Post Syndicated from Barry Kaufman original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-dead-to-me-taught-us-about-3-2-1-backup/

When you start thinking about backup strategies, it tends to get inside your head. Like Dustin Hoffman’s character in “Rain Man”, seeing equations float around him as he calculates his odds in Vegas, the mental exercise of ensuring your backups have backups of their own tends to manifest itself in the strangest places.

Take, for example, the finale of the Netflix show “Dead to Me” starring Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini. The show wrapped up a few months back and should definitely be moving toward the top of your “I’ve been meaning to watch that” list. And if you have already seen it, I can’t stress enough how much more you pick up on a second time around.

Anyway, to a certain segment of the audience, the climax of the show served as a fitting conclusion to a whole host of storyline threads whose dense weave kept viewers enthralled from the first episode to the last. But to those of us who tend to worry about things like a proper 3-2-1- backup strategy, the final few episodes concealed a subtle message about the importance of proper data backup procedures.

Let’s dig into what “Dead to Me” can teach us about the importance of a good backup strategy.

Defining a 3-2-1 Backup Strategy

As we’ve discussed at length before, a good 3-2-1- backup strategy involves three copies of your data:

• One: On-site storage on your home device. Your phone, your laptop, your tablet, whatever. If you can physically touch it and your files are in there somewhere, that’s your first copy.
• Two: On-site storage on a separate device. This can be an external hard drive, a thumb drive, or if you’re on a Mac, Time Machine. If it’s not physically in the device, but it’s still somewhere close by, that’s your second copy.
• Three: Off-site backup. This should automatically scan the files on your device and upload copies to the cloud for safe-keeping. (Pssst, we’re partial to Backblaze’s astonishingly simple cloud back up here).

Okay, So What Does That Have to Do With “Dead to Me”?

There’s kind of a long road ahead, so buckle up.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, or who binged it so long ago you need a refresher, “Dead to Me” follows the story of two friends, Jen (Applegate) and Judy (Cardellini). Jen is a recently widowed mom whose husband Ted had been killed in a hit and run shortly before the show started. Judy is a woman she meets during a group therapy session, who claims to have lost her husband as well.

Only, as it turns out, Judy didn’t lose her husband. They just split up—after an argument that started when they accidentally struck and killed Jen’s husband.

Intrigued yet? We’re only on the first episode.

By the end of the first season, Jen has discovered the truth about Judy (but they’re still friends), Judy is dating a police officer who is investigating the crime she committed, and her ex-husband Steve (James Marsden, playing against his usual type as a jerk) is desperately trying to cover up the crime while avoiding the Greek mafia, who have a contract out on him.

We cannot stress enough that all of this craziness happens in the first season, which ends with Jen accidentally murdering Steve by—of course—cracking him in the head with a wooden bird, which winds up as a critical plot point.

From there the plot twists around on itself, throwing every curveball imaginable at you from secret twin brothers to money laundering schemes to torrid affairs (and hey, we already mentioned the Greek mafia). But critical to our point is one plot thread that could have been avoided with a proper backup strategy.

Karen and the… Let’s Call It 2-1 Strategy

A minor character in the first few seasons, Karen is a neighbor of Jen’s who… well, can be kind of a Karen. You know that person in your neighborhood that you suspect reports you to the Homeowner’s Association whenever your grass gets a little too long? That’s her.

As the neighborhood Karen, she has a natural inclination to keep an eye on things. As such, her house is ringed by security cameras. And as we learned in the season two premiere, one of those cameras just happened to spy Steve on his way to Jen’s house the night he was murdered.

Plot twist, right?

Since this is a huge piece of evidence implicating them in the murder they’re actively covering up, Jen and Judy have to ensure that the incriminating footage is destroyed forever. That means deleting the footage, which they discover has been safely stored in the cloud. They first try to convince Jeff, Karen’s ex, to log on and do it (side note: this happens after they discovered he was having an affair with one of Judy’s ex-boyfriends, because this show is bonkers) but unfortunately Karen has changed the password to her cloud storage.

So they have to sweet-talk their way into Karen’s house (greasing the wheels with her favorite dish—Mexican lasagna with extra raisins) and get her to delete the footage off the cloud. It’s a wonderful moment of female camaraderie as they convince Karen that the data on the cloud represents too many painful memories of her time with her ex. And when Karen finally drags the folder to the trash, we cheer her for finding the strength to move on.

And then, the punchline.

“And if I ever want to see it again, I have it backed up on my hard drive,” she exclaims, holding up her external drive backup. Jen and Judy manage to steal that, and in doing so get away with their crime scot-free.

What Should Karen Have Done?

Look, we get that the show is trying to get us to root for Jen and Judy as our protagonists, but to be honest, murder is one of those things that is a little hard to look past.

Especially given that the FBI was looking into the crime at that point in the show, what Karen did could legally be considered obstruction of justice. Or at least unintended obstruction of justice, which we’re pretty sure is still a crime. (We on the blog team are definitely not lawyers, though.)

Had Karen utilized a proper 3-2-1 strategy, she should have had a third copy—the one on her local drive—even after she was tricked into deleting it from the cloud and handing over her external drive. And, if she was using Backblaze, she would have been able to access an earlier version of her backup with either our standard 30-day version history or Extended Version History. So, she could have pulled a copy even after she deleted it.

