AE Follow-Up: Adhesives, Mozy.com, & Week In The Life Banner

Today I'm following-up on a couple things I've posted about in the past year. I have waited to post about each because I really wanted to make sure that I was happy (or unhappy) about the products before posting about them again.

ADHESIVES

Since learning that Kokuyo was discontinuing the US manufacturing of my favorite dot-n-roller adhesive I have been on the lookout for, and testing out, other adhesive options.

After trying out quite a few, including the highly recommended Scotch ATG, I have been consistently happy with both the Scotch Adhesive Dot Roller ($8.99 for 49 feet) and American Crafts new This To That Adhesive Dispenser Dots ($4.95 for 32.8 feet).

After using Kokuyo for so long I really wanted to find another that uses dots (vs. tape), that was a similar size and fit in my hand (I found that I really like the smaller ones the best), and that really stuck (I like permanent adhesives). I have found that both the Scotch Adhesive Dot Roller and the This To That Adhesive Dispenser Dots are really meeting my needs. Both get big thumbs up.

And just in case you didn't know, you can still find my favorite Kokuyo adhesive (the one manufactured in Japan) online at Jet Pens ($6.67 for 52.5 feet).

ONLINE BACK-UP SERVICE

Last June I did an initial product review of online data back-up service Mozy.com for Today's Mama.

I love the idea of the product - an off-site service that can back-up my data (specifically my photos & project files) automatically. When I first posted about Mozy I was in the process of doing the initial back-up.

Not long after that post, and while that initial back-up was running, my main computer had some major issues (totally unrelated to Mozy) and died (luckily I run Time Machine on my Mac with a couple external hard-drives and lost nothing). I decided to wait a couple months to try it again since I was then in the middle of my Yesterday & Today class and I didn't want to be dealing with any computer headaches at that time (actually, I never want to deal with computer headaches).

Once I was ready to start trying it out again (about two months ago now) it was still a pain to get the initial back-up completed. More than once I thought it wasn't going to work at all. It would freeze up at the same spot for days at a time. I kept getting impatient and to be honest I was lacking in trust that it was going to work. More than once I communicated with customer service reps and didn't really feel like it was much help.

In the end what I did do was change the size of the initial backup just to see if I could get it to work at all. I de-selected some of my external files and photos and just did some of my basic contacts and such. By making the initial backup smaller it worked. I was super excited to see it work at all.

On subsequent days I selected additional files (including ones from my external hard-drive) and have not had an issue since. I set it up to do daily backups at 1:0am and it has been doing it regularly without a hitch. I currently have it backing up 232.5 GB including my address book, mail files, iCal, Designer Digitals products, a couple projects I am in-progess on, and my Aperture & iPhoto libraries.

Feeling totally satisfied with Mozy at this point. I can't speak to how it will work in the event I actually need to retrieve those files, but at least for now I am feeling good that I have another back-up in place.

WEEK IN THE LIFE BANNER

Thanks to those of you who have requested the code for the 2010 Week In The Life banner.

Here's the image source code and a link to the post announcing the dates - feel free to share it on your blog or website (the process you go through to add this to your blog/site will vary depending on what service you use - check the help area for your particular service for how-to's on adding banners):

<a href="http://aliedwards.com/2010/03/mark-your-calendar-week-in-the-life-2010.html"><img src="http://aliedwards.com/AE_WeekInTheLife2010Ad.gif"></a>