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As you may have heard, country singer Trace Adkins suffered a devastating fire to his Tennessee home this week. Luckily, his family was able to get out of the home safely thanks to fire-safety procedures that they had established and practiced. His wife, Rhonda, was not home at the time but was able to remain calm when she arrived at the home to find the babysitter, the Adkins children and the family dog were safe. She said she only had one regret -

‘”I have not backed up all my photographs, and I’m just sitting here sick because those are the things that matter the most,” she said. “It’s your memories, our wedding pictures, I don’t have, because the negatives are in the house.

“Please, everybody, practice fire safety, and back up all your pictures,” she said.’

Now IT Works considers backing up all personal data to be one of the most critical actions you can take, in the event of hardware failure or natural disaster. Of course, the most important part of this story is that no one was hurt.

We encourage you to take the sound advice of Rhonda Adkins – practice fire safety and back up your precious family memories.

Here is a post from our archives – still relevant and designed to keep you and your passwords safe:

For those of you who still use the word ‘password’ as your password for all of your Internet logins – I have an idea that may help to make you more secure, without requiring you to remember all of the passwords.

Previously, I would help people create Excel documents that listed out all of the websites, usernames and passwords. Then we would password-protect the document with a master password. This way, users had all of their passwords in an easy-to-read document that could only be opened with a master password – this master password would be the only one they would need to remember.

Some folks liked this idea, others did not – most of them did not use this consistently.

I recently stumbled upon a new program that I think will help users with their passwords – it uses the same concept as I’ve just described, but additionally it has some really useful features.

This new program is called KeePass – you can download a free copy of this software here.

Here are a few reasons why I suggest KeePass:

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According to a study from CNN, while almost half of all computers have some type of Malware, 83% of people think their computers are clean. Experts think that people find technology too confusing or they just don’t make it a priority. Between the confusion of getting started and the nervousness of pulling the trigger, many users fear they will do more harm that good if they work on their own PC, compounded by the fact that they don’t know how to hire a professional to do the work.

Just like your car, computers have parts that wear out just like a belt or engine part, that require replacing. Whether it’s replacing your hard drive to increase speed or running a periodic Malware check, every bit helps to extend the life of your computer. And as always, make sure you are backing up your data, both locally and off-site.

Have a great weekend everyone!

March 31st is National Backup Day and this is one silly holiday that you will definitely want to pay attention to.

You might wonder why this day is actually necessary? Well, for starters, last year at this time, only 8% of those surveyed were backing up their data on a daily basis.

In the past, we have posted articles and tips about backups but here’s a few tips, to make sure you are securely backing up all of your critical data:

• The most important tip in backing up your data, is backing up your backup. Make sure you have a local and off-site backup of your data, at all times.

• Check your backup logs to make sure they are actually backing up the data required, not just running logs.

• Archive your data every 12 months.

For more information, visit the official World Backup Day website.

For those of you who still use the word ‘password’ as your password for all of your Internet logins – I have an idea that may help to make you more secure, without requiring you to remember all of the passwords.

Previously, I would help people create Excel documents that listed out all of the websites, usernames and passwords. Then we would password-protect the document with a master password. This way, users had all of their passwords in an easy-to-read document that could only be opened with a master password – this master password would be the only one they would need to remember.

Some folks liked this idea, others did not – most of them did not use this consistently.

I recently stumbled upon a new program that I think will help users with their passwords – it uses the same concept as I’ve just described, but additionally it has some really useful features.

This new program is called KeePass – you can download a free copy of this software here.

Here are a few reasons why I suggest KeePass:

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Step 5: Replace your hard drive

Most hard drive manufacturers only warranty their hard drives for one year. For most brand-name desktop computers, you should try to replace your hard drive every 24 months. Replacing your hard drive might sound like a major upgrade but with common disk-cloning software available, moving your entire Windows setup and all programs isn’t very difficult any more. Take advantage of reinstalling your operating system on the new hard drive and rest assured you are starting with a fresh drive and no problems.

Step 6: Store your data in one folder, or use sub-folders

By this point, you already know that backups are important and you know you should be doing it – but you have data all over the place, right? Try spending a few minutes and move all your data to one location. Then you can create shortcuts to these locations from your desktop.

Step 7: Archive your data every 12 months

If your backups continue to grow in size, you may want to archive data that you aren’t using. Create a folder called “Archive” that lives outside the normal backup folder and move any data that you don’t use into this folder. You should burn this data onto two separate CD’s; one for your on-site use and the other should go to an off-site location. When the CD’s have been successfully burned and checked, you can empty the Archive folder and start over.

Step 8: Save your Outlook Express email

An item that is usually forgotten from the backup plan is Outlook Express email. By default, there are two types of files you need to backup – the first is .WAB (this is the Windows Address Book) and the other is .DBX (this is where all of your email lives – be careful, for every sub-folder you create, there will be a corresponding DBX file). In Outlook Express, click on Tools, Options, Maintenance – you can change the location of your DBX files to be placed inside of your single backup folder.

Step 1: Backup your data

If you’ve been told once, you’ve been told 100 times – back up your data. Here’s the hard truth – your hard drive is going to fail or it’s going to get wiped out by a virus or you are going to delete some extremely important information one unsuspecting afternoon. These things happen every day, every hour – somewhere. It’s 2008 and it’s easy to backup your data so make sure you are doing it.

Step 2: Check the backup logs

There is no way around it – consider this the “brushing your teeth” part of your day. It’s a pain sometimes but it has to be done consistently. You need to check a few things – make sure the backup actually ran, that it found your backup device and then ensure that the backup was not only complete but successful.

Step 3: Test your backups

So you’ve been backing up your data for the last 2 years to your CD burner and you figure you have it all under control, right? Have you ever actually verified that the backups are working? It’s crucial that you make sure the backups are copying your data and that it can be restored if needed. A good test would be to restore some piece of information every month or once a quarter – this will give you piece of mind in the event of a real disaster.

Step 4: Take your backups offsite

This is the most basic definition of disaster recovery. If your home or office is ever involved in an unfortunate disaster; burglary, fire/water damage or natural disaster, have a current copy of your data at an off-site location will put you in a better position to get back online.

Your car can tell you when it has a problem, why not your computer?

With certain models of vehicles, you will get this great piece of technology that will email you when your oil needs to be changed, when the tire pressure is low or when there is a problem with the engine.

What a novel idea! Make your computer do the hard work and email you when something bad happens.

Over the years, I’ve seen many disasters (not with our customers, thankfully) and the majority of them occurred because no one was watching the computer logs for errors.

With the new technology that is out, we can avoid issues like my friend Bob D had – a server in his QA department died. At least that was the call we received.

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With the price of storage at such a low, it’s a shame not to at least own a USB thumb drive.  These little buggers are invaluable for those on the go, even if you only bounce between two or three separate offices.  However, most people use these gizmos solely to house documents; to be used as file repositories, so that important data may be kept close at hand. 

Fortunately, this doesn’t need to be the case!  Your thumb drive can be utilized in a much more powerful capacity, by installing on them what are called “portable apps.”  These are programs, just like on your PC, that can be installed on the thumb drive and used on whatever computer you connect it to.

Portable Apps (http://portableapps.com/) is a wonderful resource for these programs, and I will highlight five of the packages that Now IT Works employees recommend.  And the best part is – they are all free!

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