The Moral of the Story Is: 3-2-1 Backups Are Still the Best

Karen handed over all the incriminating evidence about the murder to the person who committed it. Which, true, made for a happy ending as far as the show is concerned. But for those of us who can’t seem to get 3-2-1 backup strategies out of our head, she committed a serious blunder. A 2-1 backup strategy just won’t cut it.

And that, folks, is how “Dead to Me” reminds us all once again that a 3-2-1 backup strategy is still the best way to keep your data safe and out of the hands of nefarious, if endearing, murderers.

The post What “Dead to Me” Taught Us About 3-2-1 Backup appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Stephanie Doyle original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/building-your-digital-go-bag/

Quick! You have 10 minutes to get your most important documents out of your house. What do you need?

Here’s another scenario: you’re away from home and you find out there was a fire. Are you confident that you have all your important information somewhere you can access?

It’s never fun to imagine disaster scenarios, but that doesn’t mean you should avoid the necessary preparation. Building a good emergency kit checklist—and digitizing the things you can—is one of the easiest things you can do to give yourself peace of mind. Today, I’m covering all the things that can and should go into your digital go bag.

Disaster Prep: Better Known as Recovery Planning

It may seem far-fetched that you’ll be in the position to get the essentials in only 10 minutes, but speaking from personal experience, that’s exactly what happened to me when the 2003 Cedar Fire struck in San Diego—there’s nothing like seeing your friends’ homes on the national news, let me tell you. And, having spent much of my adult life in hurricane-prone New Orleans, disaster readiness is just a way of life. It’s common to discuss the incoming storms with the old-timers in your neighborhood bar over a $2 afternoon High Life, and they are almost always right in predicting if a hurricane is going to turn and hit Florida.

One of the things these experiences have taught me is that disasters and recovery happen in stages. There’s the inciting event—a house fire, a hurricane, etc.—and then there’s the displacement and recovery. You’re trying to call an insurance company when the lines are all tied up, and when you finally get through, you need to give them information that they need when you’re far from home and in crisis. You may have renter’s insurance, but when you’re trying to re-buy your book collection, really, which ones did you have? And, there are some things that can’t be replaced—photos are a great example. Finding a way to organize and digitize these things means that you don’t have to worry about stuff when you should be worrying about people.

All that to say, the more you can do to be prepared ahead of time, the better. That means not only having your documents in a place you can access, but also knowing what documents you need in the first place. While this type of file organization started out in response to natural disasters, it’s actually helped in many other ways—I always know where my files are to give to my tax guy, and I’ve implemented a good 3-2-1 backup strategy, which means I’m confident my data is protected and accessible.

As it happens, there’s a name for this type of intentional preparation when you’re building an emergency kit: folks call those kits go bags. It makes sense right? You have a bag that holds the things you need to go. These days, though, many of the things that you’d traditionally include in that physical bag can also be digitized. So, with all that in mind, let’s talk about how to build your (digital) go bag.

What Documents Do I Need in My Emergency Kit?

A little caveat here: just because you can digitize something, doesn’t mean that should be your only copy. There are some things that you just flat-out need to have in person, like your driver’s license, though some states have experimented with digital wallets that contain official, legal copies of those things. Nevertheless, having a digital backup of your important physical documents means that you’ll have the information to replace them should you need to.

After that, you can break your go bag checklist into a few different categories.

• Household Identification
• Financial and Legal Information
• Medical Information
• Emergency Contact Information
• Valuables and Priceless Personal Items

We’ve shamelessly borrowed this information from a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) list of essentials, and we’ve added a few notes as well. Let’s break down each category.

Household Identification

These are all the things you need to prove you are who you say you are, and to prove that your kids, pets, and spouse are, in fact, your kids, pets, and spouse. It may seem like this isn’t important, but there were whole organizations dedicated to reuniting pets with their rightful owners after Hurricane Katrina—and it wasn’t easy. And, imagine if you’ve divorced and don’t have custody papers in an emergency. Sure, courts have records of those agreements, but sometimes those papers take weeks or months to get copies of.

The List

• Vital Records: Birth certificates, marriage agreements, divorce decrees, adoption or custody papers.
• Identity Records: Passports, driver’s license, i.d. card, Social Security card, green card, visa, military service i.d.
• Pet Records: Pet ownership papers, identification tags, microchip information.

Financial and Legal Information

If your home or income is affected during a disaster, you’ll need documentation to request assistance from your insurance company or government disaster assistance programs. Remember that even after you get assistance, all that comes with tax implications down the road (for better or worse). Both of those processes take time, so in addition to having your information organized and ready to go, try to keep some emergency cash on hand during high-risk time periods.

The List

• Housing Documents: Lease or rental agreements, mortgage agreement, home equity line of credit, house or property deed, lists of/receipts for repairs.
• Bills: Utility bills, student loans, alimony, child support, elder care, gym memberships, streaming services.
• Vehicle Documents: Loan documents, VIN number, registration, title.
• Financial Accounts: Checking, savings, debit cards, credit cards, retirement accounts, investment accounts.
• Insurance Policies: Homeowners, renters, auto, life, flood, fire.
  • Note: Don’t forget to document your property! Make a list of items covered by insurance with their estimated values, and take pictures of all that stuff.
• Sources of Income: Pay stubs, government benefits, alimony, child support, rent payments, 1099 income.
• Tax Statements: Federal/state income tax returns, property tax, vehicle tax.
• Estates Planning: Wills, trusts, powers of attorney.

