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Bits and Bytes: Random Stuff You May or May Not Care About
It's why it's called The Back Pages.
| NAS Storage | OneDrive Condundrun — Reprise | ChromeBox: Vee's Progress | Imagine Me, Mr. Trendy |
1.
You know what I hate...?
I
will tell you what sets me off,
Product Placement Advertising and/or Endorsements
that disguise themselves as Knowledge Base articles. One egregious
example of this appalling practice appeared in
Fstoppers, January 14, 2023.
Ah hem...
Stopping my readers from
being " F'd "
is the point here.
Now, I wasn't going to cite the article directly; I don't need the grief
of any online debate.
When a writer, however, begins a piece with the following verbiage:
I know a lot of readers may disagree with me on this and have different opinions.
Yeah, OK. Well, here's mine.
The product pushed with impunity is a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device manufactured by Synology. The writer maintains that a NAS device is preferable to a Direct-attached storage (DAS), citing several reasons that are plain specious given today's technology marketplace. The author dismisses the most popular and easy to use backup medium, the ubiquitous USB connected hard drive because a user might lose a USB hard drive. I do not know of anyone who has ever lost a USB hard drive with a cable attached to the unit. And besides, "don't buy it because the thing is easy to lose," could just as easily apply to diamond rings or gold watches.
Although it is not recommended to do so, I
have never known a USB storage device to stop working after simply being dropped from table
height. Also, those little things only hold so much data,
so he said.
Well, I checked USB hard drive prices at Best Buy very recently.
A
5TB Western Drive is about $105. In comparison, the NAS model our
writer is promoting sells for around $1000, and offers 64TB. So
the mathin' here isn't really out of whack.
The undeniably
critically serious problem
that makes NAS technology actually moot — like so many other otherwise
sound pieces of technology — is ransomware. A drive is "mounted"
so that "a computer's operating system makes files and
directories on a storage device (such as hard drive, CD-ROM, or network
share) available for users to access via the computer's file system."
Ibid.
Any drive that is always attached via a
network connection, like a NAS, is susceptible to encryption by ransomware.
This is especially so with endorsed product, since the drives in the NAS
box are always mounted. The advantage to the USB hard drive as a backup medium
is when you finish your backup, you can then carefully and safely
store your precious backup drive(s) in a secure place. I don't
think anyone is going to want to unhook and unplug a network connected,
and a relatively heavy, box, in order to lug it around to somewhere else.
There is
a very salient fact that our writer has left off
from his endorsement/review.
NAS devices under the brand names QNAP and its
sister NAS vendor, Synology, for 2 years now have had the most
consistently reported security issues. The most recent
CVE list for Synology shows A Whole Lot of Hacking
going on.
[ed. note]
And that segues well
into our next vignette below. The overarching purpose of the 4
part series on OneDrive was to make My Readers become aware of, and thus
take control of, their own backups. Proper backup, and the
dismounting of the backup drive after the backup completes, is the only
protection a user can have against losing all their precious decades old
data to the crooks, or to the ether, or to both.
Step 1: Gather and organize the data so a user can easily find the data set.
Step 2: Copy that data set to an external
drive of sufficient capacity to hold the complete data set.
Step 3:
Once the backup is complete let the backup drive sit idle for a few minutes
to allow the writing to the backup to finish.
Step 4:
Disconnect the backup drive from whatever device it is connected to, and
carefully store the backup drive.
Step 5: (Optional) Make a backup
copy of the backup.
2. OneDrive Conundrum — Reprise: Look for the Blue Icon
The OneDrive Condundrum continues to cause consternation and confusion
across a comprehensive cluster of computer users.
OneDrive remains persistent. Although, fairly easily to control from within the Office apps; other apps might still default to OneDrive. Notepad is an example of an app that defaults to saving to the OneDrive folder; as do some legacy apps that I still use. So vigilance is advised.
If you are a Windows user has migrated upward as new versions arise, you
may find that files you thought were stored on the local machine are in fact
located on the MS
cloud. This might be especially true if you ever used Windows 8.1.
There is an easy way to tell if your files are located on your computer
or the OneDrive cloud. It is the little blue cloud icon next to a
file or folder.
