The NOVICE MASTER|Welcome to Uncle Che’s NOVICE MASTER. This blog is all about Science and Technology, Business and Economy, Home and Family, Personality and Self Improvement as well as personal opinions, reviews and lifestream

In the previous post, I was talking about backing up data. Well, here it is not just any type of data I want to talk about. Don’t dare lie to me you don’t love movies. I bet you do. And if you deal often with DVDs, spread your arms wide open and say “AVI, Welcome”.

For the information of you all who are not very geeky about video files, .avi is just one out of a whole lot of video files. Each file type (of any media be they text, audio, photos…etc) is very unique in one way or the other. How is the video file .avi unique?

AVI videos can hold lengthy videos at high quality while maintaining a relatively small file size. Now, what comes to your mind? Back up? Not yet! Ah! Actually, yes. You got it.

If you really want to keep those DVDs of yours safe, then what you should be thinking of is backing them up. To maximize storage space, you will need to rip your DVDs and convert the files to avi files before doing the backup. The backup I am referring here is by saving on your PC or just burning the files on a CD as normal data to play back on your PC using software that supports AVI Playback.

You got loads of DVDs you legally own? Would you like to reduce that load by 75% or 80%?

4 or 5 DVDs riped and converted into avi can be burned on 1 DVD, thereby reducing the loads of DVDs you have at home. To do this, you will need a software that can easily convert DVD to avi and burn on CDs of DVD.

I am in no way affiliated to Movavi videosuite, neither is this a sponsored post. I just love the way the software works and the interesting stuffs it can do when it comes to DVD ripping, compression and backup. With Movavi videosuite it is very easy for a noob to make his/her own DVD collection for personal/home use.

After you have acquired a copy of this marvellou software,

1. Run the Videosuite, click the DVD button and Add DVD. This will allow you to backup everything on the DVD. Choose the correct IFO or VOB files that you wish to copy.
2. Select the correct audio track for the movie.
3. Choose the output format for the movie. You will probably want that to be AVI in DivX or Xvid format.
4. Select the place on your hard drive to save the movie after conversion.
5. Click ‘convert’ to start reading from the DVD and saving to your computer.

You can use this method to store many DVDs on one disk if you like. DVDs are converted down to as little as 1/4 or 1/5 their original size but still maintain good quality, so you can reburn 4 or 5 movies to a single DVD-R disc and store more movies on less disks.

More stuff, less space!

Darn!
How do I get my files back?
Never you say “I am in trouble”, until you ask yourself the above question. That is really what the Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English should call “Trouble”.

I can’t stress much on the importance of a computer in our modern society. Even in my native Africa, many people have started realizing what they have missed so much for decades and are madly leaning on their computer for various tasks. A computers main functions are data communication, data processing and storage. Yeah, you heard me, “Storage”, and I think that is even more important than the other two.

We normally store the processed (and unprocessed) data on the computer’s hard drive. For us to be very confident that we can have that data any time we want, is nothing but a dream. Your computer’s hard drive, just like any other mechanical or electronic device can fail at any moment. They say prevention is better than cure. The fact that you have been using it for

Backing up your data is the only guarantee that they are safe, especially if you back them up in multiple locations. There are numerous ways of backing up files, so you can’t blame anyone if your files get lost due to hard drive failure. Most interestingly, most of the methods are well within the reach of an average PC user. Below are some backup procedures.

Manual Copying: This is probably the easiest means of creating a back up. You simply manually copy your files from your hard drive to another storage device such as CD, DVD or a floppy disk (if the data is not much). I will highly recommend you get a CD or DVD burner so that you can easily burn important data on CD or DVD and keep them in a safe place. Nero and many other burning software have made burning easy even for a caveman

External Hard Drive: The name talks for itself. These devices are just like your hard drive, but are independent of your computer. You can just simply plug them through USB or Firewire. Since an external hard drive is independent, your backed up data won’t be affected when your computer crashed.

RAID: RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. This is probably the most trusted form of backup to rely on. Imagine your data being backed up on multiple disks, all of which are independent of each other. This way, if any of the disk fails, your data will still be available on the others.

REMOTE BACKUP: If you can’t do it yourself, then maybe an online service can do it for you. One easy method of backing up your data is uploading them to a server that offers free file hosting. Some are completely free while others charge a small amount for account setup and/or maintenance fee. However, if I were you, I will like to personally take responsibility of my data. Though privacy and security is hardly an issue with online storage services, I won’t really bet on that.