Medical Information

Even more so than the other sections on this list, it’s important to make sure you have thorough documentation for each member of your household. Remember that there are some items on this list that you’ll need sooner rather than later—think prescription refills. And, make sure that allergy information is front and center, especially life-threatening allergies (like to seafood or nuts).

The List

• Insurance Information: Health and dental insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration (VA) health benefits.
• Medical Records: List of medications, illnesses/disabilities, immunizations, allergies, prescriptions, medical equipment and devices, pharmacy information.
• Legal Documents: Living will, medical powers of attorney, Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) documents, caregiver agency contracts, disabilities documentations, Social Security (SSI) benefits information.
• Contact Information: A list of doctors, specialists, dentists, pediatricians.

(Emergency) Contact Info

Finally, you’ll want all of the contact information you may need in one place—it’ll save you time and headaches when you’re trying to make calls, plus you may be able to delegate some phone calls to others. The exercise itself is useful to help you remember any miscellaneous items you may have forgotten in your other documents. Bonus: you can keep a list of extensions or direct phone lines and skip the automated phone tree.

The List

• Employers
• Schools
• Houses of worship
• Homeowners’ associations
• Home repair services
• Relatives/emergency contacts
• Utility companies
• Insurance companies
• Lawyers
• Local non-emergency services
• Government agencies

Valuables and Priceless Personal Items

Most of the things that fit in this section aren’t able to be digitized—your wedding dress, heirlooms, jewelry, and the like. Still, don’t forget that those things may have a paper trail you want to keep in your records, especially if you have additional insurance on things like the jewelry.

And, you can never forget to mention photos in this section. While most of us are now in the habit of using our smartphones as cameras, so most of our new photos are already stored in the cloud, don’t forget to digitize all of your photos, including the ones passed down by relatives, taken by professionals, and so on. And, even though it seems like our phones are safer than other formats, you’ll want to back up your mobile devices as well.

Go Bag: Go for Backups

Here’s the short answer to the question of what to digitize: anything you can. Even if the digital copies aren’t legally acceptable, like in our i.d. example above, you’ll at least have the information to fill out online forms or re-order the documents as necessary.

Once you have digital copies of all of these documents, it’s also easy to backup your information. We recommend that you follow a 3-2-1 backup strategy: having three copies of your files in two separate locations with one of those locations off-site. That way, you can grab your documents and go if you’re at home, or if the worst happens and you can’t access that on-site information, you can access all that information in the cloud.

Is My Go Bag Safe Online?

Good question. This is the most important information in your life, and we’re asking you to store it all online, the playground of cybercriminals. There’s a lot you can do to protect yourself, though. You’ve already achieved one of those things: setting up a backup strategy. You should also store your data in a secure location. Watch out for clever phishing attempts. And, make sure you follow password best practices, including setting up multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Make It a Holiday to Update Your Information Regularly

Remember that a lot of the information on this list will change over time. Maybe you’re the type of person who remembers to update their files continuously or when something big changes, but it’s a good idea to set one day per year (Around tax day? Maybe going into hurricane season? Groundhog’s Day?) that you intentionally set as Update Important Information Day. (We’re big fans of holidays that combine the whimsical and the practical here at Backblaze.) Feel free to workshop the holiday title and celebrate judiciously. Then, use a backup service like Backblaze Personal Backup that continuously and automatically backs up your data, and you’ll be pretty well prepared for whatever life throws at you.

The post Building Your (Digital) Go Bag appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Stephanie Doyle original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-best-backups-in-football-history-part-one/

Ah, football. A beautiful 18 weeks from September to January when we cheer for our favorite teams, eat an uncomfortable amount of dippable appetizers and hand-held foodstuffs, and generally have more exciting Mondays, Thursdays, and Sundays than the rest of the year. And of course, Super Bowl Sunday is the pinnacle of all that joy.

One of the things that we love about football is that it’s given us some incredible moments proving the importance of—you guessed it—backups. Sure, there are only 11 players on the field at any one time, but the team roster has 53 players total, and there’s a reason for that. At any time, the players toward the bottom of the roster could be called up to save the day. And we at Backblaze celebrate times when backups shine.

So, let’s talk about some of our favorite (football) backups of all time and relive those exciting moments.

The Highlight Reel

Brock Purdy, San Francisco 49ers, 2022

We’re based in San Mateo which means we’ve got a lot of Niners fans here at Backblaze. So, you can imagine the joy (and heartbreak) in our office this year. Brock Purdy was the final pick of the 2022 NFL Draft, therefore this season’s Mr. Irrelevant. (We know. It’s kind of mean, but we didn’t make up the name.)

As a third string QB in his rookie season, Purdy likely imagined he’d have little to no play time. Then, first string QB Trey Lance went out with an injury in week two, and Jimmy Garoppolo followed in week 13. Purdy started his first game against the Buccaneers and became the only quarterback in his first career start to beat a team led by Tom Brady.

After winning the Wild Card game, he suffered an injury to his right elbow, and then his replacement Josh Johnson got a concussion. Sadly, that meant the 49ers were out for the season, but there’s no argument that Purdy outperformed everyone’s expectations. What a backup! (And we hope everyone recovers well.)

We’d like to note here that part of the reason the Niners’ backups got to shine is that the offensive line was so strong this year, so shout out to all the players who put in that work.

The Backup Bottom Line: In our minds, the ability to protect your backups is the hallmark of any good backup strategy.

Max McGee, Green Bay Packers, 1966

This one is truly the stuff of legends, and we need to set the historical stage a bit to truly squeeze the juice, as they say.

