Brendan’s Blog

Most of us know that backups are an important part of using a computer.  Those who have lost data in the past are typically most diciplined about taking regular backups.  I recently went through a series of system failures that cost me lots of time, but didn’t ultimately cost me any data.

In addition to my desktop PC’s primary hard drive failing, the external drive that I had been using to take regular backups was corrupted.  This combination would have likely been catastrophic for many individuals and small businesses.  Luckily I am a believer in “defense in depth” which encourages layers of different defenses for common problems.  My multiple backup processes paid off this time.

Why Backup?

There are many important reasons to take backups of your data.  I’ve identified a few here:

• Hard disk failure.   All computer hard drives eventually fail, so when (not if) yours does, how will you recover your data?
• File Corruption.  If you have a single file that becomes corrupted, how can you recover a previous version?
• Physical Theft.  If your laptop/PC  is lost or stolen, will your data be lost too?
• Physical Disaster.  If your home/office burns down, will your data be safe?

If any of these scenarios played out with you today, how much data would you lose?  Many companies offer hardware, software, and even online solutions to help keep your data safe.  I have picked a few that work well for me.  Your needs may be different, so you will need to evaluate your own needs, and how much time and money you are willing to spend to safeguard your data.

Personally, I consider my data to be nearly priceless.  My family photographs are stored digitally and could not be replaced if they were lost.  My music collection is mostly software now, and I have spent a small fortune on it.  My finances are mostly tracked electronically, and it would be difficult ot impossible to amend old tax returns or find an old receipt without the data on my PC.  I don’t need to place a specific value on all of my data, I just need to know that it is worth spending time and money to protect it.

Physical Backups

External hard drives have replaced tapes and DVDs as my preferred form of physical backup.  External drives hold lots of data, have fast data read/write speeeds, are physically small, and inexpensive.  These drives come in a variety of sizes and capacities, but typically connect to your PC via USB.  I keep two large capacitiy drives at home and rotate them every week or two between my primary PC and fire safe.  I also keep one in my safe deposit box at my bank, this gets updated less often.  I also keep a small external drive in my laptop bag to use when I travel.  I update this backup before long trips and before any major software changes on my laptop.

The software I use for these physical backups is Acronis True Image.  I like this product because it lets you take an “image” backup of your whole system hard disk.  A system image can be restored in one step if your PC fails completely.  Additionally I can restore only specific files/folders if required.  I don’t use the Acronis Secure Zone feature because my data takes up most of my system hard disk.

Be sure to validate your backups by performing test restores on occasion.  A backup is useless if you cannot restore it!  Also remember that all hard disks eventually fail.  Plan to replace your backup drives occasionally.  I find that I do this anyway becase size of my backups increase regularly.

Online Backups

If you are regularly connected to a high-speed Internet connection, you may consider using a service that uses the Internet to transmit your data to a secure data center.  I use Mozy which I have previously written about here.  The great thing about Mozy is that it is easy and automatic.  The downside to Mozy is that your initial backups can take a long time.  You can only backup data as fast as your Internet connection will send it.  My initial backup took weeks.  If your whole system dies, they will mail you physical media (for a fee) that will get you up and running quickly.  Home users pay only $50 a year for unlimited storage (per backed up PC.)

File Synchronization

Most people have more than one PC.  File synchronization software and online services will copy your data between your PCs so that it is stored in multiple locations.  I use Windows Live Sync, which I previously wrote about here, to copy my data through the Internet between my laptop and desktop computers.  In addition to “My Documents” it can also synchronize web browser “Favorites,” photos, and music.  Live Sync is free, but requires an active Internet connection to work.

Note that file synchronization alone is not a good backup strategy.  If you corrupt a file, the corrupt file is quickly synchronized to all of your computers!

One downside to using Windows regularly is how performance seems to degrade over weeks and months of normal system usage.  In my experience, the root cause is typically sloppy and/or malicious software. 

Bad software frequently leaves a mess of temporary files, extra registry entries, and sometimes extra software components you are not aware of.  This problem is increased with frequent web surfing as many popular websites actually install software on your PC as you browse.

You should already be running some sort of Anti-Virus software.  Such software updates itself daily with signatures of known viruses.  At home I use Trend AntiVirus (one license covers several machines.)  At work I use Symantec (because thats what my employer pays for.)

AntiVirus software does not typically detect all of the bad stuff that may be on your PC.  I use two additional free utilities on a regular basis.  You may want to try them for yourself.

CCleaner

CCleaner is a nifty utility that scans and deletes extra stuff that can bog down your PC.  It also removes logs of your activity that many common programs create.  It is a free download, and is free to use.  Note that the setup wizard will install a web browser toolbar by default, so I always remember to “uncheck” that box.

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it’s fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware!

Malware Bytes Anti-Malware (MBAM)

Malware Bytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) is great utility that scans your system for “malware.”  Malware is software you don’t generally want on your PC, even though it isn’t technically a virus.  A classic example of malware is software that advertising companies quietly install to track what sites you visit, and sometimes interrupt you with advertising popups.  MBAM does a good job of finding and removing garbage that your AntiVirus software may ignore.  MBAM is free to download and use, however they offer a “premium” version that costs money but runs automatically in the background.

We at Malwarebytes have created an easy-to-use, simple, and effective anti-malware application. Whether you know it or not your computer is always at risk of becoming infected with viruses, worms, trojans, rootkits, dialers, spyware, and malware that are constantly evolving and becoming harder to detect and remove. Only the most sophisticated anti-malware techniques can detect and remove these malicious programs from your computer.

What other tips can you share?  What utilities do you use to keep your Windows clean?

I wanted an email address I could keep for life, and I wanted the flexibility to change what email service I used.  The best solution for me was to register my own Internet domain name (bmhome.com) which I use for personal email and web pages.

My Internet registrar (currently GoDaddy) provides domain name services (DNS) as a part of the annual domain registration fee.  I can determine which email and web hosting services are used by adjusting the DNS configuration at GoDaddy.  Today I host my personal email with GoogleApps and my personal web site at GoDaddy.

GoogleApps combines the features of Google Mail and Google Calendar with your personal (or business) domain name.  All of the data is stored on Google’s servers.  My email address doesn’t have Google’s name in it, and I can move it one day if I choose to.  In addition to my mailbox, my wife also has one, and eventually I’m sure my daughters will too.    GoogleApps comes in two flavors, free and premium.  My email mailbox exceeds 10GB so I pay Google’s annual fee for premium service.

My favorite feature of Google Apps is the large mailbox.  Every email I have sent and received for over ten years is at my fingertips.  I use Google’s web-based Gmail interface to read and send my personal mail every day.  I even have rules configured at Google to forward some email to my Blackberry, which helps with potentially time sensitive notes.  Like Gmail, GoogleApps supports POP and IMAP in addition to their native web email interface, so you can use MS Outlook or other traditional email client software.

Google does a really good job removing unwanted spam, though I can go see what it filters anytime I want.  In the past two years, I’ve never had a false positive, and very little spam gets to my inbox.  Google also has a Blackberry application that allows me to read/compose/and search personal mail from my Blackberry without utilizing my employer’s Exchange mailbox.

Everyone has different television viewing habits and preferences. Some don’t have a TV at all and there are times that seems appealing. My viewing habits can be summarized as follows:

• I don’t watch TV every day.
• I only watch TV using a DVR.
• I only watch pre-recorded shows (except occasional sports.)
• I usually skip commercials and sometimes even boring content within a program.
• Most of my TV watching is late, when the kids are asleep.

Last fall I posted about “part 1″ of my search for HDTV service.  Earlier this year I dropped Dish Network due to frequent hardware failures.  I then switchted to Comcast and was happy enough with the service, but the monthly cost was too high after the initial promotions ended so I restarted my quest…

A little bit of research led me back to DirecTV.  Their offerings have improved in a number of ways since I left them last year.  Most importantly since I’m now a “new” customer, they’re offering a reasonable deal on new HDTV/DVR receivers. 

Additionally I discovered that AAA members get additional discounts on top of the regular promotions for new DirecTV customers.   Offer is available only by calling the AAA exclusive DirecTV toll-free number to order services: 1-800-242-9114. Valid AAA membership number needed when calling.

I ordered two HD-DVR systems and two standard (SD, non-DVR) receivers for a total cost of $130 with installation and a two year service agreement.  My monthly cost for TV service will be half of Comcast’s with more programming — even after my initial promotions expire.

I needed a new roof-top dish to receive the newest signals, and the DirecTV installer put the dish right where I wanted it.My only complaint about installation is the installer wanted to charge $80 extra to remove my old roof-top dishes.  I had three, one old DirecTV and two from Dish.  I removed them and patched the screw holes myself.

I am very happy about the following aspects of the DirecTV service so far:

• The picture quality is better than expected.  According to my research, DirecTV’s HD signlas are not technically as complete as cable or over the air HD broadcasts, but I can’t tell the difference.
• The DVR interface is easy to use, and response to the remote.
• The On-Demand service has lots of programming, comperable to what Comcast offered.
• The DirecTV receiver (HR-22) can play audio, video, and photo media through my home network which is stored on my Windows PC.
• The new roof-top dish to receiver wiring is much less complicated than it was previously.  I have only one RG6 cable coming from the dish to a central wiring point.  A non-powered splitter then provides one single cable output to each receiver.  The splitter provided by the installer supports up to 8 receivers.  The new receivers can now provide dual-tuner HD support with a single cable run back to the splitter.

I have the following suggestions for improvement:

• It would be nice to replay a program on a different DVR than it was originally recorded on.
• It would be nice if the DirecTV receivers could act as media sources to Windows Media Center.
• It would be nice to configure the DVR recordings via a web interface instead of the remote control.

In summary, I am now again a happy DirecTV customer.  Your startup and monthly costs are sure to vary from mine, as they are dependent on seasonal promotions.

I just read a great blog post here that speaks to a transition I recently made myself.

I have been an Exchange/Outlook user since 1996, before Outlook was even a product.  During those years I developed systems of email folder heirarchies that I used to “file” my email.  These heirarchies changed year-to-year as I changed projects or jobs.  This filing helped me find relevant email on any number of topics when required.

I also have a no-delete policy for email.  I don’t delete anything.  My theory is that storage will continue to get cheaper, and search functionality will continue to improve.  Once my mailbox size became large, I started creating an annual “PST” archive file so that my primary mailbox would stay manageable.  Over the past twelve years I’ve amassed many gigabytes of email.

Last year I began using Google Mail’s web interface as my primary personal email client.  Around the same time I saw an “Inbox Zero” presentation by Merlin Mann which was very thought provoking.  After a short time my habits changed dramatically from being an email filer, to an email finder.  I highly recommend it to anyone who spends time moving emails from your inbox to other folders in an attempt to organize your email.

When using Google Mail, I immediately archive any message that doesn’t require me to perform a follow-up action.  Those that require follow up stay in my inbox until I’ve completed the task.

When using Outlook I flag messages requiring follow-up.  Messages from high-volume email distribution lists are automatically moved to Inbox subfolders via the Rules feature.  Others emails simply stay in my Inbox or their distribution list folder until Outlook AutoArchive moves them to a PST file.

The advantage to “finding” is that you don’t spend time filing on a daily basis.  I don’t even label much as I can almost always think of keywords, senders, or recipients that narrow my search sufficiently.  The only filing and labeling I do is automated with filters.  Email from active distribution lists gets automatically tagged and/or filed appropriately.

Are you a finder or a filer?