The main theme of these links is recovering or preparing to recover from hard disk failure, inspired by a co-worker's sad experience last week. Most of these links come from the indispensible Lifehacker site (what did we do before Lifehacker??)
Recover data from a crashed hard drive - Lifehacker
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/disk-recovery/recover-data-from-a-crashed-hard-drive-146386.php
Ask Lifehacker: Reinstalling Windows? - Lifehacker
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/windows/ask-lifehacker--reinstalling-windows-137288.php
Why you need a Linux live CD - Lifehacker
"Help2Go is running an article on why you (a Windows user) should download and burn your very own Linux live CD in prepartation for your darkest Windows hours."
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/disk-recovery/why-you-need-a-linux-live-cd-136639.php
Dowload of The Day: BartPE - Lifehacker
"BartPE is a free utility that lets you build a live CD-based copy of Windows XP that can be used for data recovery."
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/downloads/dowload-of-the-day-bartpe-116599.php
GRC|SpinRite 5.0 to 6.0
http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm
Hold your nose re the web design and explore the screenshots and stuff. Been around for years, has a great reputation
SpinRite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinRite
Includes a link to criticism of Spinrite's marketing claims
Geek to Live: Build your "PC on a stick" with MojoPac - Lifehacker
"Set up your "PC on a stick" with portable software MojoPac, a standalone Windows installation that runs directly from a flash drive or iPod. Plug in your MojoPac-enabled portable drive into your buddy's PC, launch Windows from it, and use any application or document directly from the drive, no footprint left behind on the host PC. Great for anyone who works on several PC's on a regular basis - or who just wants to separate certain apps and documents from a computer they use - MojoPac is a convenient, portable Windows virtual machine." http://www.lifehacker.com/software/windows/geek-to-live--build-your-pc-on-a-stick-with-mojopac-208338.php
Backups
http://www.langa.com/backups/backups.htm
This is the strategy I use
ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project Blog: Biography: John K on
Flintstones Animators
"I love cartoons where you can tell the animators apart. The tricky part is figuring out what names belong to what drawing and animation styles! "The Flintstones" when it runs in syndication, has a stock set of credits on the end of each episode. They list four animators. And, if the names ever agree with the persons who actually animated a particular episode, it's sheer coincidence. And get this... In the early days of Hanna-Barbera, one animator would animate a whole 25 minute cartoon by himself!"
http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/09/biography-john-k-on-flintstones.html
Writing the Perfect Scene
http://www.rsingermanson.com/html/perfect_scene.html
Hard-core fiction-writing structure; I like this scene stuff but I think his snowflake method is loony
