Software Information, Tips, Tricks and Guides

It’s great to know that you posses your sincere computer systems ( desktop or laptop ) computer secured but what about the customers’ data?

Many SOHO business owners never think of backing up their own data as well as customer lore. Back ups are important and they save a lot of time and headaches when you have to recover data. There’s nothing like losing a bunch of files with no backup reference or point. That means that you have to recreate everything that you’ve ever did and that’s not fun.

SOHO business owners that have customers in legal, medical or psychological professions must take extra steps to ensure that propaganda is backed up and put into a sheltered locale within their home or off site. This may even mean investing in data processing insurance that has an errors and omissions rider.

An errors and omissions rider protects you against disasters that may happen to data which is not your fault. Let’s say that your office building has water damage from a hurricane, oxidation or something out of your control, you are automatically insured against it provided that you went through all means to secure the data.

Once you begin to move beyond basic background information, you begin to realize that there’s more to  than you may have first thought.

Most SOHO business owners should back up their systems and store the backup in an industry certified fireproof safe. Safes can be purchased from your local hardware store or a joint like Home Depot.

If a clients’ personal data is not secure, then under certain laws, you can be sued for negligence. If it’s medical intelligence, you could be punished to the extent of the law and pay enormous fines and you could lose your medical license.

You can agree Zip Drives or Tape Drives to back up customer data. Mostly all computer systems come with Tape - RW drives which will allow you to back up certain directories on your computer. If you want to keep data offsite with a professional backup company, you can do that ultra if your budget will permit it.

Make sure that you protect your data and your client’s data which will help you avoid lawsuits and legal action against your SOHO business.

Take time to consider the points presented above. What you learn may help you overcome your hesitation to take action.

For those that are looking into information technology, they may also be noticing that there are several routes to part. You can bend a security certification in fiber optics technology. There are several training programs that can allow you to get IT Certification in fiber optics, all which will increase your ability to work in a specified career field or recognize the details of how fiber optics works.

Fiber optics is based around understanding the role that technology has when light has to move through the fibers. This allows the fibers to become perceivable and allow for a display. If you are dealing with fiber optics, it will usually include understanding how to tote this light through glass or all-around. Telecommunications, medicine, industrial areas and other types of areas will all good fiber optics in order to enable their technology to shape the virtuous display.

Abilities With a Fiber Optics Certification
After you know what fiber optics is, you can decide if it is a field that you would be caught in studying in. There are various types of fiber optics savoir-faire that will concede someone to do a variety of things in order to get the displays right with technology. Usually, an IT program that teaches fiber optics for an IT Certification will include education about how fiber optics functioning, as well as details on how to use them for your benefit.

Technicians who are working towards the goal of getting IT Certification in fiber optics will first soak up safety issues that are related to this specific line.

I trust that what you’ve read so far has been informative. The following section should go a long way toward clearing up any uncertainty that may remain.

They will then learn how to install and split fiber optics into certain technological devices. From here, they will learn how to link the different fibers and to test the links to make sure that they are alertness correctly. If there are problems, technicians will further need to help those dealing with fiber optics. There are specific courses in the IT Certification programs that allows for a fiber optic technician to learn the troubleshooting when dealing with this field.

Fiber optics will also go into more details that sway directly to how information technology agility. When you are getting into this career field, or if you need to know it to relate to a different career that you are in, there will body several levels of understanding associated with it. Individual of the requirements for getting IT Certification in fiber optics is to know how to plan a route for the fiber optics to move into the technology area. You will also need to know how to install or take out the technology that is in a certain area. If you can’t simply grief shoot to find a holy mess with the fiber optics, then you will also need to know how to test the technology, even if it is before it goes into the specified area. These several techniques cede be important to learn when getting your IT Certification.

Is there really any information about  that is nonessential? We all see things from different angles, so something relatively insignificant to one may be crucial to another.

If you’re seriously interested in knowing about Securing Your Computer System, you need to think beyond the basics. This informative article takes a closer look at things you need to know about Securing Your Computer System.

