Recovering Humax zero length files

Paul Ratcliffe wrote:

This gives me the same uneasy
feeling as the trendy concept of "cloud computing", which despite
the enthusiastic support it receives from some quarters (notably
those selling it) actually amounts to me keeping all my stuff on
somebody else's computer, with no guarantees about snip whether I
will always
have access to it myself.

If you use Dropbox you will. And if you set up Skydrive in a certain
way you will, too.

Dropbox keeps a full local copy of your data on each computer. While
you are connected to the Dropbox server it also synchronises your data
with the cloud version. Although we talk of Dropbox as an online
storage cloud application, it's better to think of it as an online
cloud synchronisation service.

It's brilliant. I can work on my data on my tablet or my desktop, and
they are silently synchronised. If I'm on my laptop and can't connect
to the internet, it doesn't matter. I work on the local copy, save the
changes locally, and the next time my laptop can see the internet, the
local files are synced with the online ones. When I get home and
switch on my desktop, it's local files get updated, too.

Thus even if Dropbox went bankrupt, you'd still have a copy of the data
on every computer which had been connected to that account.

It's the same with SkyDrive, so long as you tell it to make every file
and folder available "offline".

--
SteveT

On Fri, 10 Jan 2014 06:00:30 -0600, "Steve Thackery"
wrote:

If you use Dropbox you will...

+1

Dropbox is excellent.

--
Alan White
Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent.
By Loch Long, twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, Scotland.
Webcam and weather:- http://windycroft.co.uk/weather

In message , Johny B Good
writes
On Fri, 10 Jan 2014 02:43:17 -0000, Yellow wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Thu, 09 Jan 2014 23:11:08 +0000, Roderick Stewart
wrote:

I tried using torrents, but abandoned the process when I realised it
involved leaving my computer on all the time, effectively making part
of it available to all and sundry. This gives me the same uneasy
feeling as the trendy concept of "cloud computing", which despite the
enthusiastic support it receives from some quarters (notably those
selling it) actually amounts to me keeping all my stuff on somebody
else's computer, with no guarantees about who will have access to it
or what they will do with it or whether I will always have access to
it myself.

For once we are entirely in agreement...

We all know what happens to clouds - they either vapourise without
warning, or they **** all over you.

Perhaps you have just been unlucky as I have always found torrents a
useful resource, whether I am using the technology to download an update
or a file for my course (as interestingly lots of colleges and
universities use torrents) or trying to locate a tv show I have missed
for some reason.

I think it's about practice, it's about how bothered you about what you
are trying to find and it's about how you feel about being a reciprocal
part of a community that is prepared to use their bandwidth and computer
time to make information available to you pretty much on demand.

If you're simply not that bothered and have fundamental concerns about
the technology then you will never become proficient - law of
diminishing returns?

And as for leaving a computer on - it's what you have to do when it is
being used and it is a bit like complaining that you have to leave a
light on in order to see to read. And you can always set the software to
close your computer down as soon as the files have been completed.

For those of us running NAS4Free or FreeNAS boxes on a 24/7 basis
(regardless of whether or not HDD spin down power saving is used),
it's no bother to leave the torrenting to the "Transmission" torrent
client service. There's no need to leave a desktop machine running for
the sake of gathering torrent sources.

It's also worth pointing out that a lot of commercial ready made NAS
boxes also include a torrent client service function (it's such a mind
numbingly obvious feature to include into a box that would normally be
running 24/7 on the LAN that there can be very few NAS boxes _without_
such a service).

Regarding the quality of the torrent, a decent torrent client will
allow you to select which files in a multifile collection (say a TV
series of episodes) to collect and which ones to pause. You can then
speed up the aquisition of a selected episode or three out of maybe a
larger collection of 6 or 12 or more so you can check the quality out
to see whether it's worth hanging on in with the rest of the torrent
or to look elsewhere for a better one.

This selectivity feature can be a handy way of acquiring a missing
episode or two by using a monster compendium as a source without
having to download the whole compendium.

You can also set the torrent client to shut down the PC when the file/s
are downloaded.
--
Ian

On Fri, 10 Jan 2014 06:00:30 -0600, "Steve Thackery"
wrote:

Dropbox keeps a full local copy of your data on each computer. While
you are connected to the Dropbox server it also synchronises your data
with the cloud version. Although we talk of Dropbox as an online
storage cloud application, it's better to think of it as an online
cloud synchronisation service.

It's brilliant. I can work on my data on my tablet or my desktop, and
they are silently synchronised. If I'm on my laptop and can't connect
to the internet, it doesn't matter. I work on the local copy, save the
changes locally, and the next time my laptop can see the internet, the
local files are synced with the online ones. When I get home and
switch on my desktop, it's local files get updated, too.

Thus even if Dropbox went bankrupt, you'd still have a copy of the data
on every computer which had been connected to that account.

And who else would have access to the copies of all your files on the
(formerly) Dropbox servers? What happens to bankrupt equipment?

Rod.

Roderick Stewart wrote:

And who else would have access to the copies of all your files on the
(formerly) Dropbox servers? What happens to bankrupt equipment?

I didn't disagree that part of the argument, because I agree with it!!

So, I never put my most confidential documents on there. In fact there
are very few - almost everything of mine would be of little interest to
anyone else.

It's a judgement call, obviously. For me, I find it a great facility,
but I only use it for documents that are currently "live" and I
frequently work on from home, university, a friend's house, etc. And I
don't put anything that would be embarrassing or confidential on there.

Anybody who uses cloud storage as their sole backup would be nuts,
obviously.

--
SteveT

In article ,
says...

