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One of the least reliable computer devices ever was the 3 1/2″ floppy disk. I know that I personally lost a few files from bad disks and people in college were losing files all the time. It was a bad technology. That’s one of the problems with disks . . . they can break. So, what should you do to back up your files? Here are three suggestions:

1 – Burn them to CD/DVD
Most computers today have either a CD or DVD burner. With CDs, you can back up probably all your documents and a lot of pictures to one disc. If you’re planning on backing up a lot of pictures or mp3s you’ll want to have a DVD burner since they hold a lot more data. This is a good solution if you have a lot of school papers or other important documents that you want to keep safe. A downside to this solution is that discs can scratch or get lost. You want to make sure you write what you copied on to the disc after the burn is complete. I can’t tell you how many CDs I have that I have to stick the in drive to figure out what I put on it.

2. Copy them to a USB Drive
Some of the newer storage devices are USB Flash Drives (also known as “Jump Drives”). These little devices have really grown in popularity over the past year or two. They are small enough to fit in your pocket and sometimes are able attach to your key chain. They come in various storage capacities, with the most popular being 256 MB, 512 MB, and 1 GB. One of the best things about these little drives, besides their small size, is that there are no drivers required. Which means you can plug them right into a USB port on any computer (PC or Mac) and it will be ready to go in seconds. This option is really good if you’re moving back and forth between multiple computers and are working on larger or multiple files. One downside is they are easy to misplace due to their small size. Another problem with them is their key chain attachment. The two that I’ve owned have either had the cap break or has fallen off and gotten lost. Other than those two problems these little devices are great pieces of technology.

3 – Email the file to yourself
One of the quickest and easiest backups is to email the file(s) to yourself. With the increased storage size with the free email accounts (gmail, yahoo, hotmail) and bigger attachment sizes this has become, in my opinion, the best way to backup your files. All you do is send an email like you normally would, but address it to yourself. I’ve used this method probably a hundred times. You probably don’t want to save any financial records or other sensitive personal information this way, just to protect yourself from the chance of your mail provider’s servers being hacked, but for everything else I recommend this. What I like most about it is that it gives you an off-site, non-physical (at least to you) backup of the file. The importance of this is important to understand. You could have the file(s) saved to your computer, laptop, CD, and jump drive, but if your house burns down and all of these burn with it, you’re out of luck. This option protects you from even fire.

If you have any other ideas for backing up files, please leave a comment.

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We decided to take the Cavalier to Stillwater today. The dog cage is in the back seat, so the dogs don’t fit as well. They all decided to sit on my lap for a while. Mandy looks like she’s getting crushed in this picture.

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If you’ve followed the Dallas Mavericks for any decent amount of time, you know the TNT commentater Charles Barkley does not like them. No matter what they do, Charlie is quick to criticize and degrade them. Early this year, when the Mavs beat the Suns on opening night, Barkley criticized the Mavericks poor defense–even though they won. His biggest point was that the Mavs were switching on the pick-and-roll, which he said would never allow them to be a good defensive team.

Mark Cuban, in a recent blog entry, pointed me toward a great article that objectively looked at the effectiveness of the switch on the pick-and-roll. Kevin Pelton from 82games.com analyzed the Pistons’ defensive effectiveness against the Suns’ pick-amd-roll. Here’s a snippet from his article:

Commentator Doug Collins . . . noted at the 6:07 mark coming out of a timeout, “Remember what happened against Dallas – they started switching all those screens and the Suns got very stagnant.” Magic Johnson on “Inside the NBA” also noted that switching was key to the Pistons’ victory. Did anyone criticize Detroit coach Flip Saunders’ strategy or the validity of switching? Nope.

Here is where I think Cuban has a legitimate criticism of Barkley and Smith. Not that the numbers and charting do not help, but they’re not necessary to see whether a team’s pick-and-roll defense is working. But Barkley and Smith weren’t looking at Dallas’ defense with an objective eye; they were looking for evidence supporting their long-held contention that the Mavericks do not play enough defense to win a title. When a team known for its defense did the same thing, it didn’t fit Barkley’s and Smith’s storyline.

I’m glad someone has finally been able to prove that Charles Barkley is biased against Dallas. I don’t think this will change him, but I do know it proves what I’ve known for a long time.

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I go to a lot of Mavericks games. I think Mark Cuban has put together a great entertainment package. The game itself is almost always competitive. The atmosphere is a lot of fun. And the little extras make going to the games a great evening. While I’m at the games, I can’t help but think about what might give the Mavs a little bit of an edge. I’m always trying to figure out why Coach Johnson made a substitution or called a certain play. I’m looking for mismatches that I think they should try to exploit.

One of the ideas I’ve thought of while at the games is what should the fans do when the other team is shooting free throws. At the AAC, the Mavs pass out “Acme Bricks” for the fans to wave while the other team is shooting free throws. The announcer tells the crowd to make a lot of noise. And the general idea is to be as loud and annoying as possible. The thought is that this would distract the other team and not let them focus on making a free throw.

I don’t think it works. In fact, I think it’s harder to shoot a free throw when it’s quiet. I mean, think about it. You’re at the line, there are 20,000 people staring at you, and it’s dead silent. That would freak me out!!! I think I saw an example of this when Dirk was shooting Thursday night against the Spurs. The arena was almost dead silent and it seemed it distracted him.

Anyway, I was curious enough as about this that I did a little research. I wanted to know if the Mavs have a better free throw percentage at home or on the road. What I found out was the Mavs shoot 75.1% on the road and 74.5% at home. Not a huge difference, but you would think they’d be better at home.

I don’t think it will ever happen, but it would be so cool to have the AAC be the one place where everyone gets dead silent right when the other team is trying to make free throws. It couldn’t hurt, could it?

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I was doing some searches for an Xbox 360 and came across an interesting eBay listing (digg it then click the link). The Xbox I found was up to $1,500, but when I clicked on it just to find out a little more, it was down to $99 with 5 minutes to go. At first I thought, SWEET!!! I’m gonna land a great deal. But then looked at the bid history and saw that the seller had canceled everyone’s bids because the Xbox 360 had been damaged. He apparently made his girlfriend really mad and she took it out on the system. Here’s his words in the Questions to Seller section:
Q: How did the damage occur? Is there anything that can be used for parts?
A: Lets just say my girlfriend got slightly mad at me. I thought about using it for parts but there isn’t anything that appears to be in one piece.

I’m really curious as to what he did that made her so mad.

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If I had it my way, the front of our house would look like this:

But I know better than that.

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I’m starting to think of Firefox as the best browser ever. Every now and then, I find something new that blows me away. This happened again with an extension called IE Tab. Its website describes the extension this way: “This extension is derived from the famous extension IE View, but they are quite different. While IE View always open IE-only pages in newly launched windows of Internet Explorer, IE Tab can open them in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox.”

The reason I like it so much is there are some sites that don’t look right in Firefox. IE Tab load Internet Explorer in a Firefox tab!!! This means you don’t have to open up IE, type in the address, and wait for it to load. You can either right-click on a link and choose “Open this link in IE Tab” or you can click the icon at the bottom that shows you what web engine you’re currently using (see pictures). This is really helpful if you run a website, blog, or list items on eBay!!!

Check it out at the Mozilla Update page.

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