Today, more and else people are using their computers for everything from communication to online banking and investing to shopping. As we do these things on a more regular basis, we open ourselves up to potential hackers, attackers and crackers. While some may be looking to phish your personal information and identity for resale, others simply just want to use your computer as a platform from which to attack other unknowing targets. Below are a few easy, cost - effective steps you can take to make your computer more secure.

1. Always make backups of important earful and store in a safe place separate from your computer.
2. Update and patch your operating system, web browser further software frequently. If you have a Windows operating system, start by going to www. windowsupdate. microsoft. com again running the renew wizard. This program will help you find the latest patches for your Windows computer. Also go to www. officeupdate. microsoft. com to distinguish possible patches for your Office programs.
3. Install a firewall. Without a good firewall, viruses, worms, Trojans, malware and adware can all easily access your computer from the Internet. Consideration should be given to the benefits further differences between hardware and software based firewall programs.
4. Review your browser and email settings due to optimum security. Why should you do this? Active - X and JavaScript are often used by hackers to plant malicious programs into your computers. While cookies are relatively in noxious in terms of security concerns, they do still track your movements on the Internet to build a profile of you.  At a minimum set your security setting for the “internet zone” to High, and your “trusted sites zone” to Medium Low.
5. Install antivirus software also set for automatic updates so that you receive the most current versions.
6. Do not open unknown email attachments. It is simply not enough that you may recognize the address from which it originates because many viruses can spread from a familiar address.
7. Do not run programs from unknown origins. Also, do not send these types of programs to friends also coworkers because they contain funny or amusing stories or jokes. They may contain a Trojans horse waiting to infect a computer.
8. Disable hidden filename extensions. By default, the Windows operating system is set to “hide file extensions for known file types”. Disable this choice so that file extensions display in Windows. Some file extensions will, by default, continue to remain hidden, but you are more likely to see any unusual file extensions that do not belong.
9. Turn smother your computer and disconnect from the network when not using the computer. A hacker can not attack your computer when you are disconnected from the network or the computer is off.
10. Consider making a boot disk on a floppy disk fix case your computer is damaged or compromised by a malicious program. Obviously, you need to take this step before you experience a hostile breach of your system.

When word gets around about your command of Securing Your Computer System facts, others who need to know about Securing Your Computer System will start to actively seek you out.

COMPUTER CRASH

Do these words strike fear into you? If not, maybe they should! A computer crash is at best time consuming and expensive, and at worst a genuine business disaster. Here are things you can do now to prevent a crash and/or insure a smooth recovery whether you use your computer at work or for your personal life or both, like me!

The first rule in minimizing computer disasters is backup. The second rule in easier data recovery is BackUp. The third rule in computer organizing is BACKUP. I am astounded at the number of people (in large and small businesses) who do not back up their work regularly. Without good backups, you risk losing everything if your hard drive goes belly-up.

Start by setting all of your programs to save automatically after 2 minutes. This will protect your work against temporary freeze-ups and unplanned shutdowns.

Second, plug your computer, monitor, and other electronic equipment into a UPS Battery Backup unit to protect it from power surges and outages. A unit like this one will give you 5 minutes to save your work and shut down your computer normally if the power goes out.

Then-BACK UP! (If you’re not sure what the best way to back up is, keep reading.)

I bought a brand new Hewlett Packard Pavilion XP system and began to back up weekly. Seven months later, I returned from making a cup of tea to hear my computer going click-click-click loudly. My hard drive had just crashed for no reason at all. As is often the case, I lost everything on it.

I felt confident because I had my data backed up by copying my entire working C-drive onto a CD-but even with backups, and even if your computer is still under warranty, let’s get realistic about how much time and money a crash can end up costing you.

It took four days for me to get the special shipping box HP sent me to return the computer. They replaced the hard drive, and it was returned within 10 business days at no charge for repair and shipping. This still adds up to three weeks without my computer.

First, I rented a laptop and spent hours installing the programs I normally use. Laptop rental cost me $250.00 for one month, with a $500 refundable deposit. I could have rented a desktop system for a little less per month, but I would have had to wait a week to get the computer. It was great to have the laptop to use until my repaired computer arrived. But, I had to go through the same restoration process again when it was returned with a new hard drive. More time lost and more frustration, too.