On Fri, 10 Jan 2014 02:43:17 -0000, Yellow wrote:

[re torrents]

Perhaps you have just been unlucky as I have always found torrents a
useful resource, whether I am using the technology to download an update
or a file for my course (as interestingly lots of colleges and
universities use torrents) or trying to locate a tv show I have missed
for some reason.

I didn't use the system long enough to become unlucky, just long
enough for me to realise it was a bad idea. Aren't we always being
warned about allowing others access to our computers,

No.

and that we
should take steps to prevent it?

Again - no. And if you did block access you would no longer find the
internet of any use to you because it simply would not work.

But then perhaps you think the very post you are looking at now arrived
on your machine without interaction between your computer and the
outside world.

The torrent system seems to require
my computer being deliberately made available to the entire world for
the entire time it is in use.

That isn't how torrents work and you would most certainly not be making
your computer available to anyone, let alone the entire world.

Only the data you positively select (and that could be none at all
except for the file you are actively downloading at that time) is
exchanged within the swarm.

Look at it this way - say for example you upload a photo to dropbox or
enter a password to a website or send an email, you are telling the
software which file or what data you wish to send and it is only that
file or data the software will deliver. It doesn't make your entire c:
drive available to the receiving software for the duration of the upload
and neither does torrent software.

I don't know the technical details of
exactly how much access this entire planet full of strangers would
have, or exactly what they would be able to do to extend it, but it
seems to me it would be foolhardy to take chances.

Being frightened of something that you do not understand is simply being
frightened of something because you do not understand it.

In article ,
says...

On Fri, 10 Jan 2014 06:00:30 -0600, "Steve Thackery"
wrote:

Dropbox keeps a full local copy of your data on each computer. While
you are connected to the Dropbox server it also synchronises your data
with the cloud version. Although we talk of Dropbox as an online
storage cloud application, it's better to think of it as an online
cloud synchronisation service.

It's brilliant. I can work on my data on my tablet or my desktop, and
they are silently synchronised. If I'm on my laptop and can't connect
to the internet, it doesn't matter. I work on the local copy, save the
changes locally, and the next time my laptop can see the internet, the
local files are synced with the online ones. When I get home and
switch on my desktop, it's local files get updated, too.

Thus even if Dropbox went bankrupt, you'd still have a copy of the data
on every computer which had been connected to that account.

And who else would have access to the copies of all your files on the
(formerly) Dropbox servers? What happens to bankrupt equipment?

Rod.

Only a fool would upload important data in an unencrypted form to a
cloud site and then on top of that, dropbox use 256 bit encryption on
the data it holds.

"Paul Ratcliffe" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 09 Jan 2014 23:11:08 +0000, Roderick Stewart
wrote:

I tried using torrents, but abandoned the process when I realised it
involved leaving my computer on all the time, effectively making part
of it available to all and sundry. This gives me the same uneasy
feeling as the trendy concept of "cloud computing", which despite the
enthusiastic support it receives from some quarters (notably those
selling it) actually amounts to me keeping all my stuff on somebody
else's computer, with no guarantees about who will have access to it
or what they will do with it or whether I will always have access to
it myself.

For once we are entirely in agreement...

We all know what happens to clouds - they either vapourise without
warning, or they **** all over you.

and the people who run "clouds" can't understand why corporates wont use
them

tim

"Steve Thackery" wrote in message
...
Roderick Stewart wrote:

And who else would have access to the copies of all your files on the
(formerly) Dropbox servers? What happens to bankrupt equipment?

I didn't disagree that part of the argument, because I agree with it!!

So, I never put my most confidential documents on there. In fact there
are very few - almost everything of mine would be of little interest to
anyone else.

It's a judgement call, obviously. For me, I find it a great facility,
but I only use it for documents that are currently "live" and I
frequently work on from home, university, a friend's house, etc. And I
don't put anything that would be embarrassing or confidential on there.

Anybody who uses cloud storage as their sole backup would be nuts,
obviously.

But that's what they are selling

Tim

On Fri, 10 Jan 2014 19:29:32 -0000, Yellow wrote:

I didn't use the system long enough to become unlucky, just long
enough for me to realise it was a bad idea. Aren't we always being
warned about allowing others access to our computers,

No.

and that we
should take steps to prevent it?

Again - no. And if you did block access you would no longer find the
internet of any use to you because it simply would not work.

So what do firewalls and antivirus software do then, if not block
access to things on my computer whilst allowing selected access to the
outside world? And isn't it generally considered sensible to use them?

But then perhaps you think the very post you are looking at now arrived
on your machine without interaction between your computer and the
outside world.

I think it arrived here because my computer made a request to a
server, not the other way round. I realise my understanding of how
torrents work is incomplete, but I think I have grasped the
essentials, and one feature that did cach my attention is that it's a
two-way arrangement. If I want to download a file, it arrives
piecemeal from lots of other people's computers which have to be
requested to provide the pieces. Likewise, my computer has to make
available a designated part of its file system for others to make
similar requests to me.

That's the bit that concerns me. It may be that the torrent system is
only supposed to allow access to certain designated areas, but they
are effectively offered to the entire world, so if there is any
weakness that could allow someone access to anything beyond the
intended boundaries, it would only be a matter of time before somebody
found it. More than a decade after Windows XP was written, Microsoft,
the very people who wrote it, are still occasionally finding and
correcting security weaknesses that nobody spotted before, because
they could allow unintended access to user data, and that's in
software that doesn't explicitly offer part of itself to the world.

Being frightened of something that you do not understand is simply being
frightened of something because you do not understand it.

Being "frightened" of something isn't the same as simply deciding not
to use it because I don't think it has anything to offer me that would
outweigh the perceived risk. It's a considered choice, not fear. I'm
not "frightened" of my computer being completely trashed, because I
know I can rebuild it, but I'd rather not suffer the nuisance.

Rod.