The Super Bowl we know and love today pits the two conferences of the NFL against each other. But, back in the day, the Super Bowl was created because oil heir Lamar Hunt created an upstart league called the American Football League (AFL). After a contentious draft, player poaching, and so on, the AFL was looking to prove its legitimacy by challenging the established NFL teams—and so, in 1966, the first Super Bowl was held.

The Green Bay Packers, helmed by the great Vince Lombardi, won the NFL Championship versus the Cowboys and earned the right to face the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl I. Lombardi was reportedly extremely invested in defending the honor of the NFL, and he raised the penalties for breaking curfew to record-high levels. However, that didn’t stop Max McGee.

McGee had gone pro in 1954, and, at that point in 1962, was seemingly close to retirement. That season, he’d only caught four passes total and did not expect to play in the Super Bowl. So, he made plans with two flight attendants and spent the night before the big game drinking, eventually returning to the hotel at 6:30 a.m. game day. (We won’t speculate on what else happened, though Sports Illustrated wrote a fantastic article about McGee.)

In what now only seems fateful, starting receiver Boyd Dowler suffered a shoulder injury in the second drive and was out of the game. A few plays later, hungover and sleep deprived, McGee made a one-handed catch and ran 37 yards to score the first touchdown of the game—the first touchdown in Super Bowl history. By the end of it all, he had 138 receiving yards and two touchdowns, contributing to the Packers’ victory.

McGee went on to retire the following season, but he will never be forgotten.

The Backup Bottom Line: Just like a computer backup, McGee was there when the team most needed him and least suspected it.

Nick Foles, Philadelphia Eagles, 2012–2013

Nick Foles is a great example of someone who found himself bouncing between backup and starter. If you’re not familiar with the Eagles’ 2012 season, their overall record was a dismal four wins, 12 losses. Midseason, starting QB Michael Vick suffered a concussion and Foles got his chance. He started Week 14’s game against the Bucs, and delivered the Eagles’ first win since game four.

When the 2013 season rolled around, the Eagles weren’t quite ready to part ways with Vick. Vick won the starter spot with excellent preseason play, while Foles only gave an average performance. But, when Vick suffered a hamstring injury, Foles again stepped in. By weeks nine and 10, Foles was putting up extremely high passer ratings, and became the first quarterback in NFL history to post passer ratings above 149 in consecutive weeks. He led the team to the NFC East division title and the Wild Card playoffs, and then lost to the Saints who scored a last minute field goal to advance.

Still, the Eagles ended the 2013 season 10–6, a huge improvement from 2012. After an unsuccessful 2014 season, Foles was traded to the Rams. Since then, he’s repeated this same story with the Eagles in 2017 and 2018, but couldn’t seem to make the same magic with the Jaguars (due to injury), the Bears, or the Colts. Ultimately, Foles may be a backup, but he’s responsible for some insane stats—including the best touchdown-interception ratio in the season (2013) and putting up a perfect passer rating in a game (2013, Eagles vs. Raiders).

The Backup Bottom Line: You can never count out your backups. Just when you think they’re an artifact, they bring your best moments back to you.

Darren Sproles, San Diego Chargers, 2005–2011

Speaking of insane stats, let’s talk Darren Sproles. Calling out my bias here, I’m a huge Darren Sproles fan. Also, like Sproles, I spent my youth with the Chargers, then moved onwards and upwards to the Saints. (Yes, San Diego is still salty about the move to L.A. No, I didn’t randomly choose the Saints.)

If you’re unfamiliar with Darren Sproles, he has what is likely the least-probable body type for football, at just 5’6, 190 lbs. I can’t imagine how many times he was likely told to consider football an unrealistic dream by a well-meaning adult in his life. On the other hand, he’s incredibly fast, super powerful in the pocket, and can change directions on a dime. (Plus, it goes without saying he can take a hit.) When Sproles was on the Chargers, word on the street was that he benched more than any player on the O-line.

At the time, first string running back LaDainian Tomlinson (LT) was—there’s no other word for it—crushing it. Widely regarded as one of the best receivers of all time, he has a career 624 receptions, with 100 of those in the Chargers’ 2001 season. He’s currently 7th place in overall rushing yards, with 13,684 career yards. When Sproles joined the team in 2005, he was third string behind LT and Michael Turner (also an incredible running back, and he almost made our list here).

As Sproles became a big part of the Chargers’ offensive strategy, things became more balanced. That’s not because Darren Sproles was in competition for the top spot; Sproles is a scat back and a specialist in conversions. When it’s third down and you need yards, you want Sproles to have the ball.

Sproles is also an incredible special teams player, so he was often doing double duty in games. When the Chargers played the Colts in 2007, Sproles made history by returning a kickoff and a punt for his first two NFL touchdowns. In 2008, he became the second player in NFL history with 50 rushing yards, 50 receiving yards, and 100 return yards in one game. In 2010, he appeared in all 16 games, with 59 receptions, 50 carries, 51 kick returns, and 24 punt returns.

Sproles went to the Saints in 2011, and in that season, he broke the NFL record for single-season all purpose yardage—2,696 yards. At this point, he’s ranked 6th in career all-purpose yards in NFL history, with 19,696 yards. LaDanian Tomlinson is ranked 10th, with 18,456 yards.

The Backup Bottom Line: Your backups fulfill a totally different purpose than your active data, and often they’re working better (by some measures).

