Gordon Woolf's Blog

The nastier side of Torrent

I finally got round to trying the Torrent system, and could not resist doing a torrent search on myself. With quotes around my name I got several entries, most on a site called Docstor, and for articles written years ago, such as one titled "Is there really a PageMaker 7?"

I was able to add a comment to the pages where some of the articles were listed, pointing out that the articles were old, out of date and that I had no objection to their use provided a link to my website was included -- and that more up-to-date articles, also free for use in non-profit situations, could be found on that website. It had the desired result. Some time later, downloads were listed as zero.

My views on torrent availability are mixed and not helped by finding that a surprising number of sites seem to offer free downloads of copyright material, but then offer faster downloads if one pays a fee. The person who created the material will not be receiving any of that fee so, at the very least, I feel that such pay-for-speed services should be boycotted.

Certainly many musicians, singers etc have been dudded by record companies, to the extent that the most rewarding way for many to make music is to record their own material and sell copies at concerts, plus a few to independent retailers who will hold stock so that the artist can advertise on flyers, websites etc and at concerts and other performances about where their records can be bought. There are good record companies around but they tend to be the smaller ones.

To a substantial extent the same goes for software. There are a small number of businesses that represent small software businesses, providing a means of registration and downloads and for the collection of money.

And after saying all that, I have to admit that I downloaded the Torrent version of a CD that was recorded by a singer I know, or knew, because I last heard her live 40 years ago, but who was recently in Melbourne as one of the overseas guests of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival.

I needed the recording to persuade my partner to also come to the concert as while she likes some jazz she is more at home with country music. Listening to a singer who uses her voice more as a musical instrument than for words was not done by choice, but she did enjoy it, and I hope by the time you read this, she will have enjoyed the concert. (update: she did).

I hope too to have been able to buy a copy of the record (update: I did) as I'd much prefer to listen to a legal recording of someone I know and whose coffee I drank at her home many times after gigs when I was in her backing band.

I clone: it's the easy way back after a crash

The ultimate problem on a PC. It just would not boot up. The BIOS was trying to boot from the second hard drive and could not find the first. When I disabled the second hard drive the BIOS could not find a drive at all.

Removing the tray and then the drive from the tray I could feel it spinning but there was no sign of recognition even from my SATA docking station.

This was the disaster I knew would come and fortunately I was prepared.

My hard drives are mounted in removable trays, so I could easily swap from Win 7 to my XP drive, and that booted perfectly, proving, if I still needed proof, that it was a problem with the drive and nothing else.

But I had an easy way back to business. A month ago I had cloned my main drive using software called HDclone from Miray Software in Germany.

All I had to do was replace the faulty drive in the removable tray with the cloned one...that means loosening the tray cover, sliding that off then undoing four screws, replacing the drive, doing up the screws, sliding on and tightening the cover (one screw) and sliding it into the caddy. That takes about three minutes.

Reboot and there is my OS as it was a month ago. Copy back some files from the usual weekly backup via DriveImage (OK that software is ancient and I'll go for TrueImage when the Win7 version of that is out next month, but the old one still works perfectly) and the past day or so's email and Firefox history plus the password safe data from my thumbdrive (thanks to MozBackup).

I've since cloned the drive again and updated the cloned copy of my XP system. That takes time, but not when I have to be present. The PC will chug away for the 5 or 6 hours the cloning process takes.

The Mira website states that the latest version can create cloned drives even from within Windows but I'm currently using a bootable CD made by copying their .iso file to a CD-R. And the paid versions claim to work at twice the speed, and to be able to clone partitions as well as a full drive.

Even so, the company suggests that, to prove that the software will work on your system, you first download the free version and create a cloned drive. The appeal of then being able to do it in half the time will woo most users. The Basic edition as a download costs about US$25 (they price in Euros).

As I said, the software will work within Windows but as a self-booting CD it will copy just about any drive with any OS to any other drive which is at least the same size. And since the downloaded zip file includes an .iso file, Mac and Linux users should be able to create the bootable CD.

I'm not making any special claims for them, more for cloning as an adjunct to other backup systems. There are at least five other ways to clone a drive. See this page at Downloadquad

This was the second cloning application I tried and it did all that I needed, and simply, so I've stuck with it.

Oh yes, unless you want to read the manual, have one of those (usually green) converter plugs ready to put your mouse in via the PS/2 port instead of USB, though Mira may well have solved that with the new version that I'll download shortly.

Next time someone asks if you backup you can then say "I clone".

What happened to the failed drive? It was out of warranty with the dealer I bought it from, well over 12 months, but he suggested I look at the drive maker's website. That was Seagate. They have a page to enter the model and serial numbers and if it is within 5 years of manufacture, they replace it. I got a return number, sent it off and within two weeks a replacement came back. Only cost was one-way freight to get it to their depot.

How long do CDs and DVDs last?

So how long do CDs and DVDs last? Sometimes things on the Internet take on a life of their own. That's why I occasionally engage in what is often called "egosurfing" -- that's searching for your own name in Google or other search engines. It can be done by authors to check on illegal use of their material and I've known several fellow writers who have found their words in places where they did not expect them. In my case I have a lot of content that is offered free for non-commercial use provided it includes my byline and a reference to either a specific book of mine or to a more general description of the kind of books I write, (Googling my name will show that a good number of computer user groups have used my articles with correct attribution). It is seven years since I wrote an article for the Melbourne PC User GTroup, the largest computer user group in the world, asking "How long will a CD-R last?" It received widespread republication worldwide and many crosslinks to the original article at http://www.melbpc.org.au/pcupdate/2106/2106article14.htm Then it started to take on a life of its own, and as the article got older I'd still get fairly frequent emails from all over the world with questions on whether the conclusions in the article were still current. I had to reply that while I could not vouch for most, one of those conclusions, that most problems with CDs and therefore most likely with DVDs too occurred while they were being written, rather than in their storage, did seem to be still accurate. Only last month I was given a CD by a relative which was supposed to contain a mass of family photos. It contained nothing. The person who gave it to me was reluctant to go back to the person who had produced the CD but eventually, after getting several people to try it, got another copy -- which again did not work. I suspect that many backup CDs will have the same problem. They will fail when needed a few weeks or months later but not because of any gradual failure in the material. They were not created properly in the first place. However, returning to my theme, my latest find on Google was that the article is referenced as a source in a new book, Robots in Space: Technology, Evolution, and Interplanetary Travel by  Roger D. Launius and Howard E. McCurdy, published this year by Johns Hopkins University Press. You'll find it on Amazon. The real question is, as my article was really just a layman's summary of published research and manufacturers' claims around eight or more years ago, why has no one produced similar advice brought up to date?