Our last meeting before Y2K ends civilization as we know it was remarkably relaxed... about a dozen members and guests met on the first Wednesday of December.
Preparing for Y2K
I don't think any of us seriously expected major Y2K problems. Nontheless, we did discuss backup methods. The consensus was that there aren't any clear winners for totally automated system backups. The options built into Windows, such as Briefcase or the Backup Exec Agent, aren't particularly great for folks using a single PC.
There are commercial back-up solutions that use tape drives or removable cartridge drives, but those have some serious problems. Tape drives can hold a lot of data, but the tape can be fragile. Furthermore, the backup files are not put on the tape like files on a hard disk; if you just want to access one backed-up file, it can be hard to do. Some tape systems insist upon restoring the entire tree of backed-up folders and files.
But the main problem with both tapes and cartridges is that, if your main system goes down, you might not have another system that can read a tape or a cartridge. You might have to wait until your system is repaired and its software re-installed, in order to access your backups.
The solution that I prefer is to use a CD-writer drive, and to explicitly backup the trees of folders and files, in such a way that the CD-ROM can be read by any system that has an ordinary CD-ROM drive- even an old DOS PC. To do it, I use Adaptec's Easy CD Creator, which often is bundled for free with CD-writers like my internal HP CD-Writer 7200 Plus.
Easy Easy CD Creator lets me create a Data CD that even my DOS PCs can read; it costs less than $2 per CD, so I make frequent backups; and the CD looks just like a tree of folders and files, so I can access any of the files with any software.
To make it even easier to find the files I want, even with a DOS PC that can't understand Windows 95 long filenames, I always create a text file that shows the layout of the tree. I create the file in the root of the tree before I write the CD-ROM, so that the file ends up on the CD-ROM. I create the file with a simple DOS command. So if I wanted to back up the tree at D:\Games, I would open up a DOS Prompt box and issue this command:
DIR D:\GAMES\*.* /S > D:\GAMES\INDEX.TXT
Then you can even add your own notes to the index.txt file (it's just a simple text file) before creating the CD-ROM.
Other Business
We also talked a little about the future of the Chapter; given that all PC User Groups, including the SPCUG, are declining in membership, we need to make sure that we are serving our members in the best way possible. We reached no radical conclusions. We'd like to hear from you on this subject; you are always welcome to contact any of the Chapter officers.
See You in the 21st Century!
Our next meeting will be held on the fourth Wednesday of January 2000,at 7:00 p.m. in the large meeting room in the Davis branch of the Yolo County Public Library. We'll huddle in the rubble and swap Y2K horror stories!
—
Tim Feldman
