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Posts Tagged ‘computer’

onlineitguide.com What’s the best way to backup your hard drive? This is the last of a 3 part series about the many different ways to back up a computer. Which is best for your computer?

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theonlinebackupguru.com Don’t let this happen to you…is your information backed up. Most people backup their data onto a CD, DVD, Tape, Flash Drive or external hard drive. The problem with these traditional methods of backup storage is that, they don’t completely protect you unless they located in offsite storage. If you store your backup tapes or CD or DVDs in the same location as your source, they could be destroyed along with the original data by any one of the unforeseen incidents, listed above. Thus the need for a good and secure online data backup service.

Would you swap your old laptop for a brand new Mac? There’s just one catch, you have to smash up your current laptop, here and now. No chance to save anything, no chance to back up. Still sound like a good deal? We took to the streets of London to find out

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Despite my best efforts, this past week I lost both my primary and secondary computer systems. After losing my primary desktop several years ago, I vowed I would never let myself be caught without an operating PC. As they say, “the road to h*ll is paved with good intentions,” and I once again was caught with my proverbial pants down without an operating computer when my desktop, which had been exhibiting some problem signs in the last month, died suddenly and would not turn on.

I then went to my laptop, which I had admittedly been lazy about keeping updated, and turned it on. Immediately the Windows update process started, and asked me install Service Pack 3 for Windows XP. Having done that successfully on my desktop, I wasn’t too worried about any installation problems on the laptop. However, upon completing the installation, the blue screen of death appeared, which is NEVER a good sign with a Windows-based system.

After trying for about an hour without success to revive my laptop (which is only 8 months old and still under warranty), I knew that I was in trouble and starting looking for alternatives. Fortunately, my husband keeps a laptop on hand that he uses for gaming when we travel, and he generously offered to let me install my programs and files on it until I could repair one of my computers.

After finally acknowledging that there was no way I could have foreseen this situation, I decided that I needed to s*ck it up, get over, and move on. So, I’m making do with a partially customized laptop that will do until one or the other of my PCs is returned.

Despite having gone through similar situations previously, I still learned a few new things along the way about data recovery and computer backup. Here are the 10 most effective tools that saved my bacon during my recent computer meltdown.

1. Automatic backup software. I’ve been using 2 online backups, Carbonite and Syncplicity. I have had to restore from Carbonite previously, and I found the process to be lengthy and somewhat confusing. So, several months ago I began using Syncplicity because it offers online access to all backed up files as well as the ability to synchronize an unlimited number of computers. However, it has taken a week to restore 20 GB of data with Syncplicity, and some of the data was wasn’t really restored, despite what Syncplicity told me in my account. However, I can easily download this missing info to my computer from the online vault. One process that makes this backup system easier is that I store all of my data files in My Docs so I don’t have to hunt them down in Program Files, or wherever they are typically stored.

2. Email client software. I still use the dinosaur Eudora for my email client. Old habits die hard, I suppose. However, somehow I missed marking some key Eudora folders to back up, and so I was initially using my webmail access providing by my hosting company to access email because of this oversight with Eudora. I began to tire of that quickly, as I had no way to create additional folders in those systems, so I then decided to manually configure Eudora and open folders and emails as I need them in the program. This experience has made me very tempted to change all of my incoming and outgoing email servers on all domains to Gmail just to have access to everything online, come hurricane, flood, tornado, or computer crash.

3. Bookmark service. I’m an avid researcher and resource collector, so having access to my bookmarks, or favorites file, is vital to my day-to-day operations. I had been using Spurl, but because of frequent periodic outages of their service, I’ve changed to Foxmarks. I like that this service offers me the ability to access all of these online, as well as have them at my fingertips any time I need them from my Bookmarks menu as well as easily synchronize them to any computer.

4. Contact management. Even though I don’t use Outlook for email, I do use it for calendar and contact management. I had been using Plaxo as an online backup for my contacts, but it doesn’t permit me to store my notes about each contact. I’ve been using Airset now for several months, and it regularly syncs my contacts (with notes) and my calendar to their online service. I found this much more convenient than trying to restore a backup PST file to Outlook and then repeating that again when my primary computer is returned. Instead, I just make changes to contacts and my calendar on Airset, and I’ll just sync that to Outlook on my desktop.

