Computer Backups and Cobian

I am often asked what is the best way to backup work and home computers.  Today, just about everyone understands the importance of backups.  If you don't, consider this: 100% of hard drives will fail at some point.  They are mechanical devices with moving parts.  They will fail.
 
In my opinion, the only way for a backup scheme to be successful over the long run is for it to be automated.  A program you might want to consider for this is Cobian Backup.  Cobian Backup is a FREE simple backup program developed by Luis Cobian.  The program can be executed as either a normal application or as a Windows Service. (Normal applications have to be initiated by a user, either by logging onto the computer or by manually launching the application.  Windows Services, on the other hand, do not have to be initiated by the computer user.  As long as the computer is turned on, the program is running.) The program can schedule automatic backups for files and directories locally, to shared folders on other computers or to FTP servers, and it can use file compression and encryption.
 
You can download Cobian Backup here:  http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/programz/cbSetup.exe
 
I recommend backing up to external USB hard drives or file servers.  For laptop users, I recommend having two backup jobs scheduled.  One to backup to a USB drive in your office during lunch, and one to backup to a USB drive at home when you bring your laptop home in the evenings.  This way you have multiple copies of your data in the event something happens to either location.
 
The most important thing is to get at least one backup every day with the process being automated.  There are other automated ways to backup office computers which require a network administrator to implement.  However, even if you have one of these solutions in place, I still recommend having personal backups of your own.  You cannot have too many backups, and I have had to fall back to them too many times to leave anything to chance.
 
If you have never implemented anything I have recommended in this blog, please do this.  Backup your computer daily.  Hard drives do fail.  I see it all the time.
 
Happy teching,
 
Ryan Williams

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Computer Backups and Cobian

I am often asked what is the best way to backup work and home computers.  Today, just about everyone understands the importance of backups.  If you don't, consider this: 100% of hard drives will fail at some point.  They are mechanical devices with moving parts.  They will fail.
 
In my opinion, the only way for a backup scheme to be successful over the long run is for it to be automated.  A program you might want to consider for this is Cobian Backup.  Cobian Backup is a FREE simple backup program developed by Luis Cobian.  The program can be executed as either a normal application or as a Windows Service. (Normal applications have to be initiated by a user, either by logging onto the computer or by manually launching the application.  Windows Services, on the other hand, do not have to be initiated by the computer user.  As long as the computer is turned on, the program is running.) The program can schedule automatic backups for files and directories locally, to shared folders on other computers or to FTP servers, and it can use file compression and encryption.
 
You can download Cobian Backup here:  http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/programz/cbSetup.exe
 
I recommend backing up to external USB hard drives or file servers.  For laptop users, I recommend having two backup jobs scheduled.  One to backup to a USB drive in your office during lunch, and one to backup to a USB drive at home when you bring your laptop home in the evenings.  This way you have multiple copies of your data in the event something happens to either location.
 
The most important thing is to get at least one backup every day with the process being automated.  There are other automated ways to backup office computers which require a network administrator to implement.  However, even if you have one of these solutions in place, I still recommend having personal backups of your own.  You cannot have too many backups, and I have had to fall back to them too many times to leave anything to chance.
 
If you have never implemented anything I have recommended in this blog, please do this.  Backup your computer daily.  Hard drives do fail.  I see it all the time.
 
Happy teching,
 
Ryan Williams

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Product Review: TeleNav + Google Maps = Successful Road Tip

Greetings all.  This is a special summer vacation product review tech tip.  My family and I just returned from a weeklong vacation in which we spent a lot of time driving.  I'm sure every rational person reading this is already thinking that with gas prices being so high I must have a screw loose.  So if I told you I did so with two children ages four and one, you'd probably think I was really nuts.  Then, if I told you about halfway into the first day's drive, we realized our one year old had a stomach virus and proceeded to pass the virus to each of us over the next couple days, you'd just begin to get an idea as to how much fun we had on our vacation.  But that is a story for another blog. :-)