Earl Morrall, Baltimore Colts & Miami Dolphins, 1968–1977

Earl Morrall started his career in 1956 as a quarterback and occasional punter. To summarize the first decade or so of his NFL career, he played capably and suffered a few major injuries at key times.

In 1968, he found himself playing for the Baltimore Colts as second string to Hall-of-Famer Johnny Unitas. When Unitas was injured during preseason, Morrall was left to lead the offense, and the team went 13–1 in the regular season. Morrall led the league with 26 touchdowns, and threw for 2,909 yards. After a shutout in the NFL Championship (remember: this is in the days where the American Football League existed), the Colts advanced to Super Bowl III. Widely regarded as one of the greatest upsets in sports history, the Colts lost the Super Bowl after Morrall threw three interceptions, and Unitas came in late in the game and scored the only touchdown of the game. The Colts later won Super Bowl V—which was also the first year after the NFL bought the AFL, and thus the Super Bowl was the ultimate championship in the NFL.

Despite his success, backing up was as far as Morrall would get with the Colts, and in 1972, Morrall went to the Miami Dolphins. Football fans probably already know: In 1972, the Miami Dolphins achieved the first and only perfect season in NFL history. And in game five of that perfect season, starting quarterback Bob Griese broke his ankle—leaving Morrall to start the remaining nine games of the season. In the postseason, he started the Divisional playoff game and the AFC Championship, though Griese came back in the third quarter to finish that one out and then started in the Super Bowl. To make that math simple: That means that in the 1972 Dolphins perfect season, Morrall started 11 of the 17 total games.

Backblaze’s Juan Lopez-Nava shares another perfect thing in football: his pup and dedicated 49ers fan, Mila.

Morrall went on to retire from the Dolphins in 1977 with only sporadic playtime marking the time in between.

The Backup Bottom Line: It just goes to show: having a great backup means that you can rely on the system to work, even if key parts of your initial strategy go down.

Even Our Backup Stories Had Backups

When we first started talking about this article, we were sure there’d be great backup stories, but it’s incredible how many we found. We have a whole list of players whose moments didn’t get highlighted in this piece simply because we ran out of space, and, frankly, some of them are just as impressive (maybe even more so?) when compared to those above. If you want to do some further investigation, check out Geno Smith, Teddy Bridgewater, Michael Turner, Kurt Warner, Jeff Hofstetler, Trey McBride, Cordarrelle Patterson, Devin Hester—and then let us know who else you turn up in the comments section, because we’re sure we missed some good stories.

The post The Best Backups in Football History, Part One appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Stephanie Doyle original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-to-download-and-back-up-your-mastodon-account/

Mastodon: Have you heard of it? As a social media platform, it’s unique in that it’s free, open-source, and crowdfunded. It doesn’t have ads, and it’s not owned by a corporation. When you set up an account on Mastodon, you select a server (called an “instance”) where your account lives. All of that can sound confusing to your average computer user, though it also makes it a favorite amongst the more tech-savvy users in the world.

The truth of Mastodon’s distributed servers is that it doesn’t really matter which server you choose to set up on. Since each server talks to every other server (just like email), you’ll be able to use the social network just like you would Twitter or any other microblogging platform. You can publish text posts (adorably called “toots”) and attach media such as pictures, audio, video, or polls. Mastodon lets you follow friends and discover new ones, and also uses hashtags to find communities or topics you may be interested in.

Also just any other social media site, you’ll want to back up all your posts. That’s what we’re going to talk about today. 

How Mastodon Works: The Nuts and Bolts

There are some people who want to host their own Mastodon server (if that’s you, it means that other accounts would be hosted on your server, and you’d be responsible for setting standards to moderate content). In that case, you may want to back up your Mastodon server data to Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage—or even use our always-hot storage to actively run your server like this Mastodon user who kept running out of storage and used Backblaze for a cost-effective storage solution.

Stay tuned: We’re planning on writing about this in the future.

But, if you’re just using your account like you would on any other social media platform—that is, you’re posting, finding friends, sharing cute pictures of dogs, etc.—you’ll want to make sure that your posts and memories are protected. There’s the normal run of data loss dangers: natural disasters, computer crashes, and so on. But also, since anyone can bring up their own Mastodon server, they can just as easily take them down. In that case, having a backup means that you can easily move your account to another server on the Mastodon platform without losing your toots.

Let’s talk about the best way to keep your data backed up with Backblaze Computer Backup.

Download Your Mastodon Data

Like most services that prioritize open sourcing, Mastodon has a fantastic documentation center. If you ever have questions, start there first (that’s what we did). To get started with your Mastodon back up, you’ll want to download your account information. After you log into your account, navigate to Settings > Export. The screen should look like this:

As you can see, there are lots of lists you can download straight from this screen. These include your block lists and mute lists—an excellent feature which means you can maintain your privacy settings if you need to move your account, or open a new account on a different server.

To get your toots as well as any uploaded media, like photos or videos, you simply click the button to request your archive. You can request this archive once every seven days.

Once you have that file, you can either upload a copy of it to Backblaze B2 (which is free for your first 10GB of storage), or, Backblaze Personal Backup (we’ve got a free trial there too, of course). Backblaze Personal Backup is super easy—just save that file natively on your computer so that it’s included in your always-running backup service.

Why Back Up Your Mastodon Archive?

It’s always smart to protect your data with a 3-2-1 backup strategy. This means that you’ll have three copies of your data stored in two different local destinations with one copy kept off-site.

