Have you backed up your computer today?

Image courtesy of Dropbox

Computer’s crash every day. Sometimes it’s an accident, spilt coffee on the keyboard, but more often it’s a fault in the internal hardware that results in a permanent failure. Your hard disk is like a vinyl record, complete with grooves and a needle, except that instead of the needle following the contours of the record, it is actually reading digital information stored magnetically. Over time the needle, the motor, or the surface of the disk itself can fail.

The most important rule of computing is to ensure that you are backing up your computer on a regular basis. The second is that you make two backups, and store one outside of your home or office. If your computer is destroyed by a fire or electrical surge or if there is a theft then the likelihood is that your locally stored backup will also be lost. A good rule is to have one local backup, such as your external hard drive, and one off-site backup.

Off-site backup solutions use cloud computing, to synchronize specific folders in your computer with a copy held on their remote servers. The cloud is simply the term given to the ability to store and access data via an Internet connection. There are lots of backup solutions available to computer users today, many of which are either free or a low cost. Dropbox is one of the easiest to use, and offers users 2GB of storage at for free.

The first thing to do is create a Dropbox account by visiting their website and clicking the Download Dropbox link. You can watch their introductory video for more information about the service if you like. Once you have downloaded and installed the software you create a Dropbox account. During the installation process you will create a Dropbox folder on your computer. All files saved in this folder will be backed up to the cloud, and you can even access them from other computers by logging into your account on Dropbox.com and entering your username and password.

If your backup needs exceed the free 2GB offered by Dropbox or if you prefer an offsite backup that backs up any and all of your computer’s folders, then Computer Troubleshooters can offer you an alternative home user solution that is much cheaper than Dropbox’s $10/month plan. We can backup your entire hard disk for as little as $2.70 per month using our unlimited backup service.

Please note that we do not recommend home user backup solutions for your business. Please call our office, drop by or email us to learn about our business level backups or if you would like more information about any of these home user backups. Visit our website for information on our computer repair and monthly computer network management services.

Want to see your Google search results come crashing down? How about getting Google to rotate your image search around a globe? Try these fun tricks!

Google Sphere

1. Go to google.ca
2. Type in ‘Google Sphere’ without the quotes
3. Click: I’m Feeling Lucky
4. Move your mouse around
5. Try searching for earth and click Search Images (if you can catch it!)

Have Fun

Now try this one – Google Gravity

1. Go to google.ca
2. Type in ‘Google Gravity’ without the quotes
3. Click: I’m Feeling Lucky
4. Watch the Google page come crashing down!
5. Try searching for something. As the pieces fall try to grab one a fling it around

Enjoy

Organize Your Inbox!

Do you have too many emails in your Inbox? Do you spend too much time each week trying to keep your email organized? Do you want a better system for using Outlook to task and schedule action items resulting from emails?

SimplyFile by TechHit will help you clean up your Inbox and keep it small and fast. File Outlook email messages to the right folder with one click. Easily turn emails into tasks and appointments.

Joel’s Testimonial: This utility saves me at least 1 hour/week on dealing with email. It has also helped me to develop an efficient system to not only organize my email but to task or schedule actions based on emails following the well known Getting Things Done (GTD) principles. Highly recommended!

For some time I struggled at keeping my Outlook Inbox organized. I used Outlook rules extensively but the problem with Outlook rules is that they take time to set up and if something related to the rule changes (for example if a sender uses a different email address to send you an email) then the rule breaks. Plus, your rule does not apply to emails you send so you would have to create yet another rule to automatically file the emails you send to people. Even with literally dozens of rules I still found myself spending 1-2 hours per week just manually dragging emails to assorted folders and each time I did I thought that there must be a better way.

About 6 months ago I found SimplyFile. Rather than creating rules, it intelligently learns and adapts to your filing habits so your mail can be filed to the proper place with a single click. An email can also be tasked or scheduled with just one click. Emails you send is also automatically filed in the proper place. There many other features but the best way to check it out is to simply download it and install it for a 30 trial. If you don’t like it, just uninstall it. My bet is that you will find this product pays for itself in the first week or two!

Download today for a risk free 30 day trial.

Or… ready to get it? Buy now!

The recent breach suffered by Sony’s Playstation of users has many people wondering just how secure their online identities are. If your personal information falls into the hands the wrong person, the results can be grave. Luckily, there are many simple steps you can take to protect against that.

Use an encrypted connection
Encrypted connections make it very easy to protect yourself online and they can be found on many of the most popular sites. Often, the settings need to be changed to achieve encrypted access, but once it is achieved, your online session will be much more secure.
You can determine whether or not you have an encrypted connection merely by checking the URL. If it begins with “https” instead of “http” you have an encrypted connection. If it does not, you can try to change the settings, although it is possible that that specific site does not allow for encrypted connections.

Use strong passwords
Strong passwords are generally one of the best ways to keep your information protected. By using spaces, symbols, numbers and a combination of upper- and lowercase letters, one can easily achieve a strong password. Even if you don’t utilize all of these tips, be sure to use something that can’t be easily guessed by hackers.

Also, utilizing a unique password for each site is vital. If you use the same password for multiple sites and one of those sites is hacked, you could be opening up all of your other accounts to hackers as well.

Look out for phishing
Phishing is essentially when a hacker poses as a trustworthy company in order to gain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and account numbers. It is a rather common practice due to its relative ease – after all, hackers only need your name and email address to pull this off.

Epsilon’s recent data breach was a great example of the possibility of phishing. Their network was hacked into and thousands of names and email addresses were exposed, making thousands of people vulnerable to phishing attempts.

These three tips are unbelievably easy to follow through with and instantly increase your online security. Following these suggestions will help you be safe and protect yourself from identity theft. Protect yourself from all Internet threats with our peace-of-mind maintenance program called HOST.

Information in this article came from this article.

Computer Troubleshooters now offers a variety of VoIP phone services! We have specialists for both hosted (cloud-based, no server needed) systems and more powerful digital PBX systems. Here’s a sales video we put together to talk about some of the benefits VoIP can offer:

Computer Troubleshooters is now sharing its computer expertise in another medium for its customers. Online! Computer Troubleshooters now has its own blog, which we hope will become a valuable resource for you as you navigate the sometimes complicated world of understanding computers.

Looking for networking tips, how to solve connectivity problems? Or even some more basic tips on how to use Excel or PowerPoint? We’ll be posting tips, suggestions and valuable resource material for your convenience.

We might even blog a little about what’s happening inside Computer Troubleshooters, so check back often.

And while you’re at it, feel free to contact us with your own tips and suggestions on what you would like to read on our new Computer Troubleshooters Blog.