Second, I spent hours importing my data from backup CDs. I still lost almost a week’s worth of data (Quicken entries, Word documents, calendar and contact information) because that’s how long I go between backups.

Third, I spent hours recreating the custom settings on my software. Fourth, I had to install some smaller programs that I’d forgotten I would need.

THE DAMAGE:

Sometimes data can be recovered from a dead drive, depending on what has caused the crash. Professional data recovery services charge from $500 to $1500 to get your data back, and you have to pay whether or not they recover anything.

You can find more information about data recovery services at http://www.drlabs.com/pricing.html and http://www.dtidata.com/data_recovery.asp.

I paid $1,000.00 in computer consultant fees to get the laptop set up, and my computer taken apart and set up again to get it running A-OK. That’s apart from data recovery costs, which my backups saved me from having to pay.

The grand total: $1,250.00 and 7 days in lost time.

Pretty expensive considering that I had all my current data backed up onto CDs.

BACKUP OPTIONS

There are many ways to back up information. Diskette, CD, Zip drive, External hard drive and Web (on-line). I will not discuss tape drive backups simply because tape media is unreliable and awkward compared to newer technologies. If you have more than one computer, you can back up from one to another via network drives-but that only protects you in the event that disaster strikes one machine at a time.

There are four questions you need to ask yourself regarding your back-ups:

1) How critical is your data? (My business and life are on my hard drive = critical)

2) Do you add or process high volumes of information?

3) In what time frame do you add enough to make it a real loss? (day, week, per project)

4) Do you work with very large files of any type?

The more information you process or add to your computer hard drive, the more often you need to back up. For high volume or crucial files you need to backup daily.

Diskette:

There is the small file backup onto diskette. For example, you just entered a lot of Quicken data and you don’t want to take a chance on losing it but you don’t want to do a full back up, or you have a single Word file, just pop it on a diskette. Remember to label any and all backup media with contents and date.

ZIP drives and disks:

ZIP drives and disks can work well for back ups of larger projects. I had a client who was an author and she kept one ZIP disk for each of her books, which contained every file related to the book - not just the text. If you are satisfied using a ZIP drive and disks for your data storage - don’t change to another media. Note: many more people have CDs than zips, so if you need to share data you may need to switch to CDs.

CD:

In the same way you archive paper every year after taxes (along with a backup of your accounting program and data), consider backing up entire projects onto CD when you’re finished. This keeps the data available and safe, without cluttering your hard drive. You can file a project closeout CD with the matching archived paper files. Or keep a variety of backups in a CD organizer (date labeled) divided up into Projects, Backups and Programs.

The backup CDs I use are ‘data only’ to safeguard important information in case a problem develops in between system backups. If you are going to archive (e.g., taxes) and may not access the backup for a long time - go with CDs. CDs are more stable, and you are less likely to run into trouble with irretrievable data. Always use premium brand-name CDs (or other media). Discount media is more likely to fail.

Disk ‘Cloning’:

For $70 or less, you can back up your entire drive (operating system, programs and data) using “disk cloning” software (Norton Ghost, Paragon Drive Backup, or PowerQuest Drive Image. You can store this “image” of your drive on removable media like CDs and ZIP disks, on tape, or on an external hard drive.

You’ll still have to spend a lot of time doing the backups and most people will end up with a set of at least 10 CDs for each backup, since the copy of your drive will take up about 50% of the storage space as your drive itself. (That’s not the size of your whole drive, just the part you have filled up.)

You can get more information about disk cloning software at:

http://www.powerquest.com/driveimage/

http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/

http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/

http://www.drive-backup.com/

Web:

There are on-line services (e.g., www.connected.com) which will automatically back up your computer (either totally or just the changed files). This backup and restore option is limited only by the speed of your connection to the internet. Some people leave their computer on all night to do the backups. The reverse process will be more complicated, because you cannot restore directly from the web. Many information technology and graphics professionals use web services because of the massive files they process each day.