When you see this icon it indicates the file or folder in question is
located in the cloud. If you perform your own backup, then you will need to
download the file to your computer; or, better yet, to a separate drive.
3. Vee's ChromeBox A Progress Report
At first, I had wondered if a mistake was made by recommending a
ChromeBox to a life long user of Windows. But Vee's difficulties
did not really arise from a technical issue with either the machine or
ChromeOS itself. The real problem Vee experienced had to do more
with password management. Suddenly, all those passwords that had
been forever stored in the Windows' Cookie Cache had to be reset on the new machine.
Vee's passwords were stored in an analogue method not conducive to
any real organization. The passwords were recorded on several different
sheets of paper. When a password changed, the old pw was crossed out
a new password written somewhere on the paper. Once all those
wrinkles got ironed out, Vee got back to being the reigning MS Solitaire Queen.
If you are truly retired and have no real need for business
applications, but you might still want a new spiffy machine to while away the hours;
surf the web, do email; jot a note here and there; or simply keep a
list, a new PC with Google ChromeOS is a very good choice for the money.
And your software vendor is Google. Google is working as hard any other entity in
trying to keep their users safe while online.
Google Chr—oo—oo—me
I got a nice web
browser
Shows me all the shiny colors
So, Mama, don't take my Google ChromeOS
away.
—
With Apologies to Paul Simon
4. Look at Me: I am now Mr. Trendy.
I find fad diets to be among the more amusing of all the silly trends that come and go. Every successful diet plan involves either reducing one's caloric intake than before the diet, or burning off more calories than before the diet. And any other type of diet plan would really be simply a fad.
Well now along comes a new fad diet so revolutionary that its very name hails from ages gone by. The practice of fasting is as old as every organized religion. When from early Christian Ascetics, to Roman Catholics avoiding meat on Fridays, to modern day Buddhists, many different faiths employ fasting as a ritual of cleansing both body and soul. And what is The Radical New Diet Sweeping the Internet? It is Fasting! Or, to make it sound more technical than it really is, the complete terminology is Intermittent Fasting.
The Mayo Clinic describes Intermittent Fasting thusly:
Intermittent fasting means that you don't eat for a period of time each day or week. Some popular approaches to intermittent fasting include:
-
Alternate-day fasting. Eat a normal diet one day and either completely fast or have one small meal (less than 500 calories) the next day.
-
5:2 fasting. Eat a normal diet five days a week and fast two days a week.
-
Daily time-restricted fasting. Eat normally but only within an eight-hour window each day. For example, skip breakfast but eat lunch around noon and dinner by 8 p.m.
Recent studies show that, at least in rats, Intermittent Fasting has demonstrated health benefits at the cellular level. A researcher at the Salk Institute published findings recently that have revolutionary implications.
“We found that there is a system-wide, molecular impact of time-restricted eating in mice,” says Professor Satchidananda Panda, senior author and holder of the Rita and Richard Atkinson Chair at Salk. “Our results open the door for looking more closely at how this nutritional intervention activates genes involved in specific diseases, such as cancer.”
Even NIH is singing the praises of Intermittent Fasting on a person's overall health. While recognizing that fasting has been recommended for health reasons for decades now — and fasting has been a part of religious practices for centuries — nonetheless, the newest research shows great promise in so many areas of one's well being.
Fasting is a prevalent approach to weight loss and is a feasible method for treating some diseases, such as type 2 diabetes. Meanwhile, the effects of intermittent fasting on health, aging, and disease process are hot issues and are of concern by researchers of multiple areas, even the public. This article introduces the effects of fasting on human lipid metabolism, glucose metabolism, protein metabolism, and neuroendocrine metabolism; demonstrates the metabolic conversion caused by fasting; and describes the effects of fasting on human psychological health, the relationship between mood regulation and glucose, and the emotional enhancing effect induced by fasting.
Now, all this is quite exciting to this 67 year old, who often feels so totally isolated to whatever is happening in the popular culture. I can say that I am now with it. I don't skip meals because of poverty and my being broke. No, Sir! I am cool. I am hip. I am trendy. I Intermittent Fast.
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the
wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
And after fasting
forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
— Matthew 4:1–2