Go Ahead and Back Up!

Posted on July 5, 2014 by davidm

Alright, hands up – how many of you do regular backups? Be honest now.

I realize that it’s hard to get excited about this sort of thing. Backing up your computer’s files is not the sexiest thing in the world.
There aren’t even any good pictures to go with it.

For most of my clients, computers are not even a huge thing in their lives. Email, web browsing, and the occasional picture. That’s about it.
When computers go bad, there may be more at stake.

Banking and tax documents, passwords, contact lists, shopping receipts, as well as personal photos, music, videos, internet bookmarks … the list goes on.

Sometimes you don’t even think of what you have on your computer until it crashes. That’s when you wish you’d made a backup.

Unfortunately it’s one of those things you have to experience to truly appreciate. May it never happen to you.

You have to decide what your computer files are worth to you. If your computer was lost, stolen, or damaged beyond repair, would you pay $50 to get all your pictures and documents back? That’s about what most professional backup software costs.
Both Windows and Mac computers come with their own backup utilities (the Mac being superior by far), but they’re not the greatest. And you need a working Windows or Mac computer to get at them.

So, let’s agree that we’re going to make a backup and get going.

There are so many ways to do a backup that I’m going to keep it as simple as I can.

First, what you need:

You need something OUTSIDE your computer to back up to.

1. An external hard drive

2. Blank DVDs or CDs

This is as close as it gets to permanent. DVDs can’t be erased by magnets like hard drives can.
The disks normally hold 4.7 Gigabytes’ worth of data unless you buy the “dual-layer” kind which will hold up to 8 Gb.
I use these for backing up stuff I couldn’t possibly face losing. That’s personal, financial, legal kinds of documents. Personal doesn’t just mean love letters, it also includes any of my journaling, creative writing, and website work. Maybe some love letters.
I don’t use DVDs for my music, pictures or videos. They just can’t hold enough.

3. a USB Flash Drive, (also known as “ Memory Sticks”, “USB sticks”, “Thumbdrives”

One of these flash drives may be big enough to hold the files in your “Documents” folder or all of your absolutely-must-save files but I wouldn’t bet on saving all your big Picture, Music, and Video collections on one. For that, you should really get the external hard drive.
Another thing to keep in mind is that these things get lost easily. They get used for other things easily. If you are using flash drives for your backup, please remember to keep them in a secure place.

4. A “cloud” account: an “online” server

First, you know that there’s no such thing as The Cloud, right? That’s marketing talk for “someone else’s server”.

I’m not a big fan of “The Cloud”. For some people it is a great solution – especially if they are travelling or working away from home a lot and they need access to their documents. Personally, I don’t like having my files on someone else’s server but you can make up your own mind whether this kind of backup is for you.
I should say that I’ve been known to upload some files on a temporary basis to a “cloud” server, but only if I know I can’t get at them any other way. And I always go back and delete them when I’m through. That is, if you believe you can ever delete something from the Internet.

But I digress. Ahem.

Methods for Backing Up Your Computer:

1. The Built-in Windows Backup Utilities
2. The Built-in Mac Backup Utility
2. Free backup apps
3. Paid backup programs
4. The “Manual” backup
5. The “Cloud” – Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive, Apple iCloud, Google Drive and numerous others.

1. The Built-In Windows Utilities

Windows 7 and, to some degree, Windows 8 have built-in backup utilities. Windows 7’s is called Backup and Restore.

Windows 8’s is called File History.

Naturally, if you’ve got Windows, these aren’t going to cost you anything extra and that is their main appeal.

Finding them and using them is another matter. Let’s take Windows 7 first.
I will do a complete walk-through of the Windows 7 Backup and Restore program because Windows 7 is what most of clients have.

The only other method I’ll do a blow by blow guide on is the Manual Backup. I’ll give good links to tutorials on the others.

Windows 7 Backup and Restore

1. Make sure your external hard drive is plugged in.
2. Click on your Start Button and type in “Backup” (no quotes)
3. Select “Back Up and Restore”

You get this screen:

Click on “Set up backup”.
In the next figure, Windows will search for a suitable drive to store the backup:

Select your backup drive, and click Next.

This is the next thing you’ll see:

You can have Windows choose what to backup or you can choose the files and directories yourself. I like to be able to pick what I want backed up, so I select “Let me choose”.

