The problem(s) with online backup

Ok so everybody needs backup. No doot aboot it. Everything hoses, given time. The solution? Redundancy! (That's my favourite line actually: The key to success is redundancy.)

Alright, so there's a problem. Now for a solution... what are the requirements here?
It should be
* transparent (like, hardly knowing it's there)
* unlimited
* cheap

So I looked around a bit and signed up for a free 2GB online backup with Mozy. They look decent. The software looks clean and functional. And hey, 2GB goes a long way towards backing up text and source code and such.

It definately meets the 'transparent' requirement. They have 'unlimited' paid accounts, but that's marketing bull. Has to be. They're not the only ones either. Plenty of others. The market has exploded over the last year or so.

Cheap? I guess they are.

But does it actually work? nope, at least not for me.
Why? One word: bandwidth.

Every one these days has tons of data. (tons of mp3's, tons of movies, tons of pictures). I know I do. It's just not an option. I would need a professional internet connection, with high upload speeds (a minimum of 1 Mbit/s, and even then it'd take weeks for the initial backup to finish), and tons of bandwidth usage per month.

Trolltech releases Qt Jambi

Trolltech releases Qt Jambi... I wonder how soon Jambi-based Java apps will start appearing, and what the impact will be on the Java community. I have no plans to use it yet, because I'd rather avoid Java, but I suspect it might provide quite a few companies an 'easy' migration path away from C++.

google reader supports google gears

Works really smooth. I've been testing it on the train to work. Can't wait till they add support to gmail and google calendar!