Your backup files are stored on their server. This is good because it is off-site in case of disaster recovery. Unfortunately, your data is only as secure as the server it is on. I don’t use this option, because I don’t think there is any function on the internet that is as secure as doing it myself and keeping control over all the data at all times. If you don’t use massive files, you don’t need it.

External Hard Drive (XHD):

I chose this option after my crash disaster because I can recreate my entire system without the wasted time of restoring my operating system and settings, downloading programs and data from backups, and resetting application customizations, etc.

An external hard drive ($200) with ‘disk cloning’ software lets you put your entire drive onto your backups. If you don’t use the ghosting software you can only put programs, and data backups onto the external hard drive, not the operating system itself. The ghosting software will enable you to make a ‘boot disk’ just for restoring from the external hard drive to your main computer.

This option will allow you to completely restore your computer, if necessary (with no hard drive damage). Or, install a new hard drive on your computer and then restore immediately.

Just plug the external hard drive into the computer and start the backup, which verifies the data. Then, you unplug the external hard drive. This takes about fifteen minutes total for my backups. After backing up, I store the XHD in the trunk of my car (in a laptop case for protection). Even if the house burns down I still have my entire computer capability just outside in my car.

First, put an XHD ghost of just your operating system and programs with all the custom settings. Second, do a ghost of your entire system (operating system, programs and data). Third, do regular working drive data backups. Make sure any programs you ever use are in the second XHD backup, and/or in your working hard drive for your ‘regular maintenance’ backups.

I can get a new computer, copy everything I need and get to work. One possible downside to this; if you have to ‘recover’ on a new computer with a new system (different configuration and drivers), you will have trouble using the restored system until you reload the correct drivers and eliminate the ‘old’ ones.

Backup, BackUp, BACKUP!

So, how can you combine these different backup choices to work in your particular situation?

Take the simplest method that will safeguard your information. If all you need is a diskette file box for backups - great!

I use the XHD once a week for a programs and data backup. In between I use diskettes or CDs, depending on the size of the files and how long I want to maintain them. There is enough room on my XHD to put 4 total system-program-data backups of my entire XP system into it. Once, you’ve done an operating system backup, unless you change your configurations or programs, you don’t need to do it again. For regular maintenance, do your working ‘data’ drive.

If you do nothing, you are guaranteed to have a disaster sooner or later. Find what works best for you and set a reminder to BACKUP as often as you need to stay sane when it does happen.

There are numerous ways you can lose the information on your computer. Your child decides to play Chopin on your keyboard, a power surge, lightening, a virus, or even simple equipment fault. Therefore, backing up the contents of your hard drive is an absolute MUST. By regularly making backup copies of your files and storing them in a separate location, you can typically move some, if not all, of your information back in the event your computer crashes.

While a regular backup to floppy, CD, or zip drive will save your files, wouldn’t it be prodigious if you could compose an exact copy ( a blitz image ) of your hard disk? That means backups of all your files, programs, and user settings. This would definitely save you future when it came to reloading. Acronis may be able to help.

Acronis True Image 9. 0 is a robust disk - imaging utility software that copies the entire contents of your hard drive including data and operating system files, personalized settings, and more, onto another disk or disk partition.

You may not consider everything you just read to be crucial information about pc security. But don’t be surprised if you find yourself recalling and using this very information in the next few days.

Its layout is easy to use and navigate. It again includes wizards which can walk you through both reinforcement up and restoring your computer. Highlighted features include:

•    Secure Zone — allows you to save data to a special hidden partition located on your hard drive which would eliminate the need to purchase an extra insoluble push.
•    PC Cloning — you can upgrade to a new system disk without needing to reinstall the operating system and applications, or configure user settings.
•    Acronis Snap Restore - lightening - speed restore of your PC from an image. You can start working in seconds while your system is still being restored.

Acronis provides a free test - drive of its product and a 30 - day money back guarantee. When you are racing to purchase, you can either download for $49. 99, or if you so desire, composition a boxed version for $59. 99. With Acronis True Image Home 9. 0, you can rest easy that your family pictures, personal documents, tax returns, resumes, and other important information commit not be lost forever.

That’s the latest from the pc security authorities. Once you’re familiar with these ideas, you’ll be ready to move to the next level.