When Pandora started, it was a great service that provided music based on my selection of artists. When the record companies complained, Pandora had to close the doors on us 'non-americans'. I have since searched for ways to revive the ability to listen to Pandora. I have used free proxy services, and services like Hotspot Shield, I had minimal success, since the bandwidth is extremely limited and I was riddled with tons of ads.

Then I stumbled upon the idea of a VPN server as a conduit. At first, I was planning to setup a private remote VPN server in the US, but then I had to find someone willing to host the server for me, configure it and hopefully, be able to troubleshoot the server when problem arises and also willing to pay the electric bill. After which, I stumbled upon companies that are VPN providers and have the necessary infrastructure and just requires a subscription. After careful consideration, the first solution was free but I had to do all the work, or the second solution, subscribe and pay a monthly fee and get the service right there and then. I eventually chose the second solution, I evaluated several VPN companies and settled with StrongVPN.

Backing up MySQL can be a chore, especially doing it manually.  It's a good thing, Ryan Haynes posted a short script that should automate backing up in the MySQLDump reference manual page, it was further enhanced by Bill Hernandez in the same post.   I have added my own tweaks to the script, and am using it to backup my MySQL databases.  Read on to get the script.