WANTED: Spare-time, moonlighting Systems Administrator