services making it difficult to get storage through referrals. This is already a big plus compared to the others.

2. You can use Google Drive on a wide range of devices: Windows, Mac, Chrome OS (the OS in Chromebooks) and Android at the moment. A Linux version is coming soon (3rd reply down by Teresa Wu), so is a version for iOS for iPhones and iPads. Depending from which device you visit, Google Drive will let you know if there is an application for your OS:

3. Easier sharing and integration with other Google services. Once your Google account is Google Drive approved, you will no longer have Google Docs since it turns into Google Drive. Google are eventually going to convert Docs accounts into Drive (as shown on the Docs login page). Additionally you will have all and more of the collaboration features that were available on Docs.

4. Feature rich web interface. The interface is quite similar to GMail's default theme and you can use it to upload files AND entire folders if you need to. On some services it can be quite a pain uploading several files (you might need to do it individually) or have a folder upload feature.

5. Developers, developers, developers, developers… Google Drive has created a new ecosystem of applications for the Google Chrome browser. At the moment there are several applications in the Chrome Web Store developed by 3rd party services that allows integration between their stuff and Google Drive.

The Possibly Bad Stuff About Google Drive

1. Privacy. Google Drive shares Google's single privacy policy. Some aspects of the policy includes what they do with the data, how they can use it, who they share it with and more. It is well known that GMail emails are scanned in order to show relevant ads. Some people slam the policies while others say it is similar to those in other services. You be the judge and read the fine print.

2. Some features are missing. Other services allow you to sync multiple folders, perform scheduled backups and more. Though Google Drive is still new and we will see what comes down the road.

3. Related to privacy is encryption. The link between your computer and Google is encrypted, however the files are likely sent as it is to be stored in Google's servers. Wuala for example, encrypts data on YOUR computer before being sent for storage on their servers, making it impossible for them to decrypt the data, unless you give them your password.

4. Loss of data control. When you store data on your computer you know exactly where it is, on your drive. Once you start using cloud based storage you basically no longer know where your data may be stored. Remember that Google have many data centers spread across the world. Is your data in the US or India now? Does Google need to disclose data in those countries?

5. Due to points 1, 3 and 4 I would not store anything sensitive on Google Drive. Actually I would go as far as saying if you value the privacy of your data do not store it online at all!

Although it may seem that Google has joined the cloud sync/backup market a bit late, I believe they have the potential (and money) to improve Google Drive's functionality and features. Time will tell.

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The Samsung 830 SSD

Elyas Kashfi / May 8, 2012 / Review, Technology / Permalink

It's been a while since I've gotten my hands on some serious computer hardware, likewise it has been ages since I've upgraded either one of my computers. A couple of years ago I used to take my netbook since my needs did not justify carrying the much heavier notebook. Then I started working on some serious computing applications, from cloud computing to programming and virtualization, I needed something to help me work on the go. That was when I got my notebook. That was also the last time I bought computer hardware (just over a year ago!), until now…

I decided it was time for me to upgrade my notebook, however with notebooks you are usually limited to either RAM or the hard drive. It already came with RAM filled to its max capacity. I don't store a lot of stuff on the hard drive anyway so I don't really need all the extra space. Instead, I decided to eliminate the hard drive and instead get an SSD (Solid State Drive). Sure they are more expensive (cost to storage ratio) and store less, but they are insanely fast!

After lurking around Amazon and reading reviews, I decided to go for a 256GB Samsung 830 series SSD. It was just under $300 ($299 lol) and at the time it seemed like the best buy given the reviews I read. Samsung boasts the 520MB/s read and 400MB/s write speeds but I know those numbers are theoretical.

I was waiting eagerly for Aramex to deliver it and finally, yesterday afternoon I had my hands on the SSD. Let me say that it has been a looooong time since I have unboxed something as exquisite as this SSD. Stuff bought these days usually come in not so impressive packaging, even if you paid an arm (and a leg) to get it. It actually felt like unpacking a luxury item (for geeks).

As I opened the shiny box, the precious SSD was there nice and secure (and damn hot from the delivery…), it actually took some force to take it out. They definitely didn't want this thing to be wobbling around during transit. At the lower left corner the capacity was confirmed to be the 256GB I ordered.

The Samsung 830 is definitely a SSD given how thin it was between my fingers. Since this was the laptop version, a spacer was included just under the SSD in the box (the thing that looks like a frame inside the box below) to make the drive thicker in your laptop's drive bay. I flipped it over and was satisfied that it really was a Samsung since the label mentioned "Made in Korea". Beneath the plastic shell was a black-on-the-outside-grey-on-the-inside envelope that contained the documentation and CDs (Samsung software and a licensed copy of Norton Ghost).

