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

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.

On digital cameras check out CNET’s Digital Camera Buying guide, just published this month.  The ads contain many options.

A unique gift: How about a personal GPS device to get you back to your car?  Look at the Bushnell Back Track Personal Location Finder GPS. Best Buy is advertising this for $44.99.  How does it work?  Let’s say you go to the mall, when you park your car you set the way point of your location.  After an hour of walking the mall and getting confused inside, you need to remember where you parked.  When you walk outside, you select your way point and it directs you to the location.  Hikers or campers, when you leave your campsite or car set the way point.  You will always know which direction to go to get back to the car or campsite.

If you have questions about a technical product you are considering send them to mark@usacomputersolutions.com.

Make it a great Sunday, only 10 days til Christmas.

http://www.noradsanta.org/

Desktop PC – 2 of them

1. Staples has a system with a 21.5 in monitor for 599.98 after rebates.  It is a HP  with 6 GB RAM 640 GB hard drive Windows 7 64-bit

2. They also have a HP with out the monitor, but with a bigger hard drive 750GB and more RAM 8GB, with windows 7 64 bit for 599.98 (no rebate) regularly 699.98.  Comparing this to other stores in the ads, this one had a faster processor then the others advertised for 40-50 dollars less.

3rd item – For today and tomorrow only Staples has Microsoft office 2007 Home and Student version on sale for $69.99 ($80 off retail).  This has MS Excel, MS Word, and MS Powerpoint.

and finally for those who need to upgrade their virus protection and you don’t want to try AVG free version, they have Norton Antivirus for $9.99 today and tomorrow only.

Have a great Sunday, just 25 days til Christmas.

The product this morning is from Radio Shack, they have a Gateway 10.1″ Netbook, windows xp home, 1GB ram, 160Gb hard drive for $229.  They say it is a “Pre-Thanksgiving Sale”

Office Depot is advertising a Canon EOS Rebel XS SLP digital camera with a 75-300mm lens for 669.98 in a bundled package.  Looks like SLR’s are coming down in price final.  What’s a SLR digital camera?  The SLR’s are the digital version of the 35mm camera’s 10 years ago with interchangeable lens .  They have been around a long time in a digital form, but they have been expensive.  Many opted for the smaller digital camera’s, but now the price for these are coming down.

Make it a great week and happy thanksgiving.