semi-automatic backup to USB drive

[Seth Gordon]

OK, I’m a little more optimistic about getting a solution to this problem:

I have two terabyte USB drives, so that I can back up files from my 
desktop without having to stuff gigabytes of data up a 128 Mbps pipe. 
In my dream world, a backup happens like this:

(1) I plug the USB drive into the desktop.

(2) The desktop, recognizing the UUID of the drive it just mounted, runs 
a backup script (perhaps throwing up a confirmation dialog box to 
whoever is logged in).

(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”.

(4) I unmount the drive, unplug it, and put it in a safe place.

I’m sure the hooks for “run this script when mounting such-and-such a 
device” and “throw up a notification thingy” exist somewhere, but I 
don’t know where.