You can see above that I’ve chosen to back up EVERYTHING in my “Libraries”.
You will also see a check mark beside “Include a system image of drives:…”. This backs up more than just your personal files. This will make a copy of your Windows operating system, all your programs, and user accounts. It is recommended to check this box, especially if you don’t have an original Windows disk or if you have not made “System Recovery DVDs”. If your computer suddenly stops working or if the operating system gets corrupted beyond repair, you can restore everything back to normal with this option.
The only downside to checking this box is that your backup will take a long time. Well over an hour in most cases.

By the way, I don’t consider making a “system image” to be a substitute for having System Recovery Disks. These are usually made when your computer is new and being set up for the first time. Neither Windows or Mac computers come with an original installation CD or DVD anymore, so it’s imperative you make these disks.

If you already have a Windows installation DVD or have made System Recovery disks, you may opt for just backing up your data files.

Click Next and you get to review your choices:

You can also change the schedule for your back up by clicking on “Change Schedule”:

I don’t do automatic backups, myself. I don’t like that my external hard drive always has to be connected. Sometimes, I like to use it for something else and an external hard drive that is connected to your PC can get hit by the same power damage or malware as your internal hard drive. I only connect it when I need to.

Once you’ve done the scheduling (or not), click OK. You’ll go back to the previous screen.
Now, click on “Save settings and exit” and your first backup will start.

Click the View Details button to see exactly what is being backup during the process.

And that’s it. Now you wait.

If you’d like to see a little video of how it all goes, Microsoft has one at:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/back-up-files#1TC=windows-7

NOTES:

This is the simplest way to do a backup on Windows 7.
Once you start the Backup and Restore program, you basically follow the instructions and pick what you want to back up.
There are a couple of things to be aware of, though, and I’ll mention them now.

The first time you do a backup with Backup and Restore, it will do a FULL backup. That means everything you’ve selected. Be prepared for it taking quite a while. It could take well over an hour. Be patient.
The next time you do a backup, the program makes what is called an INCREMENTAL backup. The program checks what’s new or been changed with your documents etc. and only backs up the new or altered stuff.

Sometimes, it’s happened that Backup and Restore will do a FULL backup every time you run the program.
You can tell if this is happening if you get a warning that there is not enough space on the external drive for a back up. Or, if your backup is taking an inordinate amount of time to complete – like, hours.
This seems to be a glitch. It happens rarely but you then have to make a choice whether to try to rectify the problem or go with a different backup solution.
Usually, you would use the “Manage Space” and “View Backups” option to clear out old backups. But there’s no guarantee it won’t keep making full backups. If it does, I recommend switching to one of the free backup programs I mention later.
Once more, this rarely happens but I say it here as a “heads up”.

The Built-In Windows 8 “File History”

Microsoft got rid of its Backup and Restore function with Windows 8. They want you to use their online service called OneDrive.

Instead, they put in something called File History. I can’t really recommend it and I can’t improve on the following tutorial by the “How To Geeks” people.

http://www.howtogeek.com/74623/how-to-use-the-new-file-history-feature-in-windows-8/

If you want to follow Microsoft’s own video on how to use File History, here is the official link:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows-8/how-use-file-history

2. The Built-in Mac Backup Utility – “Time Machine”

This is certainly one time you can believe Apple’s old slogan: It Just Works.

The icon for starting Time Machine is right there on your Dock at the bottom of your Mac screen.

There are people who have spent a lot more time than me making this stuff simple. Here’s a link I recommend:

http://www.cultofmac.com/46726/how-to-backup-and-restore-your-mac-using-time-machine-macrx/

And here is the office Apple way:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427

See, it just works. Saved me some time, that’s for sure.

4. The Manual Backup

Because this is known as “The Hard Way”, I’ve provided a little music link to Chet Baker’s version of the song by the same name.
It helps the medicine go down (no link to that one – sorry).

Windows (all versions)

It doesn’t get mentioned much but this is the good old fashioned method. Basically you copy and paste folders and files from one location to another. It’s not automatic and it does require some basic Windows skills. It has some good things going for it, though. You get an exact duplicate of the folder you want to back up, without needing any other program to open it or check it’s contents.

