"Our chief weapon is surprise! ...Surprise and fear... fear and surprise..."

[batskeets]

So, I just submitted an online application for that web designer job at Datahost that I reallyreally want. Would you believe that I spent over four hours on the application? That either says that it was a really involved application, or that I'm way too anal-retentive and perfectionistic. ::laughs::

I'm already getting pretty nervous. I think I'm really qualified for this, and I dare say that I could bring them a lot of useful skills that they might not even have right now.

But, there's just one question on the app that's eating at me, because I didn't know a good answer to it--it asked how I would go about backing up an entire web site that resides on a Unix server. Now, I generally FTP everything up and down, but I *know* there's a smarter way to do it, and I've never done it before. I couldn't find any definitive resources on how to do it, either, and it drives me nuts that I didn't know that question. (incidentally, if anyone reading this *does* know the answer, do share it with me!)

I probably shouldn't worry so much, because I have all of the skills they listed under "Pluses," so I know I have what it takes. I guess I'm just feeling a bit downtrodden and worried about finding a job, especially after the non-response from all the applications I turned in a couple weeks ago. I know it's hard to get *any* kind of job in Eugene, but jeesh, they were just service and retail jobs.

And I reallyreallyreally want this job, too, so increase worry factor 10x. It sounds like I'd be doing *exactly* the kind of work that I already do, and enjoy doing, so I *really* want to at least get an interview with them. It sounds like they'll be setting up interviews soon... FEAR ENGULFS MY SOUL AAAAHHHHH

Anyhoo, I'm at work, now, and it's a pretty slow night. Not a bad thing, by my estimation. :D

I'm listening to LoveLine right now, because Nevada had it on before they left to pick up rides. I don't know why I haven't changed the station yet, but man, I can't believe the crap people ask on this show. Some chick just called in, saying she heard that she could take 5 birth control pills one day, and then take 5 the next day, and it would do the same thing as taking one every day! Um, hi? They write the directions that way for a reason, people!

I think that's all for now. ::poof::

EDIT: Another boring list of things I have to do tomorrow:
--call and check on status of sewing machine repairs
--go to DMV and transfer car title
--fold the damned laundry
--more freelancing

Comments

[threeleet.livejournal.com]

how I would go about backing up an entire web site that resides on a Unix server.

As always, There's More Than One Way To Do It(tm):

1) tar & gzip/bzip2 the entire directory structure, then copy that over (ftp/scp). Nice 'cause you get one big file w/ everything in it, which is much faster & easier to transfer, and it's perfect for tape backups (tar even stands for Tape ARchive). Works pretty much like zip, only gzip & bzip2 have much better compression. bzip2 can smash text files down to around 5% of their original size. Aww yeah.

2) rsync. This is sometimes more for mirroring than simply for backups, but works the same, and has the added benefit that once you have a full backup copy, subsequent rsync runs will only update the files that have changed. I've never used rsync myself, but I've heard raves about it, and it shouldn't be too hard to use.. This takes up exactly as much space as the original server, i.e. more space than a single bzip2-ed tarball, but less space than having a tarball for every daily/weekly/monthly backup. Of course, w/ X-ly tarballs, you can near-instantly roll back to any point along the way.

3) if you don't have direct shell access to said server (and they didn't specify whether you did or not), do a 'wget -r' & grab the whole thing that way.

4) ftp (dunno how to do a recursive grab in one command, though)

5) 'scp -rp' (recursive, preserve file attributes)

6) write a backup script in any scripting language (perl, python, php, shell, whatever)

You get the idea. But I'd generally go for one of the first 2.

[skeets.livejournal.com]

Wow, you = 1337! ::bows::

[threeleet.livejournal.com]

bzip2 can smash text files down to around 5% of their original size. Aww yeah.

Correction: Since one of work's l4m3-455 virtual server accounts just filled up, I got to move & bzip some nice big web log files. The actual numbers are even more impressive on big files:

78032894 -> 2200970 (2.82%)
60432379 -> 1385355 (2.292%)
22896599 -> 496704 (2.169%)