David Lynch was the first to take a stab at bringing Dune to celluloid, and he did a very... eccentric job. In a way, I really enjoy it. It shows how two people can read the same book, with the same words, and the same dialog, but see it so differently. Lynch's twisted imagination really shows itself in his Dune. I think Lynch saw the word "feud" in the novel and used it as the primary motif that ruled all the film's artistic decisions. However, the movie uses voice-overs in almost every scene, so I must admit that it sucks. When a director needs to use voice-overs to tell a story, you know he's desperate. Narration is for books, not movies. There are two things that I hate in films and TV: 1. narrators and voice-overs, 2. actors who whisper. Speak up! You're in a frikkin' movie! Anyway, Lynch did a crappy job on Dune version 1.

Next, the Sci-Fi channel gave it a try with a mini-series. I liked it because it took its time to tell the story more coherently without voice-overs whispering in the audience's ears. However, production quality was undeniably TV-quality, not big budget. You could easily tell that the desert was just a small sound stage. In a movie called "Dune", you really should have a good budget on the desert scenes! "Arrakis! Dune! Desert planet!" Idiots.

Also, the script was unpolished and often failed to make clear the plotting, scheming, and double-crossing, despite the long scenes of wooden dialog. I don't understand why they felt the need to add more characters to the story, like Irulan. The story had plenty of strong women. There was no need to add more. Dune is a hard enough story to portray on screen (apparently...), so don't shoot yourself in the foot by adding more complexity to it. Irulan appears at the end of the story in Herbert's original, and I think it is an interesting reveal in the end-game. What kind of person is Irulan, who promises to be the only one in the feud who can keep the human universe together? By keeping her invisible for most of the story, I think the impact of her arrival is increased a great deal. Good writing and direction would be able to pull this off.

Ok, I've given myself away. I'm a Dune fan. It's the kind of story that gets better with age. Frank Herbert clearly saw oil for what it is: a finite resource that will soon run out and has the potential to destroy human civilization as we know it today. In the end-game, whoever controls the last reserves of oil stands to win it all. How might that play out? How is it playing out today? Who are the big players? It's science fiction at its best, I say!

Good luck to Peter Berg on his attempt at Dune. Third time's a charm? I would like to see the rest of the series brought to life, so I'm hoping that Berg's Dune will be the start of a great new sci-fi franchise.

In other news, Berg is also set to do a Bran Mak Morn film. Could this be paving the way for a big-budget The Call of Cthulhu film? Geeks will dream.

How Does It Work?

To start backing up, you need to first install the Mozy software, which is available for both Mac and Windows. Once installed, the easy-to-use interface lets you choose which files you want to backup on the Mozy servers. There are some predefined backup sets that you can choose to let Mozy decide how to do it. For example, if you want your e-mail to be backed up, choose the Outlook or Apple Mail backup set. Other sets include Firefox Favorites, IE Favorites, Word Processing Documents, iCal, Keynote Presentations, and many others. Backup sets make it easy, as Mozy will figure out which files need to be backed up for you.

The backup sets aren't good enough for me, as I want to backup the code for my websites and my database backup files. Mozy lets you choose any files and directories on your computer easily. Click on the screenshot to the left showing my backup configuration on my Mac, where my Ruby on Rails code resides. I checked the "rails" folder and a few of the subfolders underneath.

Once you tell Mozy which files and directories you want backed up, you can set a schedule for how often Mozy will send backups to its servers. Or you can let Mozy perform the backups whenever your computer is idle. Note that Mozy will only backup changes to your files. It won't waste time by uploading files that haven't changed since the last backup. Nice.

Mozy allows you to include more than one computer in your account. I've got my server, which runs Windows, and my laptop, which is a Mac. Mozy backs up the database backups from the server, and my website code from my laptop. Both the Mozy website and the Mozy client software keep track of how much data is being stored from each computer. The website will even tell you when each machine was last backed up, so you don't need to log in to each computer to check the status of your backups. It's a simple feature that's makes the service even more convenient to use!

What Doesn't Mozy Do?

Mozy is not a "file archive" service. It is a remote backup service. What's the difference? A file archive service lets you upload files where they will be stored and never changed unless you change them yourself. A backup service like Mozy will keep backups of the latest versions of your files. If you delete a file from your computer that Mozy had been backing up, then Mozy assumes that you don't need it anymore. From their FAQ: "If you delete the working copy on your machine and then run a backup, Mozy will assume that you no longer need a backup copy, since you got rid of the working copy, and will mark the file to be removed from our system in 30 days. (We keep it on file for 30 days, just in case you change your mind.) After 30 days, you cannot get these files back."

So, you can't upload all your vacation pictures to Mozy and then delete them from your hard drive. If that's the kind of service you're looking for, then Mozy isn't going to help.

Also, you can't share files with others. You can't backup a file to Mozy and tell your friends to download it.

Let Mozy Do What You Should Have Been Doing All Along

Mozy is a backup system for your files. If your computer gets stolen, or your hard drive goes up in smoke, or a meteor crashes into your house, Mozy will be there to restore your files to the way they were a few days or hours before tragedy struck. That's what Mozy does, and it does it automatically. Tell Mozy what to backup, and it will do it all by itself, without asking you to do anything. Set it and forget it.

In my opinion, Mozy does what computers should do for us. Why should I have to worry about such mundane tasks as keeping backups of my files, keeping track of which files have changed recently, and finding a safe place to store my backups? Our computers need to be more autonomous, making decisions for us. Even the most tech savvy computer users make bad decisions when using and maintaining their computers. It's about time that software starts doing these things for us, and Mozy is one of those products that does that for me. MozyHome is free, so give it a try.




Confession: Yes, the links in this article are referral links! I can make a few dimes and nickels by recommending Mozy to you. Nevertheless, my opinions are sincere. Managing data is a nerdy thrill for me, so Mozy is an exciting service because it's an elegant solution to an important problem. Anything that manages data automatically for me is awesome! Mozy was recommended by Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times and PC Magazine, so my glowing praise is hardly original.