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backup

USB flash drives 101

Flash Drive

No matter how many times we talk about USB flash drives on the show, or I recommend them to my clients, I am still surprised by how many people have no idea that they exist.

A USB flash drive is a small device the size of a key that plugs into any Windows ME, XP or 2000 computer's USB flash drive.

It works exactly like a floppy disk drive but it holds 100-16,000 times as much information.

If you need to do backup of finances, genealogy, or documents, you NEED a USB flash drive.

I’m raising my rates – here’s why

While Rick and I run seperate businesses, we each do the same thing. I spend my day travelling to various homes and businesses all over town to work on computer problems and train people how to get more from their systems.

To do this I have been charging $50/hr. for homes and $75/hr. for businesses. Does that sound like a lot? Probably not if you live in a bigger city, but let's compare that to everything else out there.

As gas prices have gone up and everything else has gone up in price right along with it, I have kept the same rates for over two years. I hate raising my rates. But, after doing some math and some research, I don't feel too bad about making the big move to raise my rates.

The Next Great Novel

The next great novel is gone. Why? Because there was no backup copy of the document and the original has disappeared. This was one of the voice mail message I retrieved this morning as I started my week. It breaks my heart, but it is a hard lesson that the computer user will never again forget. With the plethora of backup options available to us today (online, second computer, hard drive, ZIP drive, flash drive, and even the lowly floppy disk), it seems absolutely ridiculous that more computer users don't heed the warning.

We harp on backup here at HelpMeRick.com and on the radio show because backup should be the number one tool in your computer security approach. Hopefully, our listeners and web site visitors have heeded our warnings over the years and won't fall in the depressing situation that the young author did who left me the message this weekend.

“I can’t find stuff on your web site”

We get this comment more often than we would like. I'm going to split the responsibility between our web site design and web surfing experience of the folks who tell us they have trouble navigating our site.

Our site has gone immense changes in the past year…for the better. If you might be in the camp who thinks that our current site is tough to navigate, you may have never returned to our old site after an initial visit. Our old site didn't have consistent menu navigation and had a horrible search engine. Our new site has the same menus on every single page that let you navigate to the main parts of our web site. You will find these menus at top right of every single page on our site.

When it’s gone, it’s gone

Adam eluded to a trend that he has noticed about failing computers and hard drives lately. Indeed, I have seen the same epidemic. My question to you is, do you really know what the hard drive is and what its function is?

Some computer users point to the box that sits on their desk or floor and call it a hard drive. Others know that it stores data. I think few understand how important and valuable the hard drive really is and why we spend so much time writing and talking about backup. The hard drive, in desktop computers, is roughly the size of a VCR tape. It is a mechanical piece of equipment that has motors, gears and bearings…none of which is made to last forever. Thus the reason for backup.

I am sensing a theme here

I am sensing a theme with my work lately. Late last week I had to tell a client that their entire hard drive had crashed and nothing was salvageable.

Today I taught some computer classes for the local Parks and Rec. I enjoy teaching these classes because I get to tell people about the importance of things like backup and broadband Internet.

After that class my first client had just bought a new computer and she needed me to transfer data. She had replaced her old computer because it kept locking up and giving her errors.

As I transferred her important files I discovered what had been causing the problems. Her hard drive was nearly dead and many of her files were gone completely.

It’s a computer emergency

Lately, I have seen too many real emergencies. Sometimes I get calls that are "emergencies" like the kind where the grandkids have come over and deleted the solitaire icon from the desktop.

But, then I get real emergencies. Lately I had one client whose hard drive motor suddently quit. Today I saw a dentist's office where the server with all of the software kept shutting down suddenly. Then, the worst yet, I am working a little bit with a local financial institution whose server crashed – not a small business either.

In all but one case, the client has complete and current backup, but even having backup doesn't help keep the ship afloat when a major crash happens. Sometimes the entire ship has to be put in drydock for a week or so to get things figured out.

Maybe I should run a backup today

I spent much of my day working with a client who had lost everything on his hard drive. The motor died. We checked with a couple of data recovery services on the web and one said it would cost $1100 to recover, the other said the price would start at $599 (lowest possible estimate).

I have seen clients lose important information before and it is heart breaking, but it was what my client said later that I think is of note.

People often ask us how often they should back up or how they should backup. While the answers to these questions vary, there is one time that you should always backup everything that is important.

I should have trusted my instincts

I teach my kids to trust their instincts when making decisions, taking tests, and dealing with people. I try to do the same, but sometimes my brain (or maybe ego and curiosity) gets in the way. Over the past few years, we have talked at length about computer security and the dangers of not being secure.  After spending many hours hunkered down over an infected computer and trying to get overwhelmed computers fixed, we have come to a conclusion about fixing some of these problems. In some of the worst cases, it is cheaper and quicker to backup up the necessary user files then format the hard drive and start over with a fresh install of Windows, its updates and the proper security software.