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Backblaze and the Backup Bouncer Test

PhotoJoseph's picture
By PhotoJoseph
February 14, 2013 - 1:00am

Recently I was introduced to a backup application called Arq, by Haystack Software. This is a $29 app that gives you a clean interface to Amazon’s S3 or Glacier servers, allowing you to use Amazon as a backup service. Since Glacier is only $.01 per GB per month (about $10 per TB), it’s a pretty good deal. There are initial upload and then retrieval charges to consider as well, but the peace of mind of online/cloud backup is hard to put a price on.

Granted, you can buy a 3TB USB 3 hard drive today for just $130 [Amazon.com link] and ship that to a friend on the other side of the country for safe keeping, but by now I think we all know the advantages of automated, offsite backup.

Backup Bouncer Test

Anyway, this article isn’t about Arq or Glacier. It’s about a disturbing statement I read on the Haystack website, which I immediately challenged Backblaze on. As you know I’m a huge supporter of Backblaze (having written a very popular post on the topic “Cloud Backup; Backblaze in the Real World” last year), so seeing anything negative about a service I rely on is sure to get my hackles up!

The statement in question is under the header “Accuracy”, around the middle of the Arq info page. It states that Backblaze failed 19 out of 20 tests using a test suite called “Backup Bouncer”. In fact, the list goes on to show that Carbonite failed 20 out of 20, Dropbox failed 19 of 20, and so-on. Disturbing numbers, to say the least!

In complete fairness to Haystack Software, the folks who wrote this article, they did state “What do these results mean? For most scenarios, probably nothing. Any of those backup apps can restore your file contents — photos, Office docs, music files. You’ll still be able to view your restored photos, edit your restored Office docs, play your restored music. But the dates on the files might not be correct, for instance.” But regardless; 19 out of 20 failures does not instill confidence.

Backblaze’s response

So naturally, I asked Backblaze, and am quoting their response below.[more]

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Apple Aperture
macOS

ShootDotEdit Updates Aperture Workflow; Includes Cull Service

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By PhotoJoseph
February 13, 2013 - 2:33am

ShootDotEdit introduced their Aperture workflow about a year ago, first discussed on ApertureExpert here; “ShootDotEdit Now Offers an Aperture Workflow”. I was very excited about this at the time, because ShootDotEdit were the first to offer their professional photo editing services customized for Aperture users. Basically, if you shoot big events like weddings and don’t want to do the heavy lifting for the photo edit yourself, you can outsource that to SDE. At first launch though, they did not include their “cull” service for Aperture users, which meant you still had to at least do the initial edit on your own.

However, that is no longer the case![more]

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Apple Aperture

Understanding Image Resolution

Live Training Session 024

What’s a pixel, a megapixel, a DPI or a PPI? Learn that and a lot more in this very educational and technical video.

Duration: 00:34 hr
Included with membership
Watch now
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Apple Aperture
macOS

Starting Fresh: Set up Your Aperture Library for the New Year

Thomas Boyd's picture
By Thomas Boyd
January 19, 2013 - 12:00am

Keep it Clean

I start a new Aperture library every year. I have several reasons for this. If I just kept adding work to one library, that library would become massive and while Aperture can handle it, it’s no fun when it’s time to rebuild, repair, or move that library. It takes a long time to do these things to a massive library. It can tie up a large library for hours or even days.

My library organization is based on date. Every project is dated and organized in a folder by month. Starting every year makes a lot of sense. Plus, the work I do revolves on dates. For instance, I shoot a lot of sports and every season is revolves on the year. The contests I enter are annual. 

The only time I think a photographer should think about organizing a library on a system other than date is if they don’t archive a high volume of images and they are stock photographers that shoot categories of subjects. For instance, they may want to organize their library with Projects inside of folders named things like, Flowers, Beach, Forest, Insects, etc. They may also want to keep a career library. Of course, this can easily become a big mess. What if you have a photo of an insect on the beach next to a tree and a flower? Keywording would very important in a library like this[more]

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Apple ApertureFacebook
macOS

Publishing to a Private Facebook Album from Aperture

PhotoJoseph's picture
By PhotoJoseph
January 17, 2013 - 7:08am

There’s a video version of this tip! I know you guys love those, so I’ll try to do more of them. It’s at the very end of this post.

For better or for worse, I’ve been using Facebook to share photos more lately. However not necessarily publicly, but privately. Really it was a rash of holiday parties that got me looking for a good solution to publishing photos privately on Facebook directly from Aperture.

The challenge is, when you create a new Facebook album in Aperture, you don’t have the option to make it private.

Facebook albums created in Aperture can’t be made private

So the solution is quite simple, if not a little tedious. Basically, you create the private album on facebook.com first, then add your photos to that album from Aperture. Of course there are a few steps along the way, and that’s what this post is all about.[more]

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