Python is my favorite programming language because it has a low barrier to entry, shallow learning curve, and multitude of practical applications. If you have a Mac python is already installed on your operating system and you can begin just by open up the terminal application and typing python at the command prompt. Some practical applications of python include but are not limited to:

• task automation
• web development
  • Requests
  • Beautiful Soup
  • Paramiko
  • Flask
  • Django
• software development
  • Odoo
  • Tryton
  • wxWidgets
• science + math, machine learning
  • SciPy
  • Pandas
• education
  • Google’s Python class

Whether you are just getting into programming for the first time or are an experienced developer python will be an invaluable tool for you. If you’re wondering how python could help you, start with Automate the Boring Stuff and start accelerating your productivity today.

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Local Backups

You can create backups of your data within your office using a flash drive, external hard drive, or another computer on your network. A USB flash drive or external hard drive can be purchased online or at your local electronics store. The most feature rich solution is the time capsule from Apple which includes 2 TB of storage, a secure wifi base station, with Mac and PC compatibility.

A RAID Array takes some work to implement if your server does not already support the technology, but is well worth the effort in any event. A RAID 1 or RAID 5 configuration would ensure continuity of operations in the event of a single hard drive failure. RAID 1 uses two hard drives of the same size and keeps a mirror image of your hard drive at all times. RAID 5 requires 3 drives and can rebuild data from any two of the drives without interruption. You can read more about configuring RAID.
In the event that one hard drive fails, the server will continue as normal using the alternate. You can then replace the dysfunctional hard drive at your convenience (even while the server is running!), and the server will automatically configure the new drive once inserted. The RAID configuration is the most difficult strategy to implement, but will ensure that there is no downtime in the inevitable event of a hard drive failure.

It is important to distinguish between hard disk drives (HDD) and solid state drives (SSD). HDD is an older, cheaper, and more commonly available technology. It features high storage capacity at low cost, but has relatively slow speeds and a short lifetime because of the internal moving parts. SSD comes at a higher cost per gigabyte, but has fast access times and a long lifetime because it has no moving parts (like a flash drive).

Cloud Backups

Keeping a local backup is important, but does not protect you from theft, natural disasters, or the damage that comes from frequent handling or daily use. Backing up your data online allows you to access your data securely from anywhere with internet access. You do not have to worry about hard drive types or lifetimes, because it is the responsibility and duty of your online storage provider. You can use google drive for free up to 15GB per account (with the option to expand storage for a fee). If 15GB is not enough, consider a subscription to MyPC Backup, Dropbox, Mozy, or Carbonite.

Automation

The best backup strategy is the one that you don’t have to think about. You can set up local and/or cloud backups to occur automatically on a schedule of your choosing. Make sure that your computer is on during the time that you schedule the backup, or the backup may not occur! Equally important is testing your backups periodically to ensure that you can recover the data.

Restoring from a back up

Each storage alternative has its own procedure for restoring data. Make sure you are familiar with the procedure for your backup solution. Online services can usually restore with the click of a button, and local backups can be copied back to your origin server.

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There are several extensions worth adding to your toolbar which will make your life easier. Check out your current extensions by visiting chrome://extensions/ in your chrome browser.

uBlock Origin is a must have for any internet user. It blocks scripts and ads while you browse the web. This is helpful for maintaining your privacy, prevent you from inadvertently clicking many of the malicious links out there, and generally making your experience better by blocking ads. I do disable uBlock for sites that I trust and support as many rely on ad revenue to survive.

EyeDropper is a great tool for lifting colors from a website. Very helpful when you see a color you love and want to get the hex value so that you can use it on your site.

Edit This Cookie lets you view, change, or delete cookies in your session. You can achieve this through Google Chrome’s DevTools as well but I find the extension to be more accessible.

HTTP Spy lets you inspect headers.

Full Page Screen Capture helps you gets screen shots of a website. This is particularly helpful when you want to capture parts of a site that would require scrolling to view.

Super Auto Refresh lets you automatically refresh a page at an interval of your choosing.

Browse the chrome extension store to find more great extensions! Keep an eye on the ratings and reviews because there are many extensions that are no longer supported or which do no behave as advertised.

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A great tool for use in rapid prototype development is placehold.it, which can dynamically create images on the fly using the URL query string. While creating your model, you may want to see what the design looks like with a 960x400px hero image, only to determine 960x300px would look much better. Instead of creating mock assets in photoshop, or putting a border on a div and treating it like an image consider placehold.it.

Placeholdit allows you to generate images on the fly. Want an image 350x150px? Set your background image url (or img src) to http://placehold.it/350×150.

There are also options to change the background color and the text overlay.

<img src=”http://placehold.it/350×150/333333/fff&text=nifty!”>

Tips: the first color represents the background (333333), and the second represents the text color (fff). Everything is optional except size, which always comes first. Specifying only one dimension will create a square.

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