Archive for the ‘Back Up Files’ Category

Sunday morning coffee – Happy New Year 2010

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

Tips to starting out the new year right.  Questions to ponder and tips for being prepared in the new year.

1.  If your computer were to fail today are you ready?

Your computer may have come with “recovery disc’s” or you were required to make your own.  Can you put your hands on those cd’s to rebuild your computer?  Did you make the recovery discs?

If not make them today.

The software you have installed on your computer, do you have the discs for those? MS Office, Quicken etc.  If you downloaded the install file from the internet did you burn the install files to a disc for backup?

2.  Do you have a notebook for your user names and passwords in a safe spot?  Sometimes we have a user name and password for a product registration and may only need to access it if we upgrade or re-install, keep them in handy.

3.  What about your files (Word documents, spreadsheets, quicken files) and pictures?   When was the last time you backed up those items?  Are the current Christmas pictures in a safe place?  Both Office Depot and Staples have CD-R’s and DVD-R disc’s on sale this week.  Buy a stack of 100 and back up those files.  Or better yet go to www.carbonite.com and set up an online back up system.

4.  Take an inventory of your computer, print and file away for just in case.  Go to www.belarc.com and download their free computer inventory program (free for personal use, not business).  The inventory will include the type of video card, network card, hard drives, printers, license key numbers and other valuable information a computer tech will need to rebuild your system in case of a crash.

Be prepared in case of a crash.  Our lives have become tied to our computers, don’t get caught off guard.

Make it a Great Year!!!

Mark

mark@usacomputersolutions.com

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Sunday Morning Coffee – Understanding Backup/External Hard Drives

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Good morning,

This week in the ads I see external hard drives abound.  A conversation with a customer this week I want to share some information and understanding about “Backup” or what we in the industry call “Disaster Recovery”.

What is a backup?  A backup is having 2 or more copies of a file on 2 or more devices. These devices can be an external hard drive, making a copy on a CD or DVD, by burning it, or using a service like www.carbonite.com.  Understand one thing the hard drive in your computer and the external hard drive you buy WILL fail at some point.  It could be years off, months off or days off, but at some point it will fail.  The question is when it does, did you make a copy of it somewhere, not on the failed device?

If you purchase an external hard drive for more room to store files, understand if that is your only copy then you will lose it when the drive fails.

Not everyone is a IT person, but with our lives tied to the digital lifeline we have to be conscious of it so it does not ruin memories.

Merry Christmas to All.

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Are your family pictures safe? Back Up Your Files

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

When I was growing up, I remember large 12” x 12” photo albums sitting on the top shelf. They weighed a ton. When you took them down, you handled them with care. They were kept up high because they were in the basement and our basement had flooded one time. If they had been lower, they might have been destroyed. And a fire or other act of nature would also ruined them. Today most people have only a few albums. With the digital camera, folks can take hundreds of useless pictures just to capture the ONE picture, they might want to print. The “useless” pictures though are just as valuable, because they record a precious moment or event we might want to share later.

Are you ready for a disaster?

Have you backed up your irreplaceable pictures, your important documents, or your 6 years of emails?

If your computer “crashed” right now, will you panic or just be frustrated? 3 ways to back your items up:

1. CD or DVD burnable discs – Burning files to a disc is one option. However, if you have several Gigabytes of information, this is a long and cumbersome process.

2. External hard drive – External hard drives have dropped dramatically in price. You can purchase 1-TB for about $120 – this is enough for pictures, videos, and documents.

3. Online service – I highly recommend this no-brainer approach. Go to: www.carbonite.com and sign up for unlimited online backup for only $55 per year. Every night, the system will back up all of your daily activities. Should your computer crash, be stolen, or damaged, your files will be just a restore process away. ( I don’t benefit from this purchase.)*** Note: By default Video files are not backed up to carbonite, you will need to select those files individually.

4. And, even if none of the above occurs, think of the ease of information transfer when you buy a new machine.

CHOOSE YOUR METHOD AND — DO IT NOW!! One thing is certain, your COMPUTER WILL CRASH or NEED TO BE REPLACED. The question is when? Are you ready for it?

PLEASE NOTE: A USB Thumb Drive IS NOT A BACKUP DEVICE!!

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