The last thing in the box that Samsung have included is a SATA to USB cable in case you ever wanted to use your SSD as an ultra light weight external drive! Given the sleek design and lack of moving parts you don't really need a case to protect whatever components you fear, or worry about the ugly looks of a conventional, meant to be internal, hard drive.

Once the thing was nice and safe within my notebook (which is also a Samsung by the way), I decided to give Windows a try. The installation process was just as fast as on a regular drive since the slowest component now is my optical drive. Once the installation was over, I was ready for the ultimate test, rebooting. The shutdown process took only 3 seconds! Once the POST screen was gone, I was at the Windows login screen in a around 8 seconds! This was a clean installation of Windows, so I decided to start installing the software I usually use. Just about everything installed in a flash compared to the old mechanical drive days. I now had several services running and a few applications that would start at boot time. Now would be the ultimate test… This time I was at the login screen in about the same amount of time. After entering my password, Windows had loaded everything in under 5 seconds. Windows also conveniently detected the drive as a SSD and enabled TRIM. This SSD is worth every penny!

For the sake of getting real numbers, I decided to run a test using CrystalDiskMark and get real numbers, and here they are in a production environment:

The values above are just about half of what Samsung originally advertised, not sure how they base their tests, but it is still impressive. It is also 2nd place in PassMark's HDD benchmark site. Although I haven't tried any other SSD, I am quite amazed at how much difference mechanical parts can slow your computing down. I can also conclude that the Samsung 830 is a great option for those who want to upgrade their drives to SSD.

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A Quick Tour of Windows 8 Beta

Elyas Kashfi / March 4, 2012 / Review, Software / Permalink

Microsoft are well known for their Windows product line which is popularly known to be a desktop/laptop operating system. The people at Redmond have been working really hard on getting Windows popular on other devices popular today: smart phones and tablets. They have already gotten into the phone market through the early days of Windows Mobile and now Windows Phone. However, soon Microsoft will enter the tablet market (with a bang!) with their new operating system: Windows 8. The alpha was not that great, however Microsoft made many changes and after its release, Windows 8 Beta (download here) was downloaded more than a million times in a single day!

Windows 8 will power both regular consumer computers and tablets. More of the latter by the looks of it since it was basically made to work really well on a tablet or PCs with touch screens. This new interface is known as Metro and it tries to make interacting with the OS simpler through well sized tiles. For a person not familiar with touch devices, there might be a learning curve involved. It makes no sense to call this new operating system Windows when there aren't any windows!

The famous Start menu is no longer a menu but more of a screen with applications. To run you simply click on it, no more going to Start > Programs > Application. Each application is also colored differently to make it easier to differentiate from others. A hover of the mouse towards the right of the screen brings up what would be the system tray in older versions of Windows which includes: the time, network status, a search tool and settings for the current active interface. They did not get rid of the traditional desktop for those who fancy some traditional Windows computing. One thing is obvious the start menu is not there, fishy… Disabling the Metro UI restores the old Windows look, but what's the point?

Much like other operating systems today (especially the ones on smart phones and tablets) there is a place you go to get apps. Android has the Android Market, Apple has the iTunes Store, Microsoft however, have the Windows Store. You can get games, applications and all sorts of goodies. The bad: for some reason I was unable to install anything from it (I tried a few free apps), either it doesn't work well in a virtual machine, not licensed to my location or something else.

I tried to run a classic from the Xbox Live games section, Solitaire! In its full screen glory. Internet Explorer is also revamped to work as a fullscreen app. Pages are shown in full with no toolbars to mess up the experience, to visit something else, simply right click the screen and the address bar with everything else is back. SkyDrive is finally in an app worth using for once, although it is obvious I haven't been using it for a while…

So how much does all of this cost in terms of CPU, memory and other resources? Let the new task manager help us out:

Verdict: Microsoft has really done a pretty good job with Windows 8, especially after listening to alpha testers' complaints. The new Metro interface I believe will revolutionize user interfaces of the future and I wouldn't be surprised if other OS start imitating. There are still some kinks and issues to be addressed (such as the store not giving me apps!), but hey it's still a beta. Let's hope they deliver another Windows 7 and not Vista !

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The Sony PS Vita

Elyas Kashfi / February 26, 2012 / Games, Review, Technology / Permalink

A few days ago, I came across one of those flyers from Sharaf DG lying around at home (promos starting February 23rd). I have no idea where it came from, probably in some newspaper. Anyways, I turned the pages, looking at what they had on offer: laptops, phones, tablets, TVs, an ultrabook, few printers etc… Then I turned to the video games page and something caught my eye…

They were selling the Sony PS (PlayStation) Vita, the latest handheld gaming device out at the moment (specs here)! Given the date they set for the offers, they started selling the Vita just a day after its launch in Europe. Sharaf DG currently have 4 options available:

BD119.900 – The WiFi version of the PS Vita with nothing extra.
BD138 - The WiFi version of the PS Vita with a 4GB memory card plus a game.
BD156.900 – The 3G/WiFi version of the PS Vita with nothing extra.
BD180 – The 3G/WiFi version of the PS Vita with an 8GB memory card plus a game.

