Category: tech

Disaster preparation 101 — Data backup

Paul

In this one I will talk about Disaster, it happens to all of us from time to time. A fire, a earthquake, a stolen laptop or any number of ways. So what happens to your data, is it stored on the laptop? Is it important very sensitive data? Could you get fired if you lost that data?

[ad#ad2-right]These are all questions you must ask yourself when you have laptop. How do you backup your data or even do you have a backup? Having seen this with my own clients, I must wonder if there are people out there who just don’t care. I had a client the other day who gotten a virus and this was a really mean virus. Deleted some very important files when you tried to clean the virus out. She called me in a panic because she couldn’t load up windows? I asked if she had any backups, she said “what’s a backup” . So I sat there discussing this with the client for over 20 minutes. Finally she started to understand, she said she had the OEM Backup DVD but nothing else. She also said she needed help with getting data off the computer. I told her that I would be able to come the next day and I was lucky the virus didn’t do anything else to her data. We were able to retrieve the data from her system. That is where I start my rant , Why would anyone not have backup of there most important data?

So How do you backup your data? This is controversial and somewhat depends on how much people want to spend to keep there data safe and not loose pictures or music. There are several ways to do it, each way has it’s pitfalls or short comings and requires a little more effort:

Kinds of Backup

Hard Medium – DVD, CD, External Hard drive

Although,  The hard medium is usually used that doesn’t mean you can have a backup other than hard.   Here are some ways to back up on the internet.

Internet Medium:

  • Jungle Disk — Provides online storage through the Amazon s3 service.   Only pay for what you use.   It works well with most Operating system.  I’ve used it on Vista so it is really nice.

  • Carbonite Online backup –Another good Online storage.

  • Some Other Online backup — Here a list from Amazon to better help you find the type of software that you might need.

These are just a few options, if you want to look for other you can.  The important thing to do is BACKUP because if you need some data that gets wiped or destroyed.  You will be kicking yourself for not backing up.

Cricket Wireless Broadband Card — How to get better speed!

Paul1 Reply

After buying the card last month,  I did a quick review about the broadband card. I wanted to talk about the speed problems that I had when I first used the modem.  Here is how to possibly getting better speeds when you use your card.   First off, you will need to disconnect from the internet and go to your quicklink mobile application:

cricket-wireless

You will click on “Tools”  and then hit ‘Activation’.   If you have it fail on your the first time you should reboot your system then try to do the activation after reboot that should fix the activation problem.
newspeedtestAs you can see after I did the activation of the modem, my speed went way up from the last review.  I thought I should talk about how you could possibly fix this.  I called tech support over this to get a better speed.  

This is where I learned about the activation.  If you move or go to another City or travel to far, you will need to tell the modem that there is a new tower closer to you.   It seemed to of really boosted my performance when I go to places on the internet.   So if you come up with some cool tips or tricks to help others by all means leave a comment. After this problem is fixed and the speed seems to be coming more and more, I’d like to recommend everyone who reads this article to go buy the A600. It is really a fast little modem and more reliable to boot. My other review was incomplete because of the speed problems I had but now it is fixed and I am really happy!!!

Xbox Zune? or A Zune Phone?

Paul

Could Microsoft be planning to talk about the Zune.   Some blogs are talking about how this will be talked about in next month at CES.  According to some posts and I’ll quote:


The Tech Trader Daily column earlier this week on Barron’s reports that Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry predicts Microsoft will reveal a Zune phone next month at CES. Chowdry expects that much like Apple’s iPhone the device will combine music player capabilities with, he says, “some motion enhancement features.”


[Via 1UP]


Although this is a theory, and I can see this happening due to the fact that Microsoft has always like to tie together there products.    So what makes this even more tangible is the fact that Microsoft hinted about this in the past:

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Dated Dec 20, 2006

Xbox European boss Chris Lewis has admitted for the first time that Microsoft is considering games content for the recently released portable multimedia player Zune.

[via Gamasutra]

As you can see Microsoft did hint this and probably will be fact sooner or later.   Some sources are claiming they have this already in the works but it’s still a rumor.   I’ll let you decide for yourself.

Rumor is that Itunes will Remove DRM!

Paul

[ad#ad2-right]A report from last week brought to AppleInsider‘s attention by French technology site ElectronLibre asserts that it’s now “clear” Apple will spark new interest in its music store by removing DRM from tracks published by Sony, Universal and Warner on December 9th.

[Via Apple Insider]

Although, this is somewhat unlikely I’ve got my own theories on this.  You see If Apple did this tomorrow that would be a BIG deal, due to the fact that Microsoft will be releasing there patches on the same day.  I find it would be a momentous occasion.

[ad#ad2-left]I can only guess why and the guess is just a guess.  If Itune’s did remove there DRM the same time as Microsoft Patch Tuesday, I’d have to guess they will co-inside because of the difficulty of using the DRM, Digital Rights Management, on other products.  For example, Windows Media Player .  If Apple decided to approach Microsoft and come up with a way to make sure all DRM is stripped this would be the ideal situation.   Although this is highly unlikely, I’d have to think Apple wouldn’t wait till tomorrow to strip the DRM.  They know Microsoft schedule.  We will have to find out in the coming days.

Facebook: Virus Variant comes back from the dead!

Paul

In my recent post, I talked about a Virus that is circulating around on Facebook.  It is know as the Koobface virus and has been changed a little by the programers.   So I what is Techworld saying, just this:

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In fact, Koobface is now using one of Facebook’s own features against it, Lovet said. The latest variant uses Facebook’s ability to redirect web links to drive users to malicious websites, often hosted on Geocities.com, Lovet said.

[Via Techworld]

If you have been victim to this little virus, you should check out my Virus removal page and download the programs that should fix this little virus for good on your system.  You should also check out my Previous post I also have some good tips and tricks to prevent the user(YOU) from getting hit by this virus in the first place. This virus is a Good social engineered virus, so please be careful.