Pros:
It works with every kind of computer.
No new software to buy or learn.
No compression or funny archived files that you need a special program for.
You get an exact copy that you can easily transfer and open.

Cons:
You need to pay attention.
It takes some explaining to do it the first time.
You need to have basic Windows skills (which are not so basic for some folks).
Copying can take a long time while you want to do something else with your computer.
It can be hard to keep track of newest files, especially if you’ve got more than one computer.
Takes up more storage space than compressed backups.

There are two basic ways to do a Manual Backup:

1. The simple way with Windows Explorer (File Explorer in Windows 8) opened once, and:

2. The “two-pane” Windows Explorer method. I prefer this method myself because I can see more.
I can see the folders on my hard drive and I can see where it’s going on the external drive, and if it got there.

Here is a checklist of important folders to back up:

My Documents or Documents
My Music or Music
My Pictures or Pictures
My Videos or Videos
Desktop Folders (you may wish to re-file these to an appropriate folder, like Documents, just to keep all similar kinds of files in one place.)
Contacts
Links, Bookmarks,
Downloads
Favorites (keep the American spelling)
Saved Games
Searches
Any other folders you’ve created yourself

Backing up your Email will vary depending on what program you use. If you use any of the webmail services, your mail is already stored on the Internet. You can, however, save any attachments and individual messages to your own computer. There are so many variables involved in backing up your email that I’m not going to get too far into it here. One good thing about using a program like Microsoft Outlook, Mac Mail, among others, is that it stores all your email, contacts, calendar items in a folder in My Documents. So just backing up your Documents folder will do the trick. For older versions of Outlook (before 2007) and Outlook Express (for die-hard Win XP users), it’s much trickier. Here are a couple of links that can help you:

Find your Outlook and Windows Mail

Find your Windows Mail and Data

Backing up webmail, like Yahoo Mail, Hotmail (now Outlook.com), Gmail and so on, can be a cumbersome affair. Aside from opening and saving each email message one by one, (every web browser does this differently), you could copy and paste the messages into a Word or text editor program and save them that way. It’s a pain.

It is highly recommended, though, that you save your contacts, important messages and attachments to your hard drive for safe keeping. Or, good heavens(!), write those contacts in a notebook.

1. The Simple “One-Pane” Windows Explorer Method

1. Plug in your USB or external hard drive
2. Open Windows Explorer – press the Windows key and “E”.

3. Select (C:) > Users > [yourusername] and expand it.
(You should now see all your user folders (Contacts, Desktop, Downloads, etc)
4. Starting at the top of the list, right-click on the first folder
5. Mouse-over the Send to: menu item
6. Click on the USB or external hard drive from the list. In the picture below, the drive I want to pick is “Expansion Drive (K:).
That’s the name of my external drive.

7. Windows will now copy the selected folder and it’s contents to your backup drive.

8. Repeat this process for each folder. Be prepared for it to take some time.

Note: The above method will not let you choose a destination folder, only the drive. So, when you “Send” a folder to your backup drive, i.e. your Documents folder, it may send a whole lot more than you’d like (such as Music, Picture, and Video folders). You may want to check the contents of your folder for huge or unwanted files first.

2. The “two-pane” Windows Explorer method

This is the method I use.

1. Open up two copies of Windows Explorer (File Explorer in Windows 8)

In Windows 7:

2. Open Windows Explorer – press the Windows key and “E”.

Do it again.

Now, move the windows beside each other so they look something like this:

You can resize and move these windows around any way you like. I’m showing what’s on my C drive on the left (the “source” drive) and, on the right, is my “destination” drive, in this case an external USB drive that I’ve plugged into my computer.

Now, it’s a matter of copying over your folders from the left side to the right. The two easiest methods are

1. Copy and Paste (not Cut and Paste)

Simply right-click on the icon for the folder you want to copy, and select “Copy”. Who knew?
Now, mouse you mouse pointer over to the place on the right where you want to copy the folder, right-click, and select “Paste”.

2. Drag and drop

Here, you select the folder you want to copy and left-click on it. While holding down the left button, drag it over to the place on the right side window and release the button.

If all that is too much, you can invest in third party applications like xplorer² or teracopy.

3. Free backup apps

Keep in mind you often get what you pay for. These programs will do the job but may come with advertising or without all the options of the full “paid” product.

