Disaster preparation 101 — Data backup

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.

Digital Convert boxes for Feburary 17, 2008

It being close to the change over, I’d figure I’d show you some of them and talk about them. To better help people make up there minds on what might be there choice of a Digital Converter Box. This is to help people get the most out of there products.

The Specs for this Converter is:

Zenith DTT901 Digital TV Tuner Converter Box

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  • Digital TV Tuner Coverter Box
  • Analog Pass-Through for Low-Power TV Stations broadcasts
  • On-Screen Program Information with Remote Control
  • Simple Connection to TV with supplied RF Cable
  • Parental Control to Manage TV Programs and advanced Closed Captioning

$59.95 Free Shipping

It could be on sale so check the link for more price options.  I also found this one that is a little more expensive but supposed to be better:
GE 23333 Digital to Analog TV Converter Box

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  • Smart Antenna Interface
  • Simple Setup
  • Analog Pass Through
  • Dolby(R) Digital Sound
  • Receives Over-Air Hdtv Signals

$76.99 Free Shipping

These are just some of the ones that I saw online to encourage people to get ready for the change over. If you’re not you need to act quickly because it will come in the next few months. You will need this if your are using an antenna and have no other way to watch shows over the air. This will only work where there is a signal. If you want to see what digital channels you have in your area please check Antenna Web. There they will tell you if you have any local channels in your area.

Microsoft released KB960714 to fix THE IE Problem

windowsupdate121708

[ad#ad2-right]This is the update to fix the IE Vulnerability and if you have any questions please make sure to check my other post about this little update.   This was sent out today and should be patch ASAP, on all systems.  If you want to patch the easy way, I suggest downloading Clone to Autopatcher.  This seems to help make an ISO file on a DVD so you don’t have to update a system the old way.

Removing Win32/Bagle.HE worm

Here is another virus that seems to be spreading lately.   From the looks of it, it sees to be another email worm.  Here is what eset says:

Aliases

Email-Worm.Win32.Bagle.gt (Kaspersky), W32/Bagle.gen (McAfee), Trojan.Tooso!gen (Symantec)

[ad#ad2-right]Win32/Bagle.HE is a worm that spreads via e-mail. The size of its executable is 40565 B .

When executed the worm copies itself in the following locations:

  • Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\hidn\
    hldrrr.exe
  • Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\hidn\
    hidn2.exe

In order to be executed on every system start, the worm sets the following Registry entry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\drv_st_key

[ad#ad2-left]It seems to have a manual removal process, Unless you pay for the other software but according to the 411 on PC Security:

Win32/Bagle.HE worm is a “threat” that appears in security scans by fake antispyware WinDefender 2008.

The danger of Win32/Bagle.HE worm is supposed to scare you into wasting $49.95 on WinDefender 2008.

Unless you like getting ripped off, don’t download the software the Win32/Bagle.HE worm popup links to. You’re not really infected with Win32/Bagle.HE worm — you’re infected with scamware that you need to remove.

I’ll show you how to get rid of Win32/Bagle.HE worm and WinDefender 2008, for free.

[via 411 on PC Security]

According to this site you can remove it by doing some steps.  I think Kaspersky has an easier way to remove it and it looks like most anti-virus software will remove this.   You need to remember that only you can prevent this from the future.   You should also update your windows update and make sure your system is up to date.

Cricket Wireless Broadband Card — How to get better speed!

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!!!