Mozy Backup

Last year I wrote about Mozy, the free offsite backup utility.

I’ve now taken the plunge and am paying for the unlimited service for 13 months. It cost $54.45 which isn’t a lot, especially given that I pay in Euros (34.23 at today’s rate) which is a very strong currency against the USD.

However, immediately after I’d signed up I realised I had a problem – Mozy does not back up data from removable disks, and I tend to keep most of my data on a 16 GB Flash drive that I can quickly swap between my PC and my laptop. This is really what I wanted to back up.

A little bit of googling later and I found the answer, make the removable drive look like a fixed disk.

Works like a charm. I’m now beginning my initial 4GB backup that’ll run overnight.

LaTeX

I’m writing a paper now, and it’s been recommended that I do it in LaTeX as it will be especially useful for when I come to write up my thesis or any large project. Also the journal that I’m submitting to prefers this format.

Any recommendations for good OSX and XP software? I’d like to start with something that lets me see both the code and the final page with live updating in real time without having to go through manual compilation and viewing.

Right now I’m checking out TeXnicCenter (from ProTeXt via MiKTeX), WinShell, WinEdit, native WinTexMacs / Cygwin TeXmacs, BaKoMa Tex Word and LEd on XP and TeXShop, LaTeXiT, TeXmacs and Lyx on OSX.

It looks like LyX is the closest match, though I can’t edit the source and the WYSIWYG preview simultaneously (though in this Open Source project the feature has been requested – search for “Edit source mode”)

BaKoMa Tex Word looks like what I want (though it’s ugly and Windows only), but it’s only a limited (7 pages & 31 days) demo and costs a minimum of €55 for the license:

[EDIT: 16:57] OMG, the lab director just told me that she wrote her entire PhD Thesis using LaTeX on Vi!