5. Passwords. I’ve been using Roboform for years to help me manage my passwords. I’ve got my Roboform data in My Docs, so it was a breeze to reinstall Roboform and copy the data folder to the new computer and permit me to access all of the sites requiring a password and username. Finally, something that worked seamlessly!

6. Project Management. Smartsheet has been my project management service for the last few months. I love that it has the ability to create an item and allow you to attach a document and discussion to that item. Rather than having to hunt down information about a project, all I had to do was log into my Smartsheet account and there it was.

7. Software licenses. Roughly 99% of the new software I install is downloaded and I don’t get a physical copy on CD. Therefore, I make sure that I have the downloaded version in a My Downloads folder that’s a part of My Docs file, which is backed up regularly. And, I make a PDF copy of the software license that I get by email and store in a Software folder, also in My Docs. Lastly, I purchased a very inexpensive program, Registration Vault, that lets me store all of my software license and purchase info and permits me to back up my data to My Docs. As I had to reinstall software on a new computer, it was easy to restore the Registration Vault files, get my software license number, and have a fully functioning piece of software within minutes.

8. Accounting. I use Quickbooks for my accounting needs, and while they do offer an online version, I haven’t yet moved to that. Instead, I back up Quickbooks after every use in the My Docs folder. When I needed to invoice consulting clients at the beginning of this month, all I had to do was reinstall Quickbooks and restore my latest backup. I instantly had everything I needed again at my fingertips.

9. Alternate free services. Some software I use, like CuteFTP and TraxTime, don’t permit data backups. So, I really do have to start all over with my FTP info and my time tracking info when my computer dies. Rather than installing these programs on the new computer, I just used some free alternatives to get me through. FireFTP, a Firefox add-on, has worked quite well for me as my FTP client, and MyHours.com has stood in fairly well for TraxTime, although it requires a few more steps for operation than TraxTime.

10. Email marketing. While not a tool, I discovered that both text and HTML versions of email broadcasts matter in email marketing. I wasn’t initially able to get my normal email client up and running, so I was reading my email from my webmail systems. I’ve got 2 hosting accounts, and the newer one has a fairly sophisticated webmail system and let me read HTML emails with no problem. The other, however, doesn’t permit HTML viewing. So, those emails sent only in HTML were ones that I was unable to read. If you’re wise and your email marketing program permits you to send emails out in both plain text and HTML, do it, even though it might seem like a needless pain. You just never know how members of your list might be forced to ready your emails.

As you might gather, I’ve discovered that online services have provided me with the greatest backup to help me through this computer crisis. My lesson? Duplicate as much as you can in online systems. In this way, you’ll have access to your data when you travel, when you have a computer crash, or when you’re faced with a natural disaster.

Computer backup means storing your files, data, music from your computer on other media types(dvds, cds, hard-drives, zip) in the event that you lose your data due to computer malfunction, viruses, crashes, etc.

Everyone who works with computers knows that this can happen.

Either is a computer virus, a system crash, or even a hardware failure, all this can destroy your data and if it’s something important, you may consider backing it up, especially since it’s not something very hard to do and can save you a lot of time and money.

Many people say that you can recover your data even from a defect hard-drive. It`s true, but this cannot be done every time. There are times when you can`t recover the data and most important this can be done only by a specialist and thus it cost a lot. This is why having a backup of your work is very important.

How do I Backup my Computer?

The most used method is to copy your files to another disk drive. Another method is to copy your files to a CD or DVD. In this case you won’t be able to modify your data but, if it’s a rewritable CD/DVD you can erase all the data and replace with a new backup.

This way you won`t need to store tens of cd/dvds with different backups.

A newer technology is the keydrive – a tiny drive wich you plug in your USB connection and is seen by the computer as another drive on your computer.

It can store up to 16GB of data or even more and you can write, erase, replace copy the files stored there making it a simple and easy to use drive. This is a really powerful tool for backup.

Online Computer Backup

This is another excellent form of computer backup. Unlike the previous methods which required other media such as USD Drive, CD, DVD, online backup stores your data online on dedicated storage servers and you don`t need to keep in mind where your backup CD is, or if it`s still intact.

The files will always be there, online and thus they can be accessed easily and at any moment, as long as you are online.

