I’ve been having some odd issues with the site. Some of my more recent posts seem to have gone *poof*. 
We’ll call this a test post to see if it is now resolved before I rebuild those.
Well, I’d been planning a note about backups but waking up to a screen on my laptop saying “Warning! A hard drive error has occurred, please back up your data and run diagnostics.” I figured now was as good a time as any. This is just a quick blurb since, as you may imagine, I’m kind of busy dealing with the issue.
Anyhow, I’m a fan of Dropbox. Dropbox offers cloud backup and syncs data across multiple computers or devices. It’s fast and pretty much real-time backup of your data, once you configure your Documents to go there or vice versa. I’ve used it for quite a while so all my important data is backed up. Still, hopefully I won’t have to reinstall my OS … time will tell if I can image to a new hard drive or not.
Go check out Dropbox now!
Oh, and the hard drive’s only a year and a half old! Go figure, eh?
I’ve been working with a client on migrating away from a webhost with poor support (more on that in another post soon). Looking for domain registration deals for the client, I found GoDaddy’s got a sale on, so I linked it here:
Now I won’t have to hunt it down later. 
As most folks these days are aware, proper antivirus protection is pretty important. While it’s true you can get free protection, you usually get what you pay for (AVG, I am looking at you). My AV program of choice is ESET NOD32 Antivirus. (NOD stands for No Open Doors; I wondered for a while myself).
NOD32 is a fantastic program that even the most finicky computer user can love. It pretty much stays out of your way, only really alerting you when there’s a real problem. It supports quite a bit of customization in its behavior, which is rather nice for a lot of geeks and power users.
The trouble most folks I talk to have with antivirus programs is they just get in the way of your computer use (aka being annoying). This is a real problem as it makes many people hesitant to even have something installed. The annoyance factor of most antivirus trains us (yes, we geeks as well) to just click whatever we need to in order to do what we wanted to do, whether it was safe or not. This is often a real issue! While the tone of that article is somewhat harsh (I’m working on a post berating geeks for treating “normal folks” like scum; wait for it!), the point he makes about clicking Yes to the bad stuff being the beginning of the end is very real.
Not only does NOD32 offer stellar protection but their pricing is great! As of the time of this writing, the normal price is $39.99 for one computer, $55.99 for two, $71.99 for three and $95.99 for four computers. That’s world-class antivirus protection for less than $24 a year if you have 3 or more computers! Don’t just take my word for it, though. Try NOD32 free for 30 days.
Eset also offers coverage for Macs, something which is increasingly important. Despite the common misconception that Apple productsa re immune to threats, they are not. I regularly clean viruses or malware form Macs and there’s no excuse for not having protection, in my opinion. I urge everyone to install antivirus protection. Eset’s NOD32 is, in my opinion, the best choice.
Most folks are aware there are places on the web that are a bit, um, seedy. While I would never suggest we not allow adults to do as they wish (assuming it harms no one else), I also don’t want my children to experience certain things while they’re children. At the same time, I encourage my kids to explore their world and learn all they can. So how do I protect them without unduly limiting their ablity to explore?
The solution is to use web filtering software. This is a program which stops them from going to sites or categories of sites which I don’t feel they’re ready for yet. As an IT consultant, I’ve evaluated dozens of different security software solutions, both of this sort and anti-virus software as well. There are several different types of filtering, some more intended for corporate use, some for institutions such as schools and others for parents. I’ll discuss the last sort here.
It’s important to keep two things in mind: that no security software is perfect and you’ll always trade some convenience for security. The thing you want is ease of use while remaining reasonably effective. With that in mind, I like a couple of different products for security. The first is an antivirus product which I’ll write up a review for in a couple of days. The other is K9 Web Protection.
K9 is quite easy to install, there’s very little configuration required and best of all it’s free while being effective! I have it installed on each of my kids’ laptops. K9 will, by default, simply block access to sites which feature certain types of content ranging from, of course, pornography to dating sites or sites discussing drug use. There are quite a few categories you can block in addition to these standard ones most folks want to filter. Other categories include shopping, weapons and even e-mail.
