Recently I have been contemplating a rather more extreme use of the concept, that of Data Bankruptcy. I currently have over 2TB of data at home in various forms, and I’ve come to the conclusion that most of it is irrelevant compared to when it was originally stored, the difficulty is do I want to go and review a few hundred thousand files to see what is worth keeping? or should I just blat it all and start again?

My photos are the only things that are really precious data wise, and I back up those to DVDs as and when I fill up a CF card, that said I will likely copy photos to a removable drive before commencing my cull

The rest of my data ranges from CD backups (large ISO files for purchased software and games) ISO downloads (linux distros, MSDN files etc) as well as freely available applications from the Internet, which I am never likely to use again as its pretty simple to just go and find the latest version on the Internet when needed. together with the thousands of (probably temp) files in profile backups and shadow copies over the years that are never likely to be touched again and you have a surprising amount of data, disorganised and nonfunctional, spread across a myriad of systems

Unstructured data by nature is often hard to catalogue and manage, in fact its a trend that many enterprises are trying to resolve currently with the implementation of advanced search and indexing systems to manage the wealth of unstructured data on corporate networks, even the new version of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 has major improvements to its handling of unstructured data to allow intelligent applications to build upon it and use it for storage of said data. Unfortunately I am not a big business, and don’t quite have the budget for a flash Acopia FreedomFabric

This has led me to where I am today, deciding if I should just scrap it all and start again, it wouldn’t be a major hassle from a system perspective, I have WDS to redeploy my systems, as well as group policy to re install core applications. I only play a handful of games today, many delivered via Steam, and a lot of the work I do involves interactive web sites not fixed applications. It’s worth noting that I already tend to rebuild my system every few months, albeit just the OS drive, not the data drives, but perhaps it is time for that clean start.

A clean start would make it much easier to deploy an intelligent blueprint for unstructured data, allowing improved manageability and scalability, whilst simplifying access and the task of locating data across the site, much in the same manner that Email Bankruptcy has enabled many people to forget about what has backed up, and start fresh with a new intuitive system for organizing there inbox workflow

VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) is the concept of dedicated virtual workstations for users, rather than shared computing such as Citrix/Terminal services, in the video we see over 100 images deployed in under 15 minutes and taking up no more space than a single image

The Internet is full of communities, walled garden communities that have grown up since it’s inception, yet there are still very few web sites that take down those walls and bring a truly global level of collaboration, nor are the communities in question that collaborative to begin with. I am a member of a number of such communities and many have the potential for something better

Imagine forum communities backing off core knowledge to wikis, editable by all members, continually growing and evolving, rather than landing on a forum and trying to find information that may of been posted years ago is now all in a single page, amended and improved by the types of power users that on forums spend day after day saying the same thing to people unwilling to search?
Or a professional group of peers who constantly whine about the state of play in their industry, the lack of skills and capabilities, forming a collaborative organisation using the tools freely available on the Internet, each member taking responsibility for what they excel at, and adding to the greater good through collaboration. Many current startups founded themselves on exactly those principles, with staff dispersed across the globe

The possibilities are quite endless, but I’m certain we have only just begun to scratch the surface of human potential in a collaborative, connected world.

Two hours in and I am really impressed with it, it’s a very thought provoking book and even as someone who ‘gets’ the benefits of social interaction on the Internet, it really got me thinking in areas I am not too familiar with such as economics and politics

As you can imagine its very pro web 2.0, and whilst I am no where near finishing it (I think its a 12 hour audio book, came in two parts!) I’m not sure that is going to change much, give it a read if you get the chance, anyone involved in IT in this decade should definitely have a better understanding of the benefits modern web applications and communities can bring.

I noticed another book that looked to be the total opposite, I think that will make a good follow up read (err, listen), check out The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture

Random Thought
Why isn’t there a wiki based university yet? a school of thought where the courseware, homework and assignments is all done online in a collaborative manner? with just as much input from the students and teachers alike. This would be a great use for technology like a wiki or some other advanced team based collaboration tool, anyone know of anything?

It’s been a while since I tried my hand at blogging, and in all fairness I didn’t really get in to it, I often feel that I am just re hashing posts other people have made and not adding much unique content, but after much deliberating I think I can add something, even if it’s just a little and I guess that’s good enough for me

I hope I can cover a bit about the enterprise technologies I work with, as well as just have a place for all the random thoughts and ideas that fly around inside my head

Here goes nothing…