Of course there are many places to store your files. Many differ only by the maximum space available for you for free. X-drive and idrive are two excellent sources of online backup.

Using an user and a password you can gain access to your files from any place in the world with an internet connection and thus you`ll be able to continue your work in no time.

The 4 Steps To Start Faxing From Your Computer and Start Sending and Receiving faxes in just minutes for free! More information at emailfaxservices.net

Computer Storage Options – Today & Tomorrow

Abstract:

This is the article brings the brief about the today’s and future computer storage options. Most of ours using computers and systems, but we do not know much more details about the storage and storage options existing today. For those people, you can easily get to know about the brief introduction and overview of nowadays storage options – personal and enterprise from this article.

Hard Disk Drive:

If anyone hears about computer storage, suddenly he might have think about this hard disk only.  It is a common storage option, most of the PC’s have. After 1990, the evolutions of hard disk become more and more. So it easily occupies our PC’s without any competitions of other storage options. Compare to other storage options this is the smartest storage, suitable for personal computers. There are two main types of hard disks are used in today’s systems. They are,

• Magnetic Hard Disks
• Solid State Disks

Magnetic Hard Disks:

Magnetic Hard Disk Drive is a digital data storage device that reads and writes data via magnetization changes of a magnetic storage disk. This includes one or more randomly accessible rotatable storage media, or disks. Nowadays magnetic hard disks are there in market up to terabytes. Yes, a single hard disk drive has that much memory like a big storage server. The first commercial magnetic HDD introduced by IBM in 1956 having 5MB storage. But last year Hitachi introduced 1TB magnetic HDD. This year 2008, Seagate announced 1.5 TB HDD for personal and enterprise purposes. This HDD are having data transfer rate is nearly 16 to 20 Mb/s.

Solid State Disks:

The design of solid-state disk starts with combining the each block like Flash memory, Memory controller, RAM, RAM Controller, Processor and Host etc., M-Systems introduced first flash-based solid-state drives in 1995. (SanDisk acquired M-Systems in November 2006). Since then, flash based SSDs demands high in military and aerospace industries, as well as other mission-critical applications. Nowadays in SSD, Flash is used as a permanent storage and RAM is used as a temporary storage between Flash and processor to increase the performance.

It’s very suitable for small hand held systems and note books, because it does not have moving parts, requires less power, Host data transfer rate of up to 3Gb/s and silent operation. Up to 2007 middle only 64GB (Samsung & SanDisk) solid-state drives are there in the market with in the size that is compatible with notebooks. In this year Samsung announces a super-fast 256 GB, 2.5-inch solid-state drive. ‘Super Talent’ has announced the world’s thinnest 256 GB 2.5-inch SSD drive. Toshiba also launched 3 MLC flash SSD families with SATA interfaces.

Optical Disks:

The main uses of optical storage disks are content exchange, backup and archiving and not for primary storage. It’s having capacity from 300 MB to 30 GB. Before the evolutions of Optical Storage Disks, the Magnetic floppy disks are used for data exchange and for small storages. Because of the very little storage (1.44 MB) and small life period of floppy, the optical disks had overtaken that. There are four main commercial types of optical disk’s are there for present day usage. They are,

• Laser Disks
• Compact Disks (CD)
• Digital Versatile Disks (DVD)
• Blu-Ray Disks (BD)

Laser Disks:

The laserdisc was the first optical storage medium used for commercial purposes, particularly for the movie industry. Paul Gregg invented the laserdisc technology in 1958, making use of a transparent disc. Laserdiscs are famous in 80’s for audio songs and although the VHS (Video Home System) cassettes and the CD/DVD format has overtaken the Laserdisc in usage. It looks 30 centimeters in diameter and it is made up of two single-sided discs. Laserdisc is actually an analog format unlike CDs or DVDs which are digital. Now Laser disks doesn’t have any market, but still some people are using this to hear old songs.

Compact Disks:

The most common form of optical storage is the Compact Disk (CD). Even with the arrival of other more powerful optical media, CDs remain a popular way for industries to package software, games, music, and movies. These discs provide low-cost and easy-to-use back-up for and physical transfer of data files. Normally compact disks are coming in two ways. One is CD-R (one time write and more number of reads) and CD-RW (More number of read and writes). A standard CD has a capacity of about 74 minutes of standard CD audio music and holds about 700 MB. But actual capacity depends on the format of writing.

