Backup

Often enough we have customers come into the store that have a failing hard drive. Loosing your data can be very detrimental for a business and very heartbreaking for someone at home.

Most recently we had a customer bring in a hard drive that was failing. The hard drive contained all their family photos and all the baby photos of their children. Since the drive was internally damaged, we had to ship the drive to a facility that could disassemble the drive and pull the data off. This process cost our client $2500. A price that they were more than willing to pay to retrieve their priceless photos.

An easy way to protect your photos is to burn a CD every time you come back from a vacation or an activity. A CD should hold anywhere from 250 to 500 pictures. Label the CD with the name of the vacation and put it in a fire proof safe. Another upside is that some DVD players will play your new picture CD. I would still recommend keeping them on your PC for easy access, but now you have a backup of your pictures and blank CDs are relatively inexpensive.

Feel free to contact us for more great and simple backup ideas.

Educate

Anti-virus products can be the most effective way to protect YOU and your computer from intruders and from costly repairs and service calls. Not all anti-virus products are created equal. Companies like McAfee, Symantec, and Trend Micro spend countless dollars on developing virus definitions to protect their users from the dangers of the internet. More and more commonly hackers are developing web sites that are designed for stealing your personal information, known as "phishing".

The key to making sure that you stay well protected is through knowledge. As technology and the web change everyday, it becomes more and more difficult to stay on top of the game. However, we're here to help. Through this blog we hope to educate not only our clients, but the general public on how to protect their most valuable information and use the web for what it was designed to do.

Maintenance

Remember, just like our cars need regularly scheduled maintenance, so does our computers. There are many things that you can do to make sure that your PC stays a well oiled machine and to ensure its longevity.

For starters, always be sure that the critical Windows updates are ALWAYS installed. Yes, it is true that from time to time there can be issues with a Windows update, but it's just like getting a vaccination. The pros more than out weigh the cons. Microsoft comes out with these updates to fix security holes and other Windows vulnerabilities that could possibly be susceptible to hackers.

Check back often for more PC tips.

Coming Soon...

Please check back soon for daily tips on how to maintain your PC and keep it running like new. We will also be posting any critical information such as virus alerts and critical Windows updates. In the meantime, download our toolbar to stay connected with us. With our toolbar we're just a click away from solving your computer needs.