You can white list specific sites for a short while or permanently if you wish. This allows the option, for example, to block all shopping except Amazon.com or block everything and allow only specific websites on a case-by-case basis if you prefer. You can configure an audible alert when a blocked site is accessed. One particularly important feature (in my opinion) is the option to force Safe Search on sites such as Google or Yahoo, this prevents one of the more easily used circumvention of many web filters without blocking search entirely. You can look at logs activity on the computer to get an idea of what’s been going on.
These are just a few of the things you can do with K9. I recommend every parent use this software on their children’s computers. It’s a fantastic way to let your kids explore the modern worls in a safe manner while being assured that they’re not going to stumble on something inappropriate. Keep in mind this is free software; it’s not as though I get a commission or anything from people downloading and using it. You can click the image above to go to K9′s website.
I’ve been catching up on Weeds
Breast cancer is a topic that many are “supportive” of without actually really being aware of the issues it entails for those who suffer from it. Kudos to Weeds’ producers for properly dealing with this issue. Buy their stuff!
There’s an unhealthy expectation in our society that we’re accessible any time anywhere just because we can be. Too often in modern life, folks are too “plugged in”. Even young children seem to feel a compulsion to answer the phone regardless of what’s going on around them. Many now check their e-mail every time the smartphone in their pocket beeps instead of whenever they have a spare couple of minutes.
This culture of connectedness is not good for us, in my personal opinion. We need to unplug now and again. We need downtime. There’s nothing wrong with reading a book on (GASP!) paper and certainly nothing wrong with a simple solution to a problem so long as it works. A common analogy I like to use is technology is a toolbox. We need to train ourselves to take out only those tools to fill the needs of the moment. Just because you might have 12,000 different types of screwdrivers and wrenches doesn’t mean you need each one every day, although some do.
I’m not talking about simple work-life balance here, although an Amazon search for the term
The simple truth is that we don’t allow folks to just enter our homes whenever they wish. I would no more want some relative stranger popping in on me in my home than I want to interrupt my time with my child to speak to them. This isn’t during normal business hours, of course. I expect and desire customer contact during those times, within reason. In the past, I’ve had co-workers that would leave voice mail after voice mail less than 2 minutes apart, calling over and over. Others would send e-mail then, after 5 minutes, phone in a panic because I have yet to respond. I understand that I’m an odd geek but that’s just downright excessive.
I don’t have internet on my phone, despite owning a smartphone. I don’t check my e-mail every 12 seconds. If my phone rings and I’m in the middle of something the call will certainly end up going to voicemail. This is especially true if I’m with a client; when I’m on a client’s dime, I’m not going to pick up. That time belongs only to the client for whom I am working. I don’t block mobile Internet just to save money. There are a few times a month when I sort of wish I had Google in my pocket, I just find it to be a little bit too invasive, overall.
I’m a geek, with all the toys that entails. An inventory of them would bore most people but suffice it to say I have plenty of gadgets. That fact notwithstanding, sometimes we need to just unplug and get back to the basics of life!
Image: DoctorHa.net / Used with permission, all rights reserved
“Well, we talked about a backup and I bought a new external drive
This is nearly invariably from a new or prospective client. Regardless of what backup program is used, it’s my considered opinion that 99% of a backup strategy must be how well you can recover from a catastrophe. These can be simple, such as a hard drive failing after a week of solid work, or they can be more complex such as a virus infection that spreads among multiple systems. Heck, they can even be actual loss from theft or fire. Regardless, if you don’t know how to check your backups and restore your data then you don’t really have a backup.
My backup program of choice is Dropbox but it’s not for everyone. There’s a little bit of configuration and geekery required in order to get it configured as most find it truly transparent. Despite this, I feel Dropbox is second to none. It offers virtually real-time backup of the data it’s configured to handle. As soon as a file changes, Dropbox syncs the changed bits. It also keeps the files synchronized between multiple computers for no extra charge. Nothing is as fast at recovery as moving to another working computer with the most up to data data on it.
A common concern is how safe from prying eyes the online backups are. These are somewhat valid concerns so one must, as with any personal information, protect it with a strong password.
True Image
Whatever backup you choose, whether one of these or a different one, you should thoroughly test and document the restoration process. If you don’t, you might as well not have a backup at all. With any luck, you will never need the process but if you do, you’ll be glad that you took the precaution.
My on-site professional services are, of course, available to those in the Puget Sound area to assist with these and any other technology needs you may have. Phone support for those outside my local area can also be arranged.
I needed to reset a phone for a client recently and had kind of a hard time doing it. Here’s the long version:
A client recently picked up a Droid 2
Verizon likes to use their own Backup Assistant which, in all fairness, does do a pretty good job. The problem is it only handles the phone. If one wants to edit or view their contacts on a computer you need a better solution. That’s where using the Gmail Contacts really shines.
The Verizon staff got my client set up with a new Gmail account and restored her Contacts with Backup Assistant but the new Gmail address was difficult to spell, let alone give to anyone else. This is not what the client wanted long term. So I needed to plan on wiping the phone since Google saw fit to not allow any other way to change the primary Gmail account associated with a device. You can add other accounts but that crappy one would have been stuck there forever. This was unacceptable.
Anyhow, most of the Google results for wiping the phone entailed powering the device up while holding X then using the Volume Up and Camera button. This had no effect on the new phone, perhaps because it was a global version. There’s a lot of inaccurate information out there, partially due to the lack of model NUMBERS for phones and instead relying on “Droid”, “Droid X”, “Droid 2″, “Droid 2 Global”, etc. Oh, I know there are indeed model numbers somewhere in there but hoping folks referenced in their posts is often an exercise on futility. The average gadget owner won’t know that this difference exists and certainly wouldn’t know where to find it. It took some search-fu to really turn up the correct steps for what I needed so I thought I’d share them here in the hope they’ll help someone in the future.
Anyhow, enough of me ranting slightly. On to the ACTUAL reset steps for a Motorola Droid 2 Global:
Your phone will reboot and you’ll need to set things up again. It’s a pretty straightforward process if you’re technically inclined. One of the truly handy things (on my client’s phone, anyhow, YMMV) is the SD card kept all her pictures, etc, and most everything else was “in the cloud” so getting back to where she was before the wipe was quite painless.
It is quite important to know your data is backed up and, probably more important, know how to restore your it with ANY device you’re about to wipe out. This is the case whether it’s a phone or a computer. Please exercise caution and don’t lose your data. Without it your techno-bauble is just a fancy paperweight.
That’s it for me at the moment. I’ll surely have more to say later … I always do!
* I hate these terms. They’re nothing more than buzzwords to make old things seem new and cool rather than old and still useful. For example: “cloud” is really “network storage” wrapped up in Newspeak. Likewise, it’s my opinon that “smartphone” is just a silly term for a PDA that makes phone calls. Hell, nearly any phone is “smart” these days compared to the old bricks we used to be happy to show off.
I’m absolutely fascinated by archaeology and anthropology. I nearly went into these fields professionally years ago. When I first heard of the Antikythera Mechanism, I was frankly not terribly surprised at the complexity of it. It’s long been a pet peeve of mine that the ancients are so looked down upon as uneducated or savage. There is no reason to believe this aside from sheer arrogance at the “modern” man as the pinnacle of human development. Anyhow, I’m getting sidetracked so …
For those who don’t know, the Antikythera Mechanism is a mechanical computer which appears to have been used for calculating, predicting or modelling the movements of astronomical events. It’s long been a favorite item to read about. I won’t go in depth on all it can do here; follow my links below for articles which can tell you more (I certainly got sidetracked browsing about it again while writing this post).
Someone has made a functional equivalent of the Antikythera Mechanism out of Lego. This is so geeky-cool I can hardly describe it! Check out the video:
Here are a few links about the Antikythera Mechanism:
Official research group’s website
An article published in Nature
Wikipedia article about the device