Digital Versatile Disks:

This is the improved form of compact disks, commonly known as DVD. It has another expansion like Digital Video Disks also. It also contains DVD-R and DVD-RW separation like the above. A standard DVD offers 4.7 GB (Single Layer) / 8.5 GB (Dual Layer) storage. But it looks similar like CD. We can read/write the CDs in the DVD Writer, but CD writer won’t read the DVD.

Blu-Ray Disks:

It is the next-generation optical disks, able to hold high-definition video and other high-density storage. A single-sided Blu-ray disk can hold 25 GB of storage, while a dual-sided one can store 50 GB. The Blu-ray disk’s size is similar to that of the CD and the DVD – 120 mm in diameter. It uses 405 nm wavelength of laser, so only it named as a Blu-ray disk. It has 54 Mbps transfer rate is superior to both the CD (150 Kbps) and the DVD’s (11.1 Mbps). Blu-ray discs are more expensive and slower to manufacture, mainly used for Game storage like play stations.

RAID:

It is expanded like Redundant Array of Independent Disks. It is a technology that employs the simultaneous use of two or more Hard disk drive to achieve greater levels of performance, reliability, and/or larger data volume sizes. A RAID distributes data across several physical disks. There are three different types of RAID concepts. They are,

             • Software RAID
             • Hardware RAID
             • Firmware/driver based RAID

Tape Storage:

The main usage of tape storage is offline storage and backup for primary storage. Today’s magnetic tape is most commonly packaged in cartridges and cassettes. Tape drives can be connected to a computer with SCSI commonly and Fibre Channel, FICON, ESCON, parallel port, IDE, SATA, USB, FireWire or other interfaces also. It has the following important benefits.

             • It offers lowest cost per megabyte of all storage media options.
             • Extremely high capacity per cartridge.
             • Portable

The same like it has some limitations also.

             • Very slow operation (both read and write)
             • Relatively short operational life compare to other storage media
             • Subject to deterioration and environmental hazards

The difference between tape data storage and disk data storage is that tape is an   Sequential access medium while disk is a random access medium. Nowadays Tape Storage is used to store data’s, which doesn’t need, but should have a Backup like Hospital passed away patients record.

Network Attached Storage:

It is commonly known as NAS, used for enterprise storage as a server. These devices contains embedded processors that run some sort of operating system or microprocessors that understands networking protocols and is optimized for particular tasks, such as file service and network backup etc., NAS is an ideal choice for organizations looking for a simple and cost-effective way to achieve fast data access for multiple clients at the file level.  Some important benefits of NAS are listed below.

             • Files are easily shared among users at high demand and performance
             • Files are easily accessible by the same user from different locations
             • Demand for local storage at the desktop is reduced
             • Storage can be added more economically and partitioned among users—Highly scalable
             • Data can be backed up form the common repository more efficiently than from desktops
             • Multiple file servers can be consolidated into a single managed storage pool

Storage Area Network:

It is commonly known as SAN. It is a high performance storage network that transfers data between servers and storage devices, separate from the local area network. For a normal person these two, SAN and NAS are giving big confusion. These two are used as server storage but the main difference is, NAS uses LAN but SAN won’t use it. Some advantages of SAN over NAS are listed below.

             • Superior Performance
             • Reduces Network bottlenecks
             • Highly Scalable
             • Allows backup of storage devices with minimal impact on production operations
             • Flexibility in configuration.

Online Backup:

The above said methods are convenient and quick, and many offer plenty of inexpensive storage space. For Enterprises, the big problem is coming at the time of disaster, hurricane, earthquake, fire occurs, both the computer and the data backup servers could be destroyed. There’s also the problem of theft, of course. But online backup services, which save the most critical computer files on a secure, off-site server over the Internet.

Online Backup means remote Backing up Services. That is taking backup via the Internet to a remote location can protect against some worst-case scenarios mentioned above. A drawback of this an Internet connection is usually substantially slower than the speed of local data storage devices and it also has the risk associated with putting control of company secrets data in the hands of a third party.

Erwin’s Pecha Kucha Style Technology Presentation #1: How Online Backup can help you to survive a computer disaster.