Why Backups Are So Important For Everyone
May 7th, 2012It Is Never Too Late To Let Technology Help Change Your Life Or Business
April 17th, 2012
An Amazing & Inspiring Man!
Some of you will know him from the latest Celebrity Apprentice. Others, like me, grew up with The Incredible Hulk.
I had the great honor of meeting and talking to Lou Ferrigno at a technology conference that I attended last week. He was telling us about his life, his childhood and adult life, and all the challenges he faced along with how he overcame them. To listen to him was inspiring to say the least.
When Lou was a baby, he had an ear infection which left him 80% deaf. He could not speak properly because he could not hear. He was bullied by the other children. At around 13 he saw a body building magazine and decided that is what he wanted to do. He entered his first contest and came in the mid 20′s. At that point he said he was never going to be out of the top three again. By the time he was 21 he had won Mr Universe and subsequently won it a second time. It was soon after that he was given the part in The Incredible Hulk tv series.
He tried for some other acting jobs but no one could understand him. So, not to be deterred, he taught himself how to speak properly and have some acting parts. That is an amazing feat in itself! He has also run successful businesses and is a successful entrepreneur in his own right.
But what does this have to do with technology?
Well normally, when Lou came on stage and did his talk with us he also does Questions and Answers. He has someone on the stage with him who repeats the questions to him as he lip reads and normally the lights on him are too bright to see the audience’s lips.
Not this time! There is a new technology to assist hearing. It is a small implant that connects to the ear drum and allows the person to hear properly. Older hearing aids all distort the sound but not this new technology. There are only about 200 people in the world who have had the implant so far.
Last Friday was the first time Lou turned it on. The pioneering doctor was with him at our conference to turn it on and monitor him. For the first time in 60 years (I hope I look as good as him when I am 60!) Lou Ferrigno heard his own voice!
He was walking through the hotel later and stopped and asked “What’s that music?”. He had never heard and so did not know that most hotels pipe music in the lobby areas.
At 60 years old, technology has opened up a whole new world for Lou. And after the brief meeting with him, it could not have happened to a nicer man. If technology can do this for Lou, imagine what some of the technologies can do for you and your business.
Don’t Let A Disaster Destroy Your Business
February 17th, 2012
Fire in Downtown Bryan. (Picture Courtesy of The Eagle)
Last night around 9:30pm a fire was reported in a business in the 200 block on Main Street in Downtown Bryan. (Read more about the fire here). Some nearby businesses also suffered slight damage. Witnesses say the fire spread quickly and sent flames shooting skyward.
Thankfully no one was hurt.
What would have happened if this was your business or next door to your business? What would you do if you came to work this morning to find your office destroyed?
Hopefully you have adequate building and content insurance so you wont be out of pocket for all those items destroyed in the fire, including your computers. The problem is a new building could take years to build and insurance companies won’t pay out overnight to replace your other items and computers.
Now is the time to put your Disaster Recovery Plan into action.
1. Your Office Space
If you can still use your building then it may just need to be cleaned out. This could still take a day or more so you need temporary premises. This could be your home, or a nearby vacant office space that you could rent for the short term.
If your building is destroyed, then you will need short term rental space (or even your home while you search for rental space) while you find a permanent replacement.
Your temporary space needs to be able to connect to the internet and have phones and room for some desks/tables for your staff.
You could also have staff work from home, especially if they are not customer facing.
2. Your Phones
Depending on the system you use, you will need to either transfer or replace your phone system.
You may need to forward calls to your temporary phones or to cell phones.
If you had a hardware PBX, you need to either move it or get a replacement from your supplier ASAP. If you had a software PBX then you need to restore it to a new computer quickly.
3. Your Documents
Can you salvage any of your documents or other items? Did you have a copy of them (either a photocopy or a scan?). Take whatever you can get to your new office space. Those documents are critical to keeping your business running, especially any that are just a few days old as they may not have been entered into your computer systems.
4. Your Computers
In most disasters these are totally destroyed and this is the part that also destroys many businesses. Yes the insurance can replace the computers and you can even go to a local store and buy a few to get you up and running the same day.
But where is your data? Is it on those computers that are now melted in the fire? Or did you back up the data to a tape or drive in the office that was destroyed? And did you test your restores on a regular basis or will you find out today that the backups only appeared to be working but you cannot restore your data.
93% OF ALL BUSINESSES WHO SUFFER A DATA LOSS FOR 9 DAYS OR MORE WILL GO OUT OF BUSINESS WITHIN 6 MONTHS, AND 50% GO OUT OF BUSINESS IMMEDIATELY!
That is a very sad and sobering statistic. And many of those business owners said “it won’t happen to me”, while others thought they were protected with backups only to find they did not work on restore.
Is Your Business Prepared?
If you don’t have a disaster recovery plan, or are not sure if the one you have is sufficient, then you can call us.
We have plans to suit every business and every budget, based on your needs.
We work with local property management companies to secure office space at short notice.
We work with storage companies so you have copy of any paperwork stored safely and also to hold any salvaged items from your old office.
We have phone systems that work from anywhere and have automatic disaster recovery options built in.
We have computers and we have a number of backup and disaster recovery plans for every business. Visit our Business Backup Page, read the free report and then call us. Mention this article when you call and we will give you a free no obligation disaster recovery review if you call in February 2012.
New Android Phones for a Penny!!!!
October 13th, 2011
Motorola Bionic is one of the Penny Phones
Disappointed with the iPhone 4GS? Want an Android phone instead? Well Amazon are selling over 30 phones in their Penny Sale and lots of them are Androids!
But, they must be the cheap old phones that are refurbished or the originals? Wrong! How about a Motorola Bionic? Or HTC Thunderbolt? Yes, they are there, ship within 24 hours normally and all for $0.01!
The catch? The phones are only available for NEW lines of service with Verizon Wireless and not upgrades (but there are ways around that sometimes). But if you were thinking of moving to Verizon or adding an extra line to your family or business plan, now is the time to do it!
The sales ends on October 17th at midnight!
Facebooks New Safety Guide With 5 Tips You Need To Know
August 19th, 2011Everyone is starting to return to school. Here in Bryan-College Station the schools start back on Monday. People will be making new friends and a lot of them will also want to connect on Facebook. With this in mind, the experts at Facebook have produced a new security and safety guide. While the guide is aimed mainly at parents and teachers, it wouldn’t hurt everyone having a quick read of the guide as a refresher.
Facebook Safety Guide
The guide is only a 14 pages and covers 5 main areas:
- Protecting your Facebook account
- Avoiding Scammers
- Advanced security settings
- Recovering from a hacked Facebook account
- Stopping imposters
- Using good passwords
- Logging out of Facebook (this applies to other sensitive websites too)
- How to detect face websites and avoid malicious scripts to steal identities
- Using secure browsing
- Knowing all your “friends”
- Only download trusted apps
- and more
Back to School Series – Part 5 – Education Sites
August 8th, 2010This is our fifth and final installment in the “Back to School” series we look at some useful education sites for students of all grades.
Our #1 recommendation is Discovery Education (www.discoveryeducation.com). This site is full of every educational resource you can think of. For education establishments, look into their UnitedStreaming (ask your school if they have this and do you have access from home).
Our #2 recommendation is our friends at the Smithsonian. They have an outstanding site for students at www.smithsonianeducation.org/students where you can explore things by topic such as Art, Science and Nature, History etc and also have labs. They have a special area for kids called Smithsonian Kids which makes learning fun for the younger student.
There are many different resources on there that are free for home users. Topics covered include Math, Science, English, Social Studies, Technology, Health and Stories & Games, each having many different sections for all age groups and abilities.
Another great site for K-8 grades is www.funbrain.com. This site is packed with fun educational activities in all areas and will keep children occupied while learning for hours. The site is ordered by both categories (e.g. Math, English) and age groups (e.g. Grade 1, 2, 3 etc.). There is also a section on there for teachers.
www.kidsites.com is another website but this time it has a list of approved sites for kids under different categories. It has both educational categories such as Animals, Art, Math etc. and also fun sites such as Activities, coloring, sports etc.
Also ask your teacher if they can recommend some sites for your student to visit.
Back to School Series – Part 4 – Ask Holly – New Computer
August 7th, 2010Dear Holly,
My child is returning to school/starting university soon and needs a new computer for his/her work. What type of computer do you recommend we get them? And what programs should we buy to go with it?
Holly says:
We often get asked to recommend a computer for a new semester, but there are so many options we thought it would be good to give this general “recommedation” in this installment.
Type
The first question we get asked is what type to get. We don’t mean brand, we mean either a desktop computer or a laptop. Lots of people think laptops are the answer as they are mobile but we disagree in most cases. In our experience (even with business users) most “mobile” users are far from it and usually have a laptop on their desk and never move it.
A desktop computer with similar specifications to a laptop is usually a lot cheaper, is less prone to problems (mainly because they can stay a lot cooler than a laptop) and are easier and cheaper to upgrade and remain current.
If you do need a laptop, we would still recommend going for a business class laptop than a “home” user one from the retail stores. This is because the estimated life span of the two are greatly different and so the quality of components are not as good. For example, most laptops look the same black plastic – but the business ones usually have a metal frame inside them to prevent damage when moved. The hard drives and components (and usually the warranty) for a business laptop are designed to last at least 3 years, whereas a home laptop is usually designed to last a year. So although they are more expensive, a business laptop is designed to last a lot longer. A desktop has similar warranties but due to the few times they are moved they tend to last a lot longer (4 – 6 years).
Hardware
The main concerns for the student when it comes to the new computer is speed, storage and screen. Firstly we would like to recommend that you do not buy a computer to play games on. We are great believers for the right tools for the right job. A computer is not for games – XBOX, Playstation etc. are for games and do a great job.
The two main factors affecting speed in a computer is the processor and memory. A dual core processor will be faster than a single core. The more memory the better. Nowadays 2Gb is probably the minimum you would want and 4Gb would be good to last 3 or 4 years. As strange as it may seem 2x 2Gb is faster than 1x 4Gb. This is because they sit on “channel” and so the computer can split the work across two devices at the same time.
When it comes to storage – the more the better. 500Gb, 750Gb disks are relatively inexpensive. You can always add to your storage with more disks, bigger disks or external disks if you want.
System
The biggest question we always get asked is should I get a Mac or a PC? And our normal response for students is sometimes “Neither”. Why? Because there is a little known free system called Ubuntu that often is sufficient for a lot of people. When we ask what the computer will be used for, most say “Email, the internet and school work – documents and presentations”. Ubuntu does all of this built in. It is a Linux based system with Firefox as the web browser and OpenOffice (remember our second installment) for the coursework.
For those who need more than this then it is a choice between a Mac and a Windows PC. They both have pros and cons. Don’t believe all the hype by either side. A Mac will cost you more money for the same thing. A Windows PC will often be harder to use and keep updated (this is the compromise – either let Mac do everything and control everything for you or let it be more open such as Windows, which means you lose control over what people are able to send to you).
A word of warning. A Mac can get a virus. Don’t be fooled by the ads and hype. Although not targeted as much (yet) it can and has had viruses. So please don’t get complacent and think you are safe from all viruses – buy an antivirus for Mac.
The other point to note is you have to have a program specially written for the operating system. So you cannot use normal Microsoft Office on a Mac you have to use the Mac version. This means that not every program has been written to use both systems so it will pay to check if there are any special programs you will need for your coursework before making your choice.
If there are no special programs needed or the programs are available on both systems, and there are no preference from the school or university course then it really is your choice. Go to a store and try both types and see which you prefer. The type and hardware recommendations above apply to both Mac’s and Windows PC’s alike.
Remember, once you have your new computer, you want to keep it updated and working correctly. In which case you may be interested in our HomePak™ or CollegePak™
Back to School Series – Part 3 – Docs/Office Webapps
August 7th, 2010
In this third installment in our “Back to School” series we look at online storage and sharing of Microsoft Office documents. Recently Microsoft have launched two sites where users can create, store and optionally share Microsoft documents for free.
Docs
http://docs.com allows Facebook users to create Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents online without having any of these programs. The advantage to this, other than no need to buy Microsoft Office, is that the documents are also stored online and so are secure. If your computer crashes you can still get to the document. Also as it is online you can get to your document from anywhere you can access a computer and get onto the internet.
Once you create your document you can choose to share it with some or all of your facebook friends or you can choose “Everyone” which is everyone on Docs. You can also choose to allow some or all of your friends to be able to edit the document also.
Docs is still in its early stages and so is still missing some features. There is also a long waiting list to join (it took us about 4 weeks to be accepted) but be patient.
Office Web Apps
http://office.live.com was launched with Microsoft Office 2010. Much like Docs it also allows users to create Office documents (in this case Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote) online without having to purchase the programs. You do not use your Facebook account for Web Apps, instead you use your Windows Live ID (same as you would use for Hotmail, live mail, messenger etc.). If you do not have one then it is free and easy to sign up for a Live ID.
Again, like the Docs site, your documents are stored on the site and not on your computer, allowing you access from any computer and also ensures they are safe if something should happen to your computer. Also, like Docs, you can choose to share certain documents with people, either your Live friends (from Messenger etc.) or by simply typing in an email address. You can even create folders and share the whole folder with people.
In summary we think this is a great step by Microsoft. We like and use both versions so we can share with different people. Both sites have their pros and cons and both are in their infancy, so some patience is needed. But these two coupled with OpenOffice should meet the needs of just about every student.