For Windows, I’ve used:

1. EaseUS Todo Backup Free

EaseUS Todo PCTrans Free logo

2. Cobian Backup

For the Mac, I haven’t been able to find any good free programs. There are paid programs that have 30 day trials but what are you going to do after a month? Either use Time Machine or get a commercial backup program like Carbon Copy Cloner.

4. Paid Backup Programs

For Windows:

1. Acronis TrueImage

I’ve used Acronis for years and is my first choice for a commercial backup product.

Colleagues of mine also recommend

2. NovaBACKUP

There is no shortage of other choices out there. Just make sure you Google around for reviews about their reputation.

For the Mac:

1. Carbon Copy Cloner

I love this program. I used to love it more when it was totally free! Now you can use it for 30 days to see if it’s for you. Personally, I think it’s worth it.

2. Acronis also makes a good backup program for the Mac.

5. The “Cloud”

Does this look like a cloud to you?

It’s actually one of Facebook’s massive server farms. There’s nothing magical or atmospheric about the “Cloud”. What it really is a network of huge rooms full of computer servers.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on Cloud (online) backups. I simply can’t put my trust in any of them. Not one of them will guarantee the safety of your data. Here’s an example from Dropbox:

“You, and not Dropbox, are responsible for maintaining and protecting all of your stuff. Dropbox will not be liable for any loss or corruption of your stuff, or for any costs or expenses associated with backing up or restoring any of your stuff.”

Pros and Cons of Cloud Backups

Pros:
Access from anywhere.
It’s a relatively cheap “offsite” backup (as opposed to a bank vault or the trunk of your car).

Cons:
You have to be on the internet and have a fast connection.
Unless you’ve got a small amount to back up, they cost.
Backing up and accessing files can quickly exceed the limit on your Internet plan. Every backup is data transfer.
System Restores do not work so well from the Cloud.
The “trust” issue. Accounts can be hacked and spied upon.
Cloud companies can go under or be sold, renamed, changed – it’s all out of your control.

Like I said, I’m not going into great detail on how to back up your data to the Cloud in this post.
If you think it might be for you, Google any of the above services and they will be happy to instruct you.

——————————–

The Off-Site Backup

At the risk of overwhelming everyone, I have to talk about the “Offsite Backup”
There is a thing called the Golden Rule of Backing up It goes like this:

1. Backup to three different places.
2. At least two of the backup locations need to be on different media.
3. One of the locations needs to be offsite.

So far, we’ve made a backup to an external hard drive (Rule One) and we’ve saved the really important stuff to DVDs (Rule Two).
The “Offsite Backup” is taking at least one of those backups to a place other than your house or apartment. And that’s Rule Three.
Some inexpensive places could be a friend’s house, the trunk of your car, your workplace. You might opt for the free online version of Microsoft’s OneDrive or Apple’s iCloud. You get a few Gigabytes of storage that way, but with the caveats I’ve mentioned before.
Anyway, I’ve fulfilled my obligation to talk about this extra security measure.

You don’t miss your water till the well runs dry

Someone did a song with those lyrics. And Joni Mitchell sang:

“Don’t it always seem to go
You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone”

That, in essence, is what I’ve been trying to get across in this post. Computers crash, files get deleted, stuff happens.
A backup can put it all right again, without pain. So why don’t you prevent the headache now and, for Pete’s sake, back it up.

Whew!

I think we all deserve some soothing music after all that. Please enjoy:

Wave – Oscar Peterson

Putting It All in One Place (or Saving Your Computer’s Mind)

Posted on May 27, 2014 by davidm

Professor Higgins:

♩♩♩♬♬♬♬♬♬♬♬♬♬♬

Why is thinking something women computers never do?
And why is logic never even tried?
Straightening up their hair hard drives is all they ever do.
Why don’t they straighten up the mess that’s inside?

(a mangled excerpt from) Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man by Lerner and Loewe fr: My Fair Lady

Look at these two things:

Don’t they look so neat and self-contained? So aesthetically pleasing?

Well, they can be an absolute mess inside.

A cute and snazzy package on the outside, a quagmire of bloat and chaos on the inside. I’d like to remedy this.

The Overview

This is the first part of a little series of imperatives for tidying up your computer and making a secure backup of all your data.

It will be about Cleaning, File Management, and the Backup itself.

N.B. Keep in mind that the steps below really do require the use of your computer’s “file manager”. For most, that will be Windows Explorer (or “File Explorer” in Windows 8) or the Finder on a Mac.

For Windows users, right-click on the Start Button on the bottom left of your desktop screen.
You’ll get a little pop-up that let’s you select Windows Explorer.

In Windows 8, it’s a little different, unless you’ve installed Classic Shell or some other program that gives you back your regular Start button. In Win 8, you have to get to your desktop and click on the folder icon on the bottom on your screen (the taskbar).

On the Mac, there is the Finder icon on the Dock, the strip of icons at the bottom of your desktop screen.

If this is all voodoo to you, let me know and I’ll do a separate post about it.

To continue:

As I look back over the BIG problems I’ve been called about last year, it seems that those which were catastrophic were all fixable if my client had made a back up.
There were some clients who lost EVERYTHING. No backup.
Even if your hard drive is toast or your computer is generally kaput, you can regain your sanity if you’ve made a back up. Computers can be replaced, your documents, pictures – anything personal – cannot.

Steps for making a good backup and having some peace of mind.

**The Clean Up – Before you back up.**

It just makes sense to thoroughly clean up your computer’s files before you do a backup. This is especially true if you’re transferring all your files to a new computer.

1. Organize Your Documents

For most Windows and Mac users, the place where everything is saved is called My Documents or Documents, respectively.

This where almost all your written documents, pictures, music, and videos are stored by default.

Recently, Windows has broken out the My Documents folder into “Libraries” with “Documents” to mean Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, pdf files and the like. There is also a dedicated folder for Music, Pictures and Videos.

To view these, open up your Windows Explorer (“File Explorer” in Windows 8).

You can make up your own folders and organize them any way that makes sense to you. Some way that you’ll remember.

Then, move similarly themed files into those folders. Drag them, copy and paste them – whatever you’re most comfortable with.

Now it should be like Ikea came to your house and made everything just so.

2. Pack away all those stray files!

Chances are, you have stray files on your Desktop (that’s the main screen) and they really ought to be tucked away somewhere sensible, such as your My Documents folder.

You may have picture files (jpg files etc) that have been scattered all over the place – a surprising number end up mixed with written documents. Stick those in your Pictures folder. Make a new folder under Pictures if you want to.
Long ago, I got fed up with the way Windows had all these “My” folders and started making my own.

If I look only at “My Documents” I get 13 (!) various “My …” folders:

Ridiculous!

Instead I have something like:

All out in the open where I can get at things. (This is my idea of hanging out at Home Depot, folks).

Now, let’s get rid of the “dust bunnies”. There can be all kinds of files, folders, icons, shortcuts and downloaded programs cluttering up your Desktop. Check if you really need them and delete them if you don’t.
And move files to folders where you can find them again.
In other words, you don’t want a bunch of orphan files that aren’t filed away nicely in an easy to find folder. This will make it so much more easy down the road when we do the big backup. (Yes, it’s a new word now like “parenting”).

In Windows: Use Windows Explorer (now called File Explorer in Windows 8)

On a Mac: use The Finder:

3. Clean up your email (and don’t use your email program as a file manager – bad!)

This is the single greatest sin I see being committed. Whether you use the email program on your computer or a webmail service like Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, Outook.com or iCloud, people have a tendancy to use their email program as if it’s a separate hard drive. Often that’s the only place their contacts are stored. Very risky. If your webmail account gets hacked (and they get hacked all the time) there goes your whole address book. This should be saved to your hard drive.

Consider whether you need those HUGE attachments people have been sending you. If you really want to keep them, don’t they really belong in a real folder such as My Pictures? They do.

4. Find and dump any duplicate files. Enough said.

5. Get rid of temporary Internet files (including cleaning out your web browser’s cookies and history).

Each web browser has its own way to delete temporary files, whether it’s called “Clear Cache” (Mac), “Delete Browsing History” (Internet Explorer), “Clear Browsing Data” (Chrome) or “Clear Recent History” (Firefox).
As a supplement, you could always download and use the highly useful and free program SuperAntiSpyware (I know, I know) to clear out unwanted cookies and possible malware.

6. Take out the Trash . At the end of this long journey- empty out the already deleted stuff in your Recycle Bin, Trash folder, and Deleted Items in your email program

*7. Defragment your hard drive. *This is an optional step
If you’ve really gone to town and deleted Gigabytes worth of files, you may want to “defrag” your hard drive. This sticks all your data up nice and cozy against itself and makes the computer run better, and faster.

For Windows 7 users, go to your Start Button/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Defragmenter. You can then just “Analyze” your hard drive to see if it needs to be defragged, or go straight to “Defragment”. This will take a while.

For Windows 8 users, if your using the “Metro” screen with all the tiles, just type “defrag” and you’ll see a pop-up list which includes “Defragment and optimize your drives”.

Click on that. Proceed as with Windows 7.
If you’re using a “shell” program on Windows 8, like Classic Shell or “Start8”, go to your Start button and type in “disk defrag” in the Search box. You’ll see something like this:

Click on “Defragment and optimize your drives”, and continue as above.

For Mac people, you’re in luck. You don’t need to defrag your hard drive. The Mac OSX operating system takes care of it by itself, like a self-cleaning oven.

As in cooking, if you take time to do a few little chores, computer maintenance will make life easier at the end of the day.
Cleaning as you go , you’ll end up with all your work done and no mess, no stress.
Then you’re going to be able to find your stuff fast and without stress. Believe me, it will take the fear out of a lot of using your computer (laptop, desktop, tablet, smart-phone).

In the next installment, we’ll get into making a good, solid, backup.

Getting and Setting–Typical and Iffy

Posted on August 24, 2012 by davidm

Getting a new computer can be a fun experience, even more so if you’re careful when Setting it up.

Here is a typical scenario for someone getting a new computer.

Millie has wanted to upgrade (or throw out) her old laptop. Doesn’t matter why but she’s getting a new one.

I’ll leave out all the reasons for choice of Mac or PC, laptop or desktop – just assume a new computer is coming into the house.

Typically, she wants all her pictures, documents, email, videos, music, address book, calendar … EVERYTHING! – on her new machine.
And typically, I am going to set up her new computer for her. For me, or someone who does this all the time, it’s not a big deal. You ask for a list of all that “everything” and you back it up to a portable drive. Most of that is simple file copying, with the notable exception of e-mail.

While all that file copying is going on, I’ve got the new computer out of the box, all connected up and started up for the first time. Soon, I am ready to unplug the portable drive from the old computer and plug it in to the new one.

Now it’s a matter of copying all those backup files to the right places on the new one. Or importing e-mail into a new e-mail program.
Typically, it’s “very simple, really”.

But here’s where the “Typical” can get into the “Iffy”: for example:

Zeke buys a laptop from a big retail store, takes it home and starts it up.
There is a whole lot of baffling questions and things to click. But, eventually, he gets to a screen that sort of looks like it ought to.

And, now, here are some of the things he finds:

1. His new laptop has Windows 7 on it. His old computer has Windows XP. It looks different and where is everything?
2. His new computer has different software programs on it. Does he have everything he needs to do what he is used to doing?
3. His printer or scanner (or anything else he might plug in) no longer works.
4. None of his “stuff” – the documents and EVERYTHING! – is on the new computer.

It’s on his old one.

Oh boy.

Let’s just assume he has all the programs he needs and that, hopefully, all his equipment (printer and so on) works.
Let’s concentrate on getting his “data” onto this new laptop.
If he’s done a complete back up of his stuff, he’s in good shape.
If not, and he’s left his old computer set up and running, now is the time to copy files onto an external drive.
He plugs in the drive and copies the files over.
He exports all his e-mail and contacts and calendar items to files that his new computer can read.
Hopefully, again, he has saved any attachments that came into his Inbox with e-mail messages.
When all that’s done, he unplugs the external drive and plugs it into the new laptop.
He copies his documents to the new Documents folder on the laptop. He does the same for his pictures, music.. EVERYTHING!

And that’s if he knows what I know and how to do it.

OFTEN, however, new computer buyers, like Zeke, will opt for letting the big retail store transfer all his stuff for him.

I highly recommend that Zeke ask some questions at this point.

Such as:

1. How are they going to transfer his stuff to his new laptop? Direct computer-to-computer transfer? Use an external drive?
2. Is Zeke ok with permitting strangers to have access to all his files and anything else personal on his hard drive? Like his passwords, possible banking information…?
3. If the store does do a back up to their own external drive, what will they do with that copy, once the transfer is complete?
4. Will Zeke stand there and supervise?

And the cherry on the sundae is: what to do with the old computer’s hard drive?
Deleting files is not enough. It needs a deep-formatting, or to be destroyed.

Getting a new computer should be fun, and Setting it up can be a smooth affair.
So, please take this advice and be informed. Or, hey, you can call me.

Happy clicking.

Webmail Woes

Posted on July 25, 2012 by davidm

If you use Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, or any of the other online email services, you will always run the risk of having your email account compromised or “hacked”.

What this means is that some scoundrel has found a way to steal your password and take over your account.

How do you know if this has happened? Here’s a partial list:

1 Your account is sending out spam.
2.Your password doesn’t work anymore.
3.Someone deleted information from your account.
4.Someone changed your account information
5.You can’t get into your account to reset your password.
6.Friends call you up and say they’ve got a pretty weird e-mail from you,except it doesn’t look like something you’d send.

Some other nasty surprises:

If you cannot get into your account, you may lose you Contacts, Calendar items, and any attachments that have come into your Inbox.
That’s a lot to lose.

What to do?

If you can manage to log into your account and change your password (to something really hard to guess) then you have done the quick fix.

You’re usually not going to be that lucky.

You can try the support and help on the Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail websites. but, basically, if you can’t log in with your password you’re done. Contacting Support or Customer Care on these websites may solve your problem, it may not. People’s experience varies widely.

You may have to forget about that e-mail account and your e-mail address and just create a new account.
This is a pain because now you have to send everybody a new address.
If all your Contact info (e-mail addresses especially) are online – in that Yahoo account you don’t have access to anymore – how are you going to notify everyone? Good luck.

Hopefully, you have all this information written down somewhere or in another program on your computer.

I can’t tell you how many people do not keep a separate list of these things, and how often they’ve been left with absolutely no way to get in touch with anybody by e-mail.
Well, actually I can – because I keep a record of such things.

So, here’s what you need to do to protect yourself from this predicament:

1. Store all your Contacts in a file that is only on your hard drive. Whether it’s a plain text file, a Word document, an Excel spreadsheet, or another email program – it doesn’t matter. Just have those contacts in another file for safe keeping.
– Of course, many people will print out lists of contacts or hand write them into a Daytimer or some other paper directory. I do.

2. Attachments that you want to keep should be saved to your computer and not kept in an email program. This goes for those of you using Outlook or Mac Mail as well as the online webmail services.

Do not use email programs like a file manager. The analogy I use is that of a rural mailbox at the end of a very long driveway. You wouldn’t keep all your mail out there – you’d bring it into the house.

3. Keep a written record of your Calendar Events.
Nothing beats writing important dates and appointments down on paper. It’s the simplest and most reliable way.
But even if you don’t want to do that, keep a record of this info in a program that lives permanently on your hard drive i.e.. Outlook or a Personal Information Manager program.

4. Passwords:
Believe or not, many people keep their passwords and website log-in information (for Facebook or iTunes etc.) in their webmail or in some other online-only program.
This is inviting disaster. Not only could you lose these passwords if you can’t get into your online account but these passwords and user I.D.s are just sitting there waiting for some hacker to collect. Don’t do it.
Instead, write them down and store in a safe place. You can also use some great little programs on your computer such as SplashData that are specifically made to store sensitive information.
Also, do not email passwords to yourself.

5. Email messages
There are some email messages you just want to keep. They could be a poem someone sent you, or important reference material – whatever. These should be saved as individual files and stored in folders on your hard drive. Or printed out if they are that important.
You can even copy and paste email messages into a word processor document and save them that way.

So, in summing up, have a back up of your Contacts and Calendar items, save important attachments and passwords in files on your hard drive.

And then I strongly suggest you back up the whole works to an internal hard drive or at least a USB stick (thumb drive, memory stick).

Personally, I even make a DVD back up of anything I really want to keep. It’s the most indestructible method to keep crucial documents, valuable data, pictures and music. DVDs are not forever, but close enough. Everything else is vulnerable to magnetic and electric fields and potentially unsafe.

Save and Back Up! Do it. Do it today.