Taking your Mastodon archive file as an example, let’s see where those files would live to make sure we satisfy the 3-2-1 backup strategy:

1. The downloaded copy of your Mastodon archive is saved to your personal computer.
2. You also back up that archive on your external hard drive.
3. You have a third copy of the file saved in your Backblaze account.

Especially if you’re using a sync service for the files on your computer, sometimes things get modified or deleted accidentally. When that happens, you can restore from the backup copy on your hard drive. If your hard drive crashes for some reason, then you also have another copy you can easily restore from your Backblaze account. Since it lives in the cloud, even if your computer and your hard drive are lost (say, in a natural disaster), you will still have another copy of your data you can use to get back online.

Even better: If you enable Extended Version History on your Backblaze Computer Backup account, you can see older versions of your file. That’s useful if you accidentally replace your Mastodon archive and there was something you needed, but got changed. They have the same name, right? It’d be an easy mistake to make and not notice until you need to restore. With Extended Version History, you’d just choose an earlier instance of the file, restore it, and then move that file back to your computer and hard drive.

Mastodon Users Are On Top of Back Up

Of course, you can always go above those minimum standards, as these folks were discussing in this Mastodon thread.

We’re not surprised that Mastodon users are talking about their intricate back up systems. Generally speaking, if you’re someone who is interested in or uses open-source tech, you know that it can be a double-edged sword. The community is constantly finding and fixing bugs, asking questions, and creating tech. It’s exciting and creative, but sometimes you have to do a bit more legwork to make things work well.

So, users on Mastodon know the risks when they choose to host their data on someone else’s server, and Mastodon gives you options for how to reconstitute your account if that happens. It’s one of the reasons we love Mastodon: they thought about how to back up when they built the platform.

And, because Mastodon is open source, “they” = users who are (often) also contributing to the code. Of course they’re having spirited debates about how to make their tech lives better and more secure—and we love to see it!

In Theory, It’s Easier to Lose Your Data on Mastodon

We said at the beginning of this article that it really doesn’t matter which server (“instance”) you choose to host your Mastodon account on—and it doesn’t, when you’re talking about interacting with the platform as a user.

The thing that is different about Mastodon is that because it runs on distributed servers, Mastodon is (in theory) more vulnerable than other networks to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. If your server gets overloaded, it may result in you losing data.

Another thing to take note of is that Mastodon doesn’t have automatic updates. As a user, the onus is on you to check GitHub and to update accordingly. Since platform updates are often released to close security vulnerabilities, if you aren’t on top of this, you’re at risk of losing your data from a cyberattack.

This doesn’t mean that Mastodon as a social media site is less safe. In fact, because they automatically set up multi-factor authentication (MFA) and store less of your personal identifiable information, in some ways it’s safer than other platforms.

As long as you’re regularly backing up your Mastodon archive, you should be totally (“toot-ally”?) covered. Start your free trial with Backblaze Computer Backup, follow the steps we’ve set out above, and you’ll be all set.

The post How to Download and Back Up Your Mastodon Account appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Stephanie Doyle original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/beginner-guide-to-computer-backup/

Wouldn’t it be great if computers never crashed? If laptops never got lost? If that cup of coffee never spilled across your keyboard? As much as we’d like to believe that our computers will always work and the data on them will always be safe and accessible, accidents happen. Regardless of how you’re using your computer, you’re storing data that needs to be backed up.

Whether you’ve accidentally deleted a synced file, have a social media presence that’s just too valuable to lose, are going back to school, or you want to make sure you’re protected from cyberattacks, having your data backed up means that your important information isn’t lost forever. So, let’s talk about how to get the most out of your Backblaze account.

1. Set Yourself Up for Success

Backblaze backs up all the files on your computer, including documents, photos, music, movies, and more. When you’re creating your account for the first time, that can take some time—longer than you might think depending on how much data you have and how fast your internet connection is. (If you think it will take a really long time, you should probably be considering Backblaze B2 and our Universal Data Migration solutions). It’s important that your computer is on and awake during that time period, so we suggest that you turn off your computer’s sleep mode during your initial backup.

2. Keep Your Account Secure

We’ve talked before about how to keep your passwords safe, but we just want to make sure it’s clear how important that is for your backups. When backups are your last line of defense—your only option for recovery—then it’s imperative that you use unique passwords and practice a 3-2-1 backup strategy.

3. Bring Your Drive to the Table

If you have external drives, it’s essential that you connect them to your computer to be backed up to your Backblaze account. In order to give us enough time to scan the whole drive, make sure that it’s plugged into your primary computer for at least four hours in a row, once every two weeks. Here’s some more information on using external hard drives with Backblaze.

4. Check In

Once a week, it’s a great idea to check that your backups are working properly. If they’re not, make sure that you have the most recent version of Backblaze, or you can always contact our Support Team to make sure everything is running smoothly.

And, once a month, it’s a good idea to try to restore files from your online account. This is especially important if you have external devices. It’s always good practice to double check that things are running well, but it also gives you an opportunity to make sure you’ve backed up your external drive successfully.

5. On Restoration: The Sooner, The Better

When you’ve lost data, make sure you restore your data ASAP. If you’re ever worried you may need data continuity, remember that you can easily enable Extended Version History for $2/month. That will give you the ability to restore any version of a file for one year—or forever—depending on what you need.

Remember that Backblaze offers lots of file restoration options. Of course, you can use our website, but you can also restore from your mobile device or even order a USB. (We know; old school.)