They also have some extended warranty programs if you think you might break your Vita on its 2nd year ! They may seem cheaper online, but given these are the first batches of Vitas, you don't want to send your faulty console back to Amazon if it is DOA.

I decided to treat myself, I have been wanting to get a super Android tablet, but they are still not selling it here (the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime). The PS Vita was the opportunity cost at that moment. I opted for option 4. Note that you do not get to choose the game! You get the Vita's box, a game on it and the memory card packaging, all shrink wrapped in plastic. The game that you get is Little Deviants, an AR (Augmented Reality) game with arcade-ish gameplay. Little Deviants interacts through the world around you (AR), the front touch screen AND the back touch pad which gives you a feel of the Vita's full gaming capabilities.

After unpacking the beast (4 cores CPU + 4 cores GPU!!!), I noticed that it seems like the ones they are selling are not just European versions but EU destined for selling in the Middle East since one of the quick start guides is in Arabic. They also include a bunch of weird looking cards that are used to play AR games you can download for free from the PSN (now Sony Entertainment Network: SEN). I followed the quick start guide and within minutes had a Vita that was online both through 3G and WiFi. However, I had to update the firmware before being able to access my PSN account (for some reason I had to log in as a trial PSN user in order to get the update). Most of the interactions you will end up doing will be through the touch screen interface.

Once the Vita was up and running, I decided to get a few demos downloading. The AR games that you can download for free are OK to start with although I can see them getting boring and even tedious to play over time (remember the cards? You have to keep them in range of the camera constantly). Little Deviants looks childish to play if you are used to shooting, slashing and killing in your games, but hey it was included. The best demo I have tried at the moment is Unit 13 (launching in March). I did enjoy remote controlling my PS3 and even managed to stream a movie from my PC to the PS3 onwards to the Vita !

Inevitably, I ended up buying a $50 (which costs more than $50…) PSN card online in order to buy Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Seems like no one is selling the games yet in Bahrain (the guy at Sharaf told me they are coming in a month, that's what they said about the Transformer Prime a few months ago…), but if you have a credit card it will be much cheaper and easier to download them than carry a bunch of memory sticks (unless you are low on memory).

Is the PS Vita worth it? Right now, not really given the limited range of games currently in the Bahraini market (and God knows what price they will charge!!!!). But it is worth it if you enjoy its other features (as a portable media player for example) and prefer getting the games from PSN directly.

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Skyrim: A Game Worth Every Penny!

Elyas Kashfi / January 26, 2012 / Review, Software / Permalink

I'm not a hardcore gamer, neither am I too casual. I'm more of an in-between gamer, If I get the chance I would spend hours upon hours playing something, or spend some time doing other stuff and game. My platform of choice: the PS3 (The Sony PlayStation 3 for serious non-gamers ), after all "it only does everything" (credits to Sony).

When it comes to game genres, I really have no preference. However, I do prefer games that are visually appealing and most importantly is playable for a significantly long time. If you take these two criterions into consideration, there aren't that many games that fit. For example, the GOW series is amazing, just go in and slash everything, however it is possible to finish over a single session. I also do have interests in simulation games, whether it is cars (GT5 for example) or fighter planes (Ace Combat and HAWX) since they can get pretty dynamic.

The last game I bought (at a bad time, week before finals!) was The Elders Scroll 5: Skyrim, simple known as Skyrim, by Bethesda. It is an open world game, basically you just roam around doing quests and interact with NPCs (non-player characters). Typical RPG you may think. But no, they went to great lengths to make a game that in some cases can be quite unpredictable, thanks to the Radiant AI system. Through dialog you can change the outcome of missions, receive a different reward and so on.

The main story, without spoilers is about dragons. The player is a special person, with special powers (search for "fus ro dah" videos). The story is quite short, but you have quite A LOT quests not related to the main story line. You end up playing a game that might as well have no end if you truly want to play it thoroughly! I actually read somewhere that mentioned the devs clocked 300 hours of game play and just stopped because they didn't feel like counting more. Not surprised.

If you want to find out more… BUY THE GAME!

PS: For PS3 users suffering from lag, freeze etc… Disabling all auto-saves, deleting those auto-saves and saving manually instead worked. I froze only a couple of times since making these changes (rather than every 10 or so travel/loads).

