semi-automatic backup to USB drive

[David Hummel]

On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 1:14 PM, Seth Gordon <sethg-Dp9fwfP21SfQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
[...]
> (3) When the script completes, one of those little flashing GNOME
> notification-thingies appears on my screen: “Backup completed; you may
> unmount the drive” or “Backup failed: see /var/log/mumble for details”.
[...]

How about a simple e-mail notification?  This would decouple it from
whatever desktop environment you happen to be running, and you could
use one of probably many mail notification widgets for your particular
environment.