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This scenic photo is from Kyoto, Japan.

Yes, it sounds like yet another silly “awareness month” gimmick, but computer users everywhere would save themselves a world of pain if they took away even a few bits of advice from Backup Awareness Month:

• Develop a backup plan.
• Keep to a regular backup schedule.
• Automate the process as much as possible.
• Rotate your backup media, if necessary. (ie, tape backups)
• Keep a second copy of your data in another location, if possible.
• Test your backups on occasion to make sure your backup plan works.

Even home users could find good value in creating simple data backups, be it using a DVD-Writer, Norton Ghost or even a plugin USB harddrive. It’s an expense you won’t regret the day you accidentally delete those priceless digital family photos, or have all your personal finance documents lost when your harddrive starts going bad.

I’m currently in the process of upgrading my main gaming rig, which means that my Ubuntu Linux workstation has inherited the now leftover motherboard (DFI Lanparty NF2 Ultra B), processor (AMD Athlon XP 2600+) and video card (ATI Radeon 9800).

Previous to this, the Linux workstation chugged along happily for years using a Nvidia Geforce 3 TI 200 video card, which I never really had any problems with, save for a few brief periods in which the proprietary Nvidia drivers had outpaced the currently available Ubuntu kernel packages.

With the ATI Radeon in the machine, however, I’ve come to see exactly why there are so many complaints about ATI’s Linux support. In many ways, using one of their cards under Linux has confirmed one of my long-standing suspicions. I’ve always personally believed that ATI tends to put most of their effort into their actual hardware, but tend to be behind the curve on their software drivers.

On Microsoft Windows, the differences between the driver development of the two competitors is often made up for by the hardware they release. Under Linux, however, ATI and Nvida are worlds apart. There are a number of features that were available to me with the older Nvidia card, such as the ability to make on-the-fly screen resolution and refresh rate changes, that are simply not there with he ATI drivers.

The problems are enough that I’m considering purchasing a cheap Nvidia card for the Linux workstation just to get all the basic features I’ve come to expect. For anyone considering the choice between an ATI and Nvidia card on a Linux installation, my recommendation is pretty obviously going to be Nvidia every time.

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The $30 Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit sound card may look like a good deal for someone looking for a cheap audio device for their Linux workstation, but would-be buyers should know that not all Sound Blaster Live! cards are the same.

The audio chip on this particular 7.1 sound card identifies itself as a Sound Blaster Live Audigy LS chipset, which does not have the same support under Linux that other Sound Blasters do. In fact, you may be better off with an older Sound Blaster Live card as this particular chipset has limited hardware mixing features, leaving much of the audio processing work to be done by the CPU.

So my advice is to stay clear of this particular card and look for a 5.1 Sound Blaster, which you can often find for slightly cheaper.

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If you’re looking for a little more power in your Independence Day holiday fireworks, consider taking a look at NASA’s Deep Impact website.

The Deep Impact mission involves a NASA space probe set on a collision course with Comet Tempel 1. The probe will fire an “impactor” at the comet in order to aid scientists in studying exactly what makes up the interior of a comet.

For those with broadband, you can also catch video and multimedia presentations on the mission at NASA TV. More information on the project can also be found at Wikipedia.