In this tech tip, I'm going to discuss one technology and two software applications that were a rare bright spot in this year's vacation.  The technology was GPS.  Now, I realize GPS is old news, but the two software applications I relied on are still relatively young.  The software apps were TeleNav (http://www.telenav.com) and Google Maps (http://www.google.com/mobile/default/maps/index.html) both running on my cell phone.  A TeleNav subscription runs $10 per month, and Google Maps is free.  The combination of the two made this year's vacation road trip a breeze.  Here are the highlights:

The beauty of TeleNav is that you can plan your trip itinerary on TeleNav's website, and when it is finished, you can easily synchronize the itinerary with your cell phone.  This allows for easier searching and inputting of addresses and points of interest along the trip.  Another feature TeleNav offers that Google Maps does not is spoken directions.  If configured to do so, TeleNav will verbally prompt you when and which direction to turn as with most vehicle navigation systems.  However, unlike most other vehicle navigation systems, both TeleNav and Google Maps are always up-to-date with the latest maps because the maps are downloaded real-time from the internet via the cell phone's internet connection each time a route is planned.

Now, you may be wondering where Google Maps fit in to the summer vacation plans.  I'm sure the suspense is killing you, so I'll tell you.  Google Maps will also provide real-time driving directions, but unlike TeleNav it will not speak to you. You have to pay attention to the screen which can be dangerous.  For this reason alone, I use TeleNav while driving.  Google Maps does do two things better than TeleNav in my opinion.  If you want to search for an impromptu place of interest, Google Maps' search feature seems to be a bit more robust and accurate, not surprising since searching is Google's bread and butter.  The most used Google Maps feature for me on this trip, however, was the "favorites" feature.  Since cell phone GPS is accurate to within about 3 meters, each time we parked the vehicle to walk I pulled out the cell phone and marked the vehicle's location in Google Maps using the favorites feature.  This placed a star on the map which I labeled "vehicle."  We then set out to walk the town, the nature trail, the mall or whatever.  When we were ready to leave, I just pulled out the cell phone and found our current location in relation to our vehicle.  We didn't need this feature all the time, of course, but it sure came in handy when we did need it.

Well that's about it for this tech tip.  If you are considering using either or both of these apps for your next road trip, I highly suggest purchasing a windshield suction cell phone holder.  This way you can position your phone above your vehicle's dashboard, and you won't have to take your eyes off the road. It is also helpful to have a cell phone with built-in GPS.  You can use an external GPS receiver but having the GPS built into the phone is much more convenient.  I use a BlackBerry Curve however there are many phones that offer built in GPS.

I hope you found this tech tip useful.  As always, if you have anything you'd like me to address in future tech tips, please contact me using the information below.

Ryan Williams

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Product Review: Xobni (MS Outlook Plug-In)

I am going to start a new series of blog entries in which I will review new or lesser known technologies and software I think people will find useful. This week the software is Xobni. Xobni is a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook and it loads to the right of your inbox in the Outlook window. Xobni tracks and indexes your email communications and provides some interesting information about each email. For instance, when you highlight an email message in your inbox, Xobni will show you the following about that email:

• Rankings, graphs, and statistics detailing how you and your contacts use email
• A list of every other email the person has sent you sorted by conversation thread
• A list of every attachment the person has sent you
• Phone numbers that exist in the emails
• The top people the sender of the email also sends to
• Plus more…

The plug-in also provides a pretty quick full-text email search which is helpful. Some of the features are trivial but interesting nonetheless. The product's website says the plug-in is currently in beta but I have not had any trouble with it. Oh and by the way, at least for now, the plug-in is free. In my opinion, it's worth checking out. You can find the download here.

Happy teching,

Ryan Williams

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Copying and Pasting

This week's tech tip is on copying and pasting. I am going to go out on a limb and assume everyone already knows what copying and pasting is. So I am going to address what I consider one of the most annoying aspects of copying and pasting in Windows which is text formatting. As I'm sure you have noticed at one time or another, when you copy and paste text between two programs, the pasted text usually keeps the formatting of the copy source rather than matching the formatting of the paste destination. This can be quite annoying at times because you usually have to spend time reformatting the pasted text to match the formatting of the place in which it was pasted. There are two simple solutions to this problem.

