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I've been working up a little backup system to do just this. So far it's just in the first stage, capturing data for the catalog. I wrote a little perl script that'll traverse the CD's directory structure and spit out the full path of all files, along with type, size, date, owner, etc. So, I pop in a CD, go to /Volumes/CD_Name (OS X), run the script and redirect its output to a text file (~/backups/CD_Name). Eject and pop in the next one. It's a very simple script but I put it here if anyone's interested.

Now, it's probably not so useful to you just yet, because I haven't implemented the next phase of my plan. I want to write a little perl script to take all the text 'catalog' files I generate, and store them in a MySQL database. I should have just done this to begin with, but I was lazy! Once in the database, I can query it pretty easily based on whatever criteria I want, and hopefully find the file(s) I'm looking for. A slick web interface will complete the project. But for now, a simple grep pattern ~/backups/* is good enough.

Of course I label each CD the same as the volume name, or else the whole system would be useless. Then for storage (back to the original topic), I bought some 3-ring binder pages at Staples that hold CDs. Made by CaseLogic I think, and the package had 25 pages to hold a total of 200 discs. I got 2 big binders, and when I'm finished, primary backups and software CDs will go in one, staying at home. Redundant backups of important data will go in the other, in a storage unit I rent.

I also commented on this in the poll the other week. Not that anyone cares. ;-)

Heh, I was thinking the same thing (except for the part about not being much of a Van Halen fan, obviously)... ;-) I had thought about striping my computer case like I did one of my guitars but never had the time. Doing it to one of these IBM cases would certainly be an added bonus!

I've compressed my entire 13 CD Joe Satrianni collection down to 1 disc of MP3s. I don't own speakers good enough to discern the difference between the original and the copy. Plus, it's so much more portable.

Woohoo, another Satriani fan! All of my CDs are encoded to MP3 twice: once at the highest possible quality and once at the second lowest. The high quality MP3s I keep for listening at home, the low quality get burned to CD to play in my MP3/CD player in the car. I use the latest beta (3.88 - whoops, looks like 3.89 just came out) of LAME with VBR.

I have a pretty nice pair of headphones and I can't tell any difference between the high quality MP3 and the CD. Rock, jazz, flamenco, classical, whatever. I've done a number "blindfolded" tests with all the people I can grab, including musicians, and so far not one has been able to tell the difference. Perhaps it would be possible for a select few with a $50k system, but I'm skeptical.

The low quality MP3s are distinguishable with the headphones, but just barely. They actually sound better than most 192kbps MP3s I found on Napster before it went down - a testament to the quality of LAME, I'm very impressed! For listening in the car or on the go, the slight loss of quality isn't noticeable. And averaging around 112kbps, I can fit all 147 Joe Satriani songs on a single CD with room to spare! I've had that one in the car for a few weeks since the G3 concerts. ;-)

Back to the point, I'd love to do a blindfold test with the people who were on this panel. If they really can reliably distinguish between the high quality MP3s (I'll bet the quality they encoded at for their test wasn't as high) and CD, I'll be impressed.

(sorry, couldn't resist)

The other thing I'd love is fast wireless connectivity (it's gonna be a few years before that, and a few more before it (if ever) gets on bikes) so I can upload my pictures to the website on the fly.

The other thing I'd love is fast wireless connectivity (it's gonna be a few years before that, and a few more before it (if ever) gets on bikes) so I can upload my pictures to the website on the fly.

I hacked up a quick script to interrogate my dialup hostname via nslookup on the IP and put that in the above qmail config. Then I added that script to /etc/ppp/ip-up. I also added a line to /etc/ppp/ip-down to put my internal hostname back for when I was offline. A hack for sure, but it worked.

Now, if your provider doesn't have reverse DNS setup for its dynamic IPs, the only other thing I can think of is do what I do now. I own bikegods.org (hosted elsewhere), so I just set my qmail defaulthost to that for all time. If a mailer on the other end wants to contact postmaster, etc, it will still get back to me. Do something similar if you own a domain (or know someone who doesn't mind you doing that).

I'd love to. I live about 15 miles from work (LA area) and the ride would be perfect to keep me in shape for my weekend biking. But there's no safe route with bike lanes or clear sidewalks 100% of the way, and there's no way in hell I'll trust my life to the maniacs on the road. Just another reason why LA is so car-centric...

(hmm, will anybody see this 5 days after the fact?)