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Linux Mint a Potential Keeper

Elyas Kashfi / January 23, 2012 / Review, Software, Technology / Permalink

On my quest to find a Linux OS good and friendly enough for me to use on a daily basis, I decided to revisit some of my previous installations. There were a few I knew I wouldn't want to try again such as Ubuntu (Unity just messed up my experience, my mother loves it for some reason…), Fedora (more of a dev Linux in terms of release) and CentOS (the closest to RHEL, but not really fitting for a laptop) just to name a few. I went back to Distrowatch to look over their list to see if I could find something else. I noticed Mint (or Linux Mint) was ranked at number 1 (at the time of writing). This must be something good I thought. I went on ahead and started the download of Linux Mint 12.

In the meantime I did some research. It uses Gnome 3 with an additional minty layer called MGSE (NOT THE GAME!): Mint Gnome Shell Extensions. If you happen to be one of those that just hate Gnome 3 regardless, there is an interface called MATE which is simply a fork of Gnome 2. It is still Ubuntu on the inside so you have the usual pre-installed to get you going. Drivers for my wireless card also worked, just like Ubuntu, out-of-the-box. A complete list of new features in Mint 12 is here.

If you are looking for a new Linux distro to try that is user friendly (to you and others) I highly recommend Mint! For now it seems like I may have found the OS to replace Windows on my laptop !

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Duck Duck Go a Google Contender?

Elyas Kashfi / January 22, 2012 / Internet, Review, Technology / Permalink

On my quest to find a good Linux OS I decided to give Linux Mint one more try. One thing I noticed when I fired up Firefox was that the default engine was not Google (the usual with FF) but one I haven't heard called Duck Duck Go. I ended up ignoring it since I use Google Chrome as my web browser.

As I was going through the Mint blog, I came across this post. Explaining the partnership between Linux Mint and Duck Duck Go. In it a few advantages are mentioned of using DDG: they don't track you searches and they do not do something called bubbling (personalizing results based on previous searches, locations, sites visited etc…). They even have a website for each of these features donttrack.us and dontbubble.us. They also source their results from multiple engines and resources (over 50 according to them) in addition to their own crawler.

I decided to set DDG as my default engine in Chrome and give them a try for the rest of the day. The results are most of the time good (note I haven't said very good or excellent). Given it's relatively new compared to Google (only few years vs. more than a decade) there is still some room for improvement. They seem to have figured that might be the case and as a result added some short codes to redirect your query to one of your other preferred engines. For example, if you want to search for "tech blogs" on DDG and would rather have Google's result your search query would look like "!g tech blogs". They have a complete list of !Bang codes here.

Results are loaded as a single page rather than multiple pages like Google. Sponsored links are, in my opinion, much more clearly marked. They also have an interesting feature called a "0-click box", which is basically a box at the top of the results page with what they think is useful information related to your query.

Is Duck Duck Go going to take over Google soon? Unlikely, but they are an adversary that the big G needs to consider (remember even Google was a startup), even though all they offer right now is search.

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Arrandma Is Out!

Elyas Kashfi / January 17, 2012 / Bahrain, Review / Permalink

My very close friend's (Mohammed Fawzi Faleh AlAbdulla) fantasy/sci-fi novel, Arrandma, is out! I had the honor and pleasure of reading the draft copy and, even though I am quite new to the genre, it is a good read! It's even better now after being polished to perfection . This is probably a first in the region!

The only spoiler I'm letting out is that it is about a young boy called Loriem on an adventure to find the Lost Stone in an attempt to restore balance to the world of Arrandma.

The printed hardcover and paperback versions are currently available now from Lulu Publishing. It will soon be out on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, with the ePub and Kindle versions publishing soon. Updates are on the official Arrandma site. Enjoy reading!

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PinguyOS: Impressive Enough

Elyas Kashfi / January 12, 2012 / Review, Software, Technology / Permalink

In my quest to find the perfect Linux OS (perfect to me at least), I came across one based on Ubuntu called PinguyOS. I tested it in a virtual machine and it looked pretty good. It uses docks through Docky so that you can access the applications you like the most, by default they come on the bottom and left side of the screen. On your desktop on the right is something called Conky, which by default is set up to monitor your system stats such as CPU, memory usage, network etc… I had a look at the config file and its quite simple to customize once you have an idea what you want.

After making a copy of the previous state of my laptop's hard drive, I went through with a full installation (32-bit version) to see how well hardware is supported. I usually plug in the computer with an Ethernet cable, because most of the time I have had no WiFi support out of the box. PinguyOS detected my WiFi card in its live version flawlessly (expected that since it is based on Ubuntu, the only that worked with WiFi from the get go on my computers). The installation failed the first time for some reason, it just hanged there on the time zone selection screen even though it was downloading stuff. I attempted the installation again and it went smoothly the second time.

I am now in the process of getting stuff installed like Eclipse, Android SDK, Wuala (which I previously reviewed) etc… I just may have found a Linux OS worthy enough to stay on my computer this time. By the way, PinguyOS was ranked 22 on Distrowatch's list last I checked. Goes to show you that you should give lower ranked distros a fair chance !

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