If you are working in Microsoft Word 2007, there is an option for how to handle copy and pastes located in the Word Options menu and then the Advanced section.

Click here to see where MS Word 2007 Options are located.

Click here to see where the Advanced section is located.

My favorite solution, however, is a little more old school. I prefer this solution because it works in all scenarios, not just in MS Word. This solution is to open Notepad which is the free text application that comes with MS Windows. To launch Notepad follow these two steps:

Click on the start menu and then the Run option.
Click here for an example image.

Type "notepad" in the Run window and press OK.
Click here for an example image.

(You can also find a shortcut to Notepad by clicking on the start menu, then programs, then accessories.)

If you paste anything into the Notepad program window, Notepad will clear all formatting and keep just the text. Then you can copy from the Notepad window and paste anywhere you like with no formatting. This is especially helpful when copying text from Web Pages where you may encounter embedded images and links in the text. Using this simple technique will strip away everything except the text and allow you to paste the text anywhere formatting free.

I hope you find the tech tip useful.

Happy Teching,


Ryan Williams

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What every company should be doing to protect their network and data.

Backup files regularly.
This should be automated to happen every day, not once per week or less. I have seen companies go out of business because they lost their accounting data and didn't even know who owed them money.

Test restoring from backup.
It is important to occasionally test your backups to make sure they are working properly. I have seen companies have backups that complete successfully every day, however, when a restore was attempted, the business realized they had been backing up the wrong folder.

Keep a copy of your backups offsite.
This step is too easy and too important to ignore. Natural disasters, fire, theft, and malicious employees are just a few examples of times when an offsite backup may come in handy. With automated offsite backup solutions, this process does not even require effort.

Keep your anti-virus software turned on and the virus definition updates current.
This goes for every computer on your network.

Have a professional install and setup your firewall.
Just having a firewall on your network does not solve anything. It must be configured properly.

Install a web content filter on your network.
This will help guard against employees browsing the internet and accidentally clicking on internet links they should not and being tricked into installing spyware and viruses. It happens all the time, and no virus or spyware protection is 100% fail proof.

If you have wireless in your building, make sure it is secured with the latest encryption.
Most people would be surprised at how many wireless access points within businesses are completely unsecured and open to the public. Make sure your wireless is secure.

Keep all your software current with updates and security patches.
This includes Microsoft Windows, Office and other Microsoft products as well as your specialized business software solutions. In general, it is a bad idea to fall behind on the major updates to your software. Pay maintenance on your software and keep it current.

I hope you find this tech tip helpful.

Happy teching,

Ryan Williams

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Better Search Results Browsing

This week's tech tip is a simple one to help you navigate the Internet better. If you are like me, you find it cumbersome to peruse Internet search results because every time you click a search result link the webpage reloads and you lose access to your original results page. Then, after you are finished reading the linked site you have to click the back button and wait for the screen to rebuild which takes time. Also, occasionally you come across a webpage in which the back button does not work and you become trapped. You must then resort to some browser trickery to get back to the results page.

In Google, the dominate search engine, there is a preference for launching all links into a new browser window or tab depending on which browser you are using. Using this preference, you can peruse the search result sites without losing access to the results page and you can view multiple search result sites at once.

To access this preference click the Preferences link which is to the right of the Google search box.
Example Image

Next scroll down the Preference page until you find the checkbox for Results Window. Check the box beside Open search results in a new browser window.
Example Image

That's all there is to it. No more having to constantly click the back button after each site visit. Also, as a corollary, in any web page whether it be a search result page or any other webpage, if you hold down the Shift key when you click a link the link will launch into a new window. If you hold down the Ctrl key while clicking a link, the browser will launch the link into a new tab.

Happy teching,

Ryan Williams

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