Backup, backup, backup!

Posted by Brian Haines on Jul 4, 2011 in Computers | 0 comments

Why should I backup my computer(s)?

Hard drives fail. That is it, plain and simple. They don’t need a reason to fail, a certain percentage of hard drives are going to fail at some point in their life and in most cases there is no advanced warning. Everything that you store on a computer hard drive should exist also on one or more backup locations, otherwise you are at risk of data loss.

Hard Drives Fail

If you are a business the impact is obvious and can be expensive. The loss of days, months even years of work can be devastating. Most businesses have computer consultants that will suggest backup strategies and professionally implement them. (Brian Haines 954-434-1968)

The home user is often left on their own and unsure of what to do. Maybe they think they don’t need a backup because their data isn’t as important. Then a hard drive crash and all the pictures you have taken for years are gone! This is very heartbreaking and unless you stored your photos in Web Albums using Picasa or a similar service they are lost forever.

What to backup to?

So you need to backup, but how, and to what? Well a simple and inexpensive solution is backup to a local external hard drive. There is the one-time purchase of the drive and it often comes with

Antivirus + Discerning User

Posted by Brian Haines on Sep 21, 2009 in Computers | 0 comments

The best protection for a non corporate, personal computer is good antivirus software and a discerning user. Although the former is critical, never underestimate the later.

When a user is working with a stand alone personal computer they nearly always have permissions to install software. As such they are ultimately responsible for the security of the computer. There isn’t a program in the world that you could install that would protect you against all threats. You are part of the computer security. No Internet Firewall or anti-spyware program will ever protect you as well as you can protect yourself. I will take some heat for this from other so-called experts, but my experience has demonstrated that the most prevalent threats get installed on computers no matter what major security suite you have installed.