Backup and Beyond

We are big advocates of backing up, of course. Hey, it’s for good reason. We want our tech to be accessible to all types of users. We love when you tell your friends about us, or you can use us to help your family and friends. If we’re missing any good tips or you have questions for us, feel free to comment below, say hi on socials, or contact Support.

The post The Beginner’s Guide to Computer Backup with Backblaze appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Barry Kaufman original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-to-download-and-back-up-your-twitter-account/

If you’ve been following the news lately, you might be thinking now is a good time to start downloading and backing up your Twitter history.

It’s officially the Elon Age of Twitter, and subsequently, there have been a few people rumbling about leaving the platform following Musk’s firing of top executives and an alarming rise in hate speech. Needless to say, we’re sticking around—you might have stumbled upon this article from Twitter itself. We just can’t quit the little blue bird quite yet. But there is one thing we can do, and that’s help you download and back up your Twitter archive—most likely for free.

Whether you’re anti-Elon or you’re just worried that the folks who are good at building electric cars or spaceships might not know how to manage a social media algorithm, you can take a few easy steps to protect your treasured Twitter memories. Here’s how.

Downloading Your Twitter Data

The first step is to log in to your Twitter account on a web browser. Once logged in, click on the “More” section in the navigation bar. From there, a new navigation bar will appear. You should select the “Settings and Support” dropdown, followed by the “Settings and Privacy” tab to progress.

Under the “Your Account” section, you will find an area labeled “Download an archive of your data.” The function of this is pretty self-explanatory, but does lead to a further menu that allows you to request an archive of your Twitter data or Periscope data.

After requesting your archive you will receive a notification with a link when your archive is ready for download. This archive will consist of a ZIP file with data that Twitter has deemed most relevant or useful to you, including DMs, moments, profile media and any media you may have used in your Tweets such as gifs, photos, and videos.

Archive Your Twitter Data for Free

Once you download your Twitter data, you can then save a full archive copy in the cloud on Backblaze B2—for free if it’s under 10GB.

Click here to get started with Backblaze B2 Storage Cloud today.

Back Up Your Twitter Data (Not Free, But Super Easy)

In addition to an archive copy, it’s important to use a secure backup strategy so all of those Tweets and memories will be preserved and kept safe from accidental deletion, equipment failure, or disasters (whether they’re natural or Musk-made). This is where a 3-2-1 backup strategy comes in handy. Using a 3-2-1 approach means keeping one copy of your data locally, one copy on a different type of media like an external hard drive, and one off-site (the cloud is a great place to keep it!).

You’ll need to manually download your Twitter data periodically, but once you have it on your machine, you can ensure it’s backed up with Backblaze Computer Backup—it automatically backs up all of your files, including documents, photos, music, movies, and, yes, all of that Twitter data you downloaded.

Click here to sign up for a 15-day trial of Backblaze Computer Backup, and save those Tweets.

The post How to Download and Back Up Your Twitter Account appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Post Syndicated from Molly Clancy original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-to-wipe-pc-ssd-or-hard-drive/

Do you have an old PC lying around that you’d love to throw away or donate? Before you take it to the recycling center, you definitely want to scrub it of all your data. And there’s a bit more to it than just deleting your files and emptying the recycle bin. 

This guide will help you make sure all of your personal data is wiped from the machine so you can be confident it’s all gone before you give it away or recycle it. 

First things first: Back up your computer

Before you do anything, make sure your data is backed up. You want to be able to load it all on to a new computer, or at least keep it in an archive, so you can access it after you dispose of your old machine. The best plan for backing anything up is the 3-2-1 backup strategy where you keep three copies of your data on two types of media with one copy off-site. Your first copy is the one on your computer. Your second copy can be kept on an external hard drive or other external media. And, your third copy should be kept in an off-site location like the cloud. If you’re not backing up an off-site copy, now is a great time to get started.

You can easily create a backup using Windows Backup on Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10, and 11. If you save that to an external hard drive, you can then move your files to a new computer or just keep it as a local backup. Once you’re backed up, you’re ready to wipe your PC’s internal hard drive.

How to completely wipe a PC

In most cases, wiping a PC involves simply reformatting the disk and reinstalling Windows using the Reset function. If you are recycling, donating, or selling your PC, the Reset function makes data recovery sufficiently difficult, especially if your data is encrypted (more on that later). This process is straightforward in Windows versions 8, 8.1, 10, and 11, and works for both hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs).

How to reset Windows 10 and 11

Follow these instructions for different versions of Windows to reset your PC:

1. Go to Settings → System (In Windows 10: Update & Security) → Recovery.
2. Under Reset this PC, click Reset PC. (In Windows 10: Click Get Started.)
3. Choose Remove everything. If you’re not getting rid of your PC, you can use Keep my files to give your computer a good cleaning to improve performance.
4. You will be prompted to choose to reinstall Windows via Cloud download or Local reinstall. If you’re feeling generous and want to give your PC’s next owner a fresh version of Windows, choose Cloud download. This will use internet data. If you’re planning to recycle your PC, Local reinstall works just fine.
5. In Additional settings, click Change settings and toggle Clean data to on. This takes longer, but it’s the most secure option.
6. Click Reset to start the process.

How to reset Windows 8 and 8.1

1. Go to Settings → Change PC Settings → Update and Recovery → Recovery.
2. Under Remove everything and reinstall Windows, click Get started, then click Next.
3. Select Fully clean the drive. This takes longer, but it’s the most secure option.
4. Click Reset to start the process.

Secure erase using third-party tools

If the reset option doesn’t totally put your mind at ease, or if you have a PC running Windows 7 or older, you have another option—third-party tools. There are a number of good third-party tools you can use to securely erase your disk, which we’ll get into below. These are different depending on whether you have an internal HDD or an SSD.

How do I find out I have an HDD or SSD in my Windows laptop?

Most desktops and laptops sold in the last few years will have an SSD, but you can easily check to be sure:

1. Open Settings.
2. Type “Defragment” in the search bar.
3. Click on Defragment and Optimize Your Drives.
4. Check the media type of your drive.

How to securely erase your Windows drive using third-party tools

Now that you know what kind of drive you have, here are your options for wiping your Windows drive:

Securely erase an HDD

The process for erasing an HDD involves overwriting the data, and there are many utilities out there to do it yourself:

1. DBAN: Short for Darik’s Boot and Nuke, DBAN has been around for years and is a well-known and trusted drive wipe utility for HDDs. It does multiple pass rewrites (binary ones and zeros) on the disk. You’ll need to download it to a USB drive and run it from there.
2. Disk Wipe: Disk Wipe is another free utility that does multiple rewrites of binary data. You can choose from a number of different methods for overwriting your disk. Disk Wipe is also portable, so you don’t need to install it to use it.
3. Eraser: Eraser is also free to use. It gives you the most control over how you erase your disk. Like Disk Wipe, you can choose from different methods that include varying numbers of rewrites, or you can define your own.

Keep in mind, any disk erase utility that does multiple rewrites is going to take quite a while to complete.

If you’re using Windows 7 or older and you’re just looking to recycle your PC, you can stop here. If you intend to sell or donate your PC, you’ll need the original installation discs (yes, that’s discs with a “c”…remember? Those round shiny things?) to reinstall a fresh version of Windows.

Securely erase an SSD

You have a few options for securely erasing an SSD. These third-party tools will do the trick:

1. Parted Magic: Parted Magic is the most regularly recommended third-party erase tool for SSDs, but it does cost $11. It’s a bootable tool like some of the HDD erase tools—you have to download it to a USB drive and run it from there.
2. ATA Secure Erase: ATA Secure Erase is a command that basically shocks your SSD. It uses a voltage spike to flush stored electrons. While this sounds damaging (and it does cause some wear), it’s perfectly safe. It doesn’t overwrite the data like other secure erase tools, so there’s actually less damage done to the SSD.

Encrypting data on a Windows PC

Even if you’re not getting rid of your computer, encrypting your data is a good idea. If your laptop falls into the wrong hands, encryption makes it that much harder for criminals to access your personal information. But, if you have an SSD, encrypting your data is even more important, both before you get rid of it and just in general. Why? The way SSDs store and retrieve data is different from HDDs.

HDDs store data at specific physical locations on the drive platter. In contrast, SSDs use electronic circuits and memory cells, which are organized into pages and blocks, to store data. Constant writing and rewriting to the same blocks can wear out an SSD over time. To mitigate this, SSDs employ a technique called “wear leveling,” which distributes data across the entire drive, preventing it from being stored in just one physical location.

When you tell an SSD to erase data, it doesn’t overwrite the existing data. Instead, it writes new data to a different block. Consequently, some of your old data may remain on the SSD until the wear leveling process eventually overwrites those cells. So, it’s smart to encrypt your data before erasing it from an SSD. This ensures that any residual data is protected. If any data is left lurking, at least no one will be able to read it without an encryption key.

Encrypting your data first isn’t necessarily a requirement, but if Windows Reset is not enough for you and you’ve come this far, we figure it’s a step you’d want to take. The process isn’t complicated, but not every Windows machine is the same. First, check to see if your device is encrypted by default:

1. Open the Start menu.
2. Scroll to the Windows Administrative Tools dropdown menu.
3. Select System Information. You can also search for “system information” in the taskbar.
4. If the Device Encryption Support value is “Meets prerequisites,” you’re good to go—encryption is enabled on your device.

If not, your next step is to check if your device has BitLocker built in:

1. Open Settings.
2. Type “BitLocker” in the search bar.
3. Click Manage BitLocker.
4. Click Turn on BitLocker and follow the prompts.

If neither of those options are available, you can use third-party software to encrypt your internal SSD. VeraCrypt and AxCrypt are both good options. Just remember to record the encryption passcode somewhere and also the operating system (OS), OS version, and the encryption tool you used so you can recover the files later on if desired.

The nuclear option

Encrypting, resetting, and/or wiping your drive with a third-party tool should be more than enough to make sure your data is protected and your laptop or desktop is clean before you donate or recycle it. But maybe you’re still feeling wary about it. In that case, you always have the option to destroy the drive yourself.

When nothing less than total destruction will do, just make sure you do it safely. The safest and most secure way to destroy an HDD, and the only way we’d recommend physically destroying an SSD, is to shred it. Check with your local electronics recycling center to see if they have a shredder you can use. (And, you absolutely want to ask if you can watch as giant metal gears chomp down on your drive. Metal.) Shredding it should be a last resort though. Drives typically last five to 10 years, and millions get shredded every year before the end of their useful life. 

Still have questions about how to securely erase or destroy your hard drives? Let us know in the comments. And if you’re curious about how to erase a Mac HDD or SSD, read our guide here.

FAQs

The post Getting Rid of Your PC? Here’s How to Wipe a Windows SSD or Hard Drive appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup