Technology

Investing and System Backups the same?

by bigcajunman on April 29, 2013

That is my premise, that if you do back up your computers and such, it is much like investing your money in the market. I know you are thinking maybe I had an odd weekend, and I have gone off my financial nut here? I may have but allow me to elaborate on this a little.

Backups for your system are great ideas and very important to do (as I mentioned last week), however, if you cannot restore the data from these backups it ends up being a futile procedure. Mrs. Michael James had this very issue arise, where she was told all of her data was being backed up, however, when her system failed, the I.T. group sheepishly pointed out that they couldn’t restore her data from the backup tapes that they had. You really do need to test your backups to make sure that you can use the data in the backup data archive.

Now This is a Real Back Up Tape (9 Track Reel)

Investing your money is always interesting, you diligently put your money away in Index Funds, Stocks or maybe you have money in Stock Options and many folks speak of how much money they have by quoting the value of their Stock or Investment Holdings, however, until you have that in Cash (or available to you to buy a Chocolate Bar, say) you really have nothing.

Yes I know, if your money is in an Index Fund, GICs or Bonds the chance that their value will disappear is miniscule, but how about those Stocks? Do you know how many Millionaires (on paper) that I knew at Nortel, that are still working now (and have incredibly large debt loads, or were forced to declare bankruptcy)? Far too many.

If you are quoting your “wealth” by Stock Options from your firm, you are living in a fool’s paradise. Until you cash those options in, you have nothing. Yes, many people have become rich on Stock Options, however, many folks have assumed their wealth without cashing their options, and seen their wealth evaporate like a fart in the wind.

The bottom line for both is simple: ” Backups are only successful when you actually Restore the data from them and similarly Investing is only successful once you get the money out of it (and start living on it)”

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Systems and Failures

by bigcajunman on April 24, 2013

Over the past day or so I have spent a fair amount of time piecing back together my home computer system (at least one of them, I have a veritable cornucopia of systems). This system is very important in that it is the center of my computing universe, in that it holds a great deal of important data, so after resurrecting the system I will dole out a little bit of home spun home computing advice.

This is ENIAC the Computer My Dad Programmed. Backups? On this?

First and foremost, ensure you have backups of your data and your system. This is crucial to any and all of your systems, if you don’t have backups (and hopefully they can restore as well) you will have to rebuild a dead system from scratch (and lose your personal settings).

Back up your system image onto another disk, on your system (preferably external, but not on the same disk as your operating system is on). Make sure your backups are working as well (check your logs).
If you have important data, back this information up or make it safe in some fashion. Copy the data onto another disk, another system, onto a network server or have a home Network Access Storage box (NAS). Make sure your back ups are secure, but again, make sure this back up is running as well.

Create an operating system rescue disk (depending on what OS you are running) or keep the original Operating System disks you used to install the system (or the ones that came when you bought the system). These are essential in repairing your system as well. If you threw these out, you will need to find them or recreate them (or simply buy a new system).

Have all the Serial Numbers for your: Operating System, Anti Virus System, and all Software that you bought. These are essential as well if you have to recover after a partial system failure (yes this happens as well).

Ensure your system is running System Optimization is running to defragment your disks and check for errors as well.

Finally, maybe what you need is a Guy (or Gal) who really loves futzing around with technology that can come over and help you set all of this up. I used to be “the Guy” for a few people in terms of helping them with technology, but I think now I am mostly just “the Guy” for my family’s computers, but that is fine as well.

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BCM Love That Technology

by bigcajunman on February 3, 2013

I sometimes hint at what a geek I am at heart in terms of technology, but maybe you need to understand that I am an all out lover of gadgets and cool new technology.

High speed Internet? Had that long before most of you, I got to be on a trial for Nortel’s proprietary high-speed modem. After living through dial-up, it was amazing (unfortunately it killed the project I was working on at Nortel, oh well). Gotta have high-speed Internet, the faster and the larger the capacity the better. Currently I have a fairly good deal with Rogers, but when that expires, I am pretty sure I will be calling Bell to ask about their Fiber to the Home products (unless Rogers makes me another good offer).

Cell Phone? Got one of those earlier on, when FIDO was first starting out they had a great deal for Nortel employees. Great stuff, although I have taken a while to adopt using a “Smart” Phone, but I have now finally got up to an iPhone 5 (which I use for this website a great deal surprisingly). Many of the pictures you see are from that same phone. As I said in my post about driving a hard bargain, I got a pretty good deal there too.

HD Television? My mother said I was a “TV Head” from the day I was born, and I do watch far too much TV, so getting HD TV seemed a normal thing to have. I am starting to think that I may throw my Rogers Cable out the window (if I lived in the US, I wouldn’t have Cable, I’d have an Antenna and a connection to the web (and maybe a NetFlix account). Cable needs to lower its costs or it is going to price itself out of a lot of households.

Home network? Yeh, no problem there, wireless and wired network, but my house is old enough not to have Cat 5 cable to every room (too bad that might be nice), so I rely on WiFi as my network connection of choice. My home network may need a WiFi repeater in it if my kids ever move back in (I think I have about 8 devices normally on the network and then when my kids visit many, many more).

What astounds me is that 20 years ago, pretty much all of this technology was unheard of, or not in general use. Given Ultra HD TV is going to happen quite soon, I have to wonder how Cable and Internet will deal with that much more data going through it?

I’d dearly love to understand X10 and other home automation type systems so that I could have a “smarter home” but for now I’ll wait until that becomes a little more standard, but it is interesting that a great deal more homes have wireless home surveillance cameras and home security systems (which seem to be the norm these days too). I hope that this will be my 2013 project (i.e. surveillance and home automation), think it could get interesting, but I need to chat with someone who already has done it to learn from them (I think).

Tablet computers? Sure, got those too, very useful for my son, he loves his iPad, in fact his PC actually has a touch screen too. That technology could be an interesting change to see how folks use computers, given this generation is so “mouse centric” maybe it will take a while for folks to feel comfortable with touch screen technologies.

Mrs. C8j tolerates my geekiness, but she enjoys using technology and has become a bit of a geek herself (although I highly doubt she would admit to it).

It’s odd that I still subscribe to a printed newspaper, and I think it is mostly so Mrs. C8j can do the crossword puzzles. Maybe I should just cancel my print subscription and buy her a good book of puzzles.

My in-laws bought us a GPS for Christmas about 4 years ago, and I thought what a silly idea, and now I can’t live without the damn thing. It’s annoying and it has failed us once or twice (driving through New Brunswick it went berserk, but finally found it’s brain once we got to Nova Scotia). Mrs. C8j still keeps printed maps, and I will print out journey logs from Google Maps as back ups, but that idea may stop soon.

You got any technology loves I haven’t touched on? I’d be curious to hear.

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Cell Phone Cameras, not just for Duck Faces

by bigcajunman on August 28, 2012

In the early days of Cell Phones, I ridiculed when I heard that they were including a Camera in Cell phones (who would use that, and what for, I believe was my arguments about the validity of melding these two technologies), however (as usual), I have been proven wrong and these two technologies are now permanently cemented together (much to the chagrin of Kodak and Polaroid, I would wager). The Cell Phone Camera has caused an explosion of media on the web with folks sharing and posting pictures of:

Food: what you are eating, where you are eating it, and who you are eating with, astoundingly interesting. Evidently that is the biggest use for Cell Phone cameras.
Billions of photos of our children taking pictures of themselves in bathroom mirrors, in various states of disrepair (and or dress), smiling in odd ways (or even the infamous duck face). This has forced the porn industry into rethinking itself yet again.
Very jerky videos of odd events as they occur.

A Bad Example, but you get the idea. This is a photo of my wife’s new iPhone!

And this really only scratches the surface of what the Cell Phone Camera has touched in our lives, however, it can actually do a useful thing as well (no, not supply blurry pictures for blogs) it can help us more easily catalog the valuables in our houses.

As I mentioned in Theft and Insurance having a valid home inventory which is up to date, with photos of your valuables is a very good thing to have, and with a Camera Phone you really have no excuse any more.

Some tips that could make this even better:

Create an account on one of the many picture archiving sites (preferably one that allows for PRIVATE Albums of photos), where you can upload your pictures to.
When you are taking your pictures, if your camera has a GPS capability, use it to tag the photo as well. Never hurts when your insurance company gets the photos, to say they were taken at your house.
Make sure you are using your camera in Highest Definition mode and download them in that format as well.
Add a detailed description of what the picture is of, and possibly the value of the object
Make sure the picture is clear as well (you can take many pictures, you only need 1 clear one).

With this, you now have an off site backed up archive of the valuables in your house, in case of a fire, or theft, and it didn’t really cost you too much either (upload your pictures using Wi-Fi as well, saves you high data charges by your cell phone company).

Give the insurance company as much information as you can, and you are more likely to get your claim dealt with in a quick and concise manner.

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Anti-Virus Software: Needed but…

by bigcajunman on June 18, 2012

… the pricing on this stuff is nuttier than a Brazil Nut grove! Yes I have talked about Anti-Virus software being a Scam before, but hey, I get to rant sometimes about the same things (I’m old, respect your elders).

For now I am speaking of the mainstream Anti-virus folks (not the AVG and Malwarebytes who offer free stuff which works fine (heck even Microsoft’s free security essentials is pretty good these days)), no I speak of Norton and McAfee and their insane pricing methodologies which force me to go to a store and buy NEW copies of their software instead of making a renewal as cheap (if not cheaper) than it is to buy something new.

Before you think I am saying you don’t need this software, that is definitely NOT what I am saying, you need this software, so get some, or you are asking for trouble.

OK, just so I don’t have someone claiming I told them not to get anti-virus software (oh and all you Mac snobs, don’t be thinking you are somehow exempt from Viruses, they are already here for you too), but I grow weary of the game that is played for Anti-virus software on the PCs.

Example: you buy a new computer, and it comes with a 30-day trial of either Norton or McAfee (depending on who you buy the system from). OK, that is good, your new PC is protected for the first 30 days you own it, however, pretty much every day your PC now flashes up a “You Should Renew Your Anti-Virus Software” advertisement. You decide that yes it would be a good idea to do that, so you click and see that to “renew” your software will cost $59 (for one machine). This seems a little expensive, so you go to Staples, or better still to the Dell On Line store and you see you can buy a 3-Computer license (so software for 3 of your home computers), for $69 (or less), you scratch your head and wonder why these companies price this way?

Why? My guess is they catch many folks, who simply don’t want to be bothered to look around and check the prices of software, so they simply “renew” their anti-virus that way. This has been going on for more than 10 years, so it must be working, or the Anti-virus biggies would have changed their ways, but no, I saw this again Sunday morning, so nothing much is changing.

Shop around for software prices. I found a McAfee 3 computer license on sale at the Dell Store (on “Boxing Day”) for $12.99, so yes this stuff does get steeply discounted as well. Shop around and don’t get your pocket picked by the big software companies.

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