parsing xml

a clever website did terrible things to a simple csv file, putting it into xml column major, blech.  So, I'm going to try to fix it.

First step, use tidy to figure out the xml format
   tidy -indent -xml

Next, use XML::Rabbit .... rabbit seems to be giving me some trouble, I'll probably try again later with just XML::LibXML

Got it done with XML::LibXML, there weren't any good examples that I could quickly find on the net, but it wasn't too bad after a little bit of working with it.

freeseer

I used freeseer the other day to create some screencasts and it works well.  Then used HandBrake to transcode them.

backups

Got a 3tb hard drive, ran the smartctl tests and badblocks, and no problems.  Backing up the current 1tb drive, and then will run the smartctl tests just to be sure.

Formatted it as ext4.

Current plan for backups is to create the backups on the internal drives for speed, and then copy to the 1tb and 3tb.  The 1tb will only keep the current semesters' backups.

I need to think some on virtualization backups and automating the database backups.