Comments on: Public Service Announcement

By: VivekB

VivekB — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:02:13 +0000

Tears, major tears.

I just accidentally formatted my 1 terabyte major data drive. (don’t ask). It was a RAID1 setup, meaning I was so paranoid I set up a hardware-based auto backup to a 2nd drive, in case of failure. Then, I had a 2nd backup on another machine. Finally, I backed up to a 120GB portable HD that I put in the safe.

Well, before I did my little experiment this morning, I thought “hmm. i haven’t backed up in a month. I better backup before I do anything”. So I did. And sure enough, I screwed up.

No worries, I thought. I’ll just revert to the backup I just took.

Eh, it’s incomplete. I just lost a months worth of email and modifications to important documents. Thankfully my Quicken data is up to date. The backup from a month ago is fine, but the one I just did crashed halfway through but I didn’t notice.

Moral: Always make sure your backup actually completed fine.

By: hedera

hedera — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:00:12 +0000

You shamed me into backing up my hard drive. I’m going to make a scheduled task to do it every week, too. And I’m going to check out Mozy and Carbonite – thanks for the tip, Moschops.

By: dto510

dto510 — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:38:42 +0000

Ms. Verdin, I understand that, in addition to the neighborhood parties, there was a dinner with a DJ for city staff to get them excited about going to the neighbors’ parties. That sounds kinda expensive. So how much did NNO cost? It comes from the Police Department’s budget, right? And how much staff time was spent on planning events?

In any event, whatever positive press the event gleaned was certainly overwhelmed by negative press about restaurant robberies, which are a result of the city not spending its tax receipts well.

By: V Smoothe

V Smoothe — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:31:20 +0000

How much is “very little”? What is the total cost of the promotional materials printed for National Night Out? What is the total cost of the all the staff time that went into organizing the event? And exactly what “positive press” for Oakland does it generate? I’d be very interested to see a breakdown of the total costs to the taxpayers of Oakland of National Night Out. I wonder how many citizens would agree that it’s worth “every penny.”

I mean, if National Night Out is just about a bunch of “small, private neighborhood gathering[s]” among people who live on the same block, I have a really hard time seeing the benefit of any City funds being spent on it at all.

By: Felicia Verdin

Felicia Verdin — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:08:04 +0000

National Night Out (NNO) is all about neighbors getting to know each other on their block. With few exceptions, every party that took place on Tuesday was a small, private neighborhood gathering, which is the great thing about NNO. NNO parties are intended to be neighborhood-based, meaning that people on the block get a chance to know the people that live a few doors down or a block away. However, party host can invite anyone they want to their party. The idea is that neighbors have an opportunity to get to know each other in an informal, fun atmosphere. We strongly encourage as many folks as possible to host, with their neighbors, smaller more intimate gatherings. Or they could have visited some of the larger parties that were publicized by groups such as the Grand Avenue Business Association, Old Oakland Neighbors, Chinatown, San Antonio Park or the Coliseum Neighbor Council.

NNO cost very little to produce every year and for the positive press Oakland receives as a result, it’s worth every penny.

Felicia Verdin
Community Programs Supervisor
Neighborhood Services Division

By: Helena

Helena — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:16:19 +0000

and just how much money did the city spend on national night out, samee? I pay thousands, thousands of dollars to the city of oakland every single year, and now theyre asking me for more in november and at the same time saying theyre going to have to cut services because of the budget shortfall and here we have city employees saying that promoting national night out is exactly how we should spend our resources?

I was leaning towards voting for the police tax even though I dont want to pay any more, just because i think we desperately need more cops. after reading the comment from samee roberts, I have made up my mind and will most definitely vote no. City Hall needs to get its priorities in order before they get any more of my money.

By: Jim Ratliff

Jim Ratliff — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:50:40 +0000

V., n August 2007, I asked my Neighborhood Services Coordinator to provide me with a list with addresses/blocks of the National Night Out events in the Lake Merritt area, so that I could publicize them in the Grand Lake Guardian, with a Google Map showing where each one is.

She responded with: “I’m afraid that the information is confidential, just like with Neighborhood
Watch. All I can say is there are likely at least 30 parties.”

I must admit that I don’t get it!

By: samee roberts

samee roberts — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:42:45 +0000

Over the past few years, I have had the privilege of representing the City of Oakland at several National Night Out parties in various neighborhoods citywide. What I experienced continues to inspire me to this day. Each party is the creation of the individual neighborhood – very organic, real. One neighborhood turned a somewhat run-down strip of shops and businesses into a bustling street scene where families sampled locally-made foods while learning how to make their homes safer — and children were given play badges and made police officers for the day. Another shopping district used NNO to showcase its stores and businesses by having them stay open late that evening — talk about low cost marketing! A group from a neighborhood located next to an elementary school closed its block to street traffic and invited all of the neighbors for a potluck complete with games for the kids and safety information for all. Another used the evening to gather for a bbq at which everyone added their contact information to a phone/email tree to keep each other informed and aware of happenings in the neighborhood. And yet another gathered in a large backyard where a mostly older crowd shared safety and emergency preparedness tips while noshing on homemade goodies and singing along to guitar played by neighbor delighted to share his talent in support of the occasion. All across Oakland, 400 neighborhoods hosted gatherings this past Tuesday evening – by all accounts, a huge turnout. National Night Out is exactly how the City should spend its resources in lean times – to help empower citizens to take charge of their respective neighborhoods and serve as eyes and ears for local law enforcement. In fact, at a mere fraction of the cost of employing one police officer – the City can’t afford not to!

By: mark

mark — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:44:32 +0000

At least the mayor was in town and looked like he is mad. That is a big improvement from last month. It is nice to see him getting angry like the rest of us.

Unfortunately, the problems in Oakland will continue until the city recognizes that the problems are of our own making. We need the city to focus on the needs of the city and not the needs of the city employees. The police union and the district attorney’s office has to step up and take ownership of this problem.

By: Max Allstadt

Max Allstadt — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:20:09 +0000

Mac users: get a time capsule.
Everybody else, get some other wireless enabled backup system.

My mac backs itself up over 802.11g every hour. Pretty sweet. PC users have even better options: the Mac built in backup works at the file level, which sucks if you have big files. PCs offer bit-level backup solutions. If you don’t do this already, you’re crazy not to.