It’s not a question of “if” your hard drive will fail, it’s really a question of “when.” Hard drives are the most sensitive pieces of equipment on a computer. They are essentially floating platters that spin at high speeds with a head that moves back and forth over the platters. (UPDATE: This was written when spinning hard drives were all we had. Now we have solid state drives which are not spinning platters but when they fail, data is usually not recoverable except by an expensive data recovery company. All the more reason to have a reliable backup.)

BACKUP BASICS

• Have 2-3 copies of all your important data. One copy on your computer, one on an external drive, and one in the cloud.
• Ideally, one of your backups is not local. It is stored in another location in case of a problem in your home/office. Cloud backup services such as Carbonite are a perfect solution for off-site backup.
• Do not use CD/DVD’s as backup. They are not reliable in the long run and technology is moving away from these discs.
• Set up a backup plan that you will use! This doesn’t have to be hard.
• Not everything has to be backed up. Your 100 GB music collection can most likely be recreated if need be.
• Backup all your electronic devices – mobile devices as well as desktops/laptops.
• Backup regularly.
• Test restoring data to make sure backup is working.

TYPES OF BACKUP

• Local – This means using an external hard drive plugged into your computer or a NAS (Network Attached Storage) that plugs into your router and allow all computers on your network to use the drive for either backup or storage.
• Off-site – Your home or business could suffer some kind of damage that would render your computer and your external hard drive useless (think flood or fire.) Nowadays, off-site storage is the “cloud.” This is a great alternative for laptops since you don’t have to plug an external drive.

CLOUD STORAGE VS. CLOUD BACKUP

What I often hear is people saying “Oh, I use the iCloud/Dropbox/Google Drive, my data is backed up already.” There are significant differences between cloud storage and cloud backup. Free cloud storage applications are great for several things—organizing pictures by vacation, baby, or DIY project; sharing these memories with family and friends; allowing for easy access to these files across multiple devices. Read more about backup here.

What cloud storage applications should not be confused with is secure backup. Cloud storage applications do not provide comprehensive, automatic backup of all files on your computer. As such, the user is unable to set policies for data retention, including what’s backed up and how frequently. They’re also poor protection against one of the most common forms of data loss—user error and accidental deletion. If you delete something stored only on the cloud, it’s usually gone.

Examples of Cloud Storage: 

• iCloud
• Google Drive
• Dropbox, Box, etc.
• One Drive

Examples of Cloud Backup: 

• Carbonite
• Backblaze
• Crashplan

Some backup suggestions: 

• Carbonite – For $60/year, get unlimited storage space in the cloud. Carbonite installs a program on your laptop or desktop that quietly runs in the background and keeps your computer backed up. Incredibly easy to set up and use. The first backup takes a long time but after that only changed data is backed up. Works with Windows or Macs.
• File History – Windows 10 has a built-in backup and restore program that works with your external hard drive.
• Time Machine – Mac OS X comes with a program that will automatically back up your data when you plug in an external hard drive. Time Machine saves multiple copies of your files so you can go back through versions to find a file you accidentally deleted.

UPDATE: This page was updated on August 4, 2020.

I find a lot of people are confused with what iCloud is and what it does.

What is it? 
iCloud is a cloud-based service by Apple. It works by syncing your data from your iPhone/iPad/Mac/Windows PC to your other devices signed in to the same Apple ID. Syncing means if you delete a photo on one device, it is deleted on all your devices. Apple gives you 5GB of storage free to sync your devices. If you run out of space, you can either delete some data or you can buy more storage from Apple. Prices are here. If you share an Apple ID with several members of your family, you are all sharing only 5GB of free storage. If everyone has their own Apple ID, they each get their own 5GB free.

iCloud is also a full backup of your iPhone/iPad. You can only restore this data by restoring the full backup over your iPhone/iPad.

What gets synced to iCloud and all your devices:

• Photos
• Desktop/Document folders
• Safari Bookmarks
• Calendars
• Notes
• Reminders
• Keychain passwords

What doesn’t get backed up from your Mac

• Downloads folder
• Video folder

When do iCloud backups happen from your iPhone/iPad? 

• iCloud will backup your whole device over Wi-Fi every day if these conditions are met – a device is turned on, locked, and connected to a power source.

If you want to be extra safe (like me),  turn on iCloud backup for your iPhone/iPad AND back up your computers by using Time Machine on a Mac and File History on a Windows computer. Do not rely on iCloud as your only “backup.”

AOL is now charging for using their desktop software. You can access your email at mail.aol.com for free but using the software is going to cost you. Now is a good time to switch off of AOL. Follow the steps below to switch to a free Gmail account.

Go to Gmail.com, click on Create An Account. Create your new Gmail account. Have Gmail fetch your AOL email. You set this up in Gmail Settings. Add a signature to your Gmail account saying your address has changed. Reply to all email from the Gmail account. Eventually, you’ll be able to stop the AOL forwarding as all that will be left will be junk email. Mark all junk as Spam. Gmail has an amazing spam filter.

Voila! No one will call you Grandma/Grandpa because of your AOL email!

Microsoft really wants you to upgrade to Windows 10. As a matter of fact, it is a free upgrade for Windows 7 and 8.1 users until July 29, 2016. Microsoft has never offered free upgrades before. In the past, you had to buy a new computer or buy a license for the new operating system costing around $120.
There is a lot to like about Windows 10. It works with computers and tablets. It’s interface feels more modern than previous versions of Windows. Your older computer will run faster with Windows 10. I am now recommending most users upgrade. Contact me for help deciding or going forward with the upgrade.

However, users should have control over whether to upgrade or not.

Microsoft recently changed the pop-up that wants to upgrade to Windows 10 ever so slightly so that now when you click on the red “X” to dismiss it, you have given tacit approval for Windows 10 to install.

Let me explain. For months, the pop-up users of Windows 7 and 8.1 have been receiving looked like this: ​
​

It looks like you have no choice here – Upgrade now or Upgrade tonight. But if you clicked on the red “X” at the top right of the windows, your computer did not upgrade.

That doesn’t work anymore.

Now, the pop-up has changed so that if you click on the red “X”, it sends the message to Microsoft that you want to upgrade!

The new window looks like this:

To stop the upgrade, you now have to notice the sentence “Click here to change upgrade schedule or cancel scheduled upgrade.” Clicking the red “X” schedules the upgrade.

There are other ways to block the upgrade such as third party programs that will stop Windows from upgrading. Contact us for details.

Call us for guidance on the Windows 10 upgrade:

– My computer upgraded, things look different. HELP!
– How to make sure your computer upgrades correctly
– Preventing the upgrade.  

610-733-6842