25th May 2006
A Good Backup Routine
Backing up the information on your computer is as important as putting all of your critical documents in a fire safe box. In case tragedy strikes, you’re covered. Some people like to backup every single item on their computer; others are more selective as to what they back up. For me personally, I like to be a little more selective. All of my music and photos get backed up to another computer in my office. All of my documents get backed up to a location online. The importance of a good backup routine cannot be stressed enough. If you do not think you are prone to a hard drive failure, you are sadly mistaken. Hard drives can give up the ghost at any point in time, most times for no reason and without warning.
I back my files up using two different methods for my backup routine. The first product that I use is called Mozy Backup. Mozy provides free, automatic and secure backups. After you sign up with the service, which is completely free, you are given 2GB of space on their secure server. They have you download a small client that runs on your computer. My favorite way to configure the service is to have backups run when the computer is idle. When I am out of the office or overnight, Mozy is backing up my important documents online. Mozy Backup can be found at http://mozy.com/
Another great product to do backups is called SyncBack. This is another wonderful free product. After downloading the product you can set up profiles that will run on a schedule to back up the files that you choosen to another computer or hard drive. Setting up the backup routine will take only a few minutes, but can save you from disaster. You can download SyncBack at http://www.2brightsparks.com/. Click on downloads to find the free version.
18th May 2006
Avast! 4 Home Edition
Avast! is an anti-virus solution for your home computer. This product is licensed to be used only for home and non-commercial use only. If you want to use it at work, you will need to purchase the Avast! 4 Professional Edition.
Avast’s user interface is sleek and simple. Unlike other virus scanning software Avast! is not overly intrusive nor is it a memory hog. The main interface gives you access to the 7 different modules that protect your computer from viruses. The modules include an Outlook/Exchange Shield, Web Shield, Instant Messenger Shield, Internet Mail Shield, Network Shield, P2P Shield and a Standard Shield. Each shield performs separate tasks to keep all parts or your computer safe. Each module can be turned on or off depending on your situation. If, for example, you never do instant messaging on you computer, click on the instant messenger shield and click terminate. This stops the module from running. To conserve memory and resources it is best to turn off the modules that you will not need. Avast! can be customized to your unique computing environment.
To download Avast! go to www.avast.com
11th May 2006
Crap Cleaner
Just as its name suggests this simple program cleans out the crap. There are 2 main parts to Crap Cleaner. The first part is the cleaner. In the windows cleaner part, crap cleaner will delete everything from internet Explorer temporary Internet files and the recent documents list to emptying the recycling bin and deleting old prefetch data. The second part of the cleaner part is for applications. If you have Mozilla Firefox installed it will delete the internet cache for it and clean logs and temp file for a host of other applications. When Crap Cleaner deletes the files it does so permanently, but there is no need to worry, it deletes only files that it knows are safe to delete.
The second part of Crap Cleaner is the issues part. This part takes care of cleaning out old or invalid registry entries. These entries can clog up the registry and keep your computer from running at it optimal level. Using a registry cleaner needs to be done with a bit of precaution. Removing entries from the registry that are needed can cause serious damage to your computer. Crap Cleaner usually will only delete entries that it knows are safe to delete. Because of this possibility, the program will always ask you to make a backup of the changes that you are going to make to the registry. It is highly recommended to make the backup just to be on the safe side.
I use Crap Cleaner about once a week. This way I get rid of old junk that is on my hard drive and I keep my registry free and clear of invalid entries that can only slow down my computer. Crap Cleaner can be found at http://www.ccleaner.com/
9th May 2006
Defragmenting Your Hard Drive
To keep your computer in top working condition it is important to defragment your hard drive once a month. How does my computer become fragmented? I’m glad you asked. All of the files on your computer are divided into bits and pieces scattered throughout your hard drive. These files become fragmented naturally when you do common tasks such as creating, deleting and modifying files. As these files are used, the operating system sometimes needs to save and store the files in noncontiguous sections. Because the parts of the files are not next to each other the computer will take longer to search different parts of the hard drive to put the file together as a single file. Fragmentation also refers to a condition in which the free space on a disk consists of little pieces of space here and there, rather than a few large free spaces. Defragmenting your hard drive puts all files back together and consolidates the free space on your drive into large sections of free area.
It is important to run Windows disk defragmenter at least once a month. This will help your computer run much faster and will help keep your files from becoming corrupted.
To run disk defragmenter in Windows XP click on the start button and browse to accessories under all programs. In the accessories group you will see system tools and in there is an icon for the disk defragmenter. After starting the disk defragmenter you can highlight your “C” drive and click defragment. The Defragmenting process might take a while to complete if you have not run it in quite a while. While it is running it is safe to continue to use your computer.
4th May 2006
RSS Popper
Many people have heard about RSS – but don’t know what it is. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Web sites use RSS as an alternative way to deliver information from their web site to their readers. For example the web site www.cnn.com has a RSS feed. When the feed is delivered to my computer it gives me snippets of news stories. If I decide I want to read the entire story I can click on a link and be taken to the CNN web site to read the whole story. This is just one example of how RSS is used.
You are now asking yourself – OK, great, that’s all well and good but how do I actually get the RSS feed delivered to my computer. You need an aggregator. The aggregator that I use is called RSS Popper. You can download a copy by following this link http://rsspopper.blogspot.com/2004/10/home.html . RSS Popper integrates with Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Outlook Express. For me, this is perfect. In one program, Microsoft Outlook, I have access to my email, my calendar, my contacts and my RSS feeds. After installing RSS Popper a set of buttons will be placed near your menu bar in Outlook. RSS popper will also create a folder in your mailbox where the content from the RSS will be delivered. If you click on the button labeled RSS popper you can easily add feeds and choose where the feeds will be delivered.
I have numerous feeds that I monitor everyday. They range from CNN and NY Daily News to technology new feeds. I also have feeds from the surge technology blogs. After you have installed RSS Popper you can subscribe to the RSS feed from this blog by clicking on the subscribe button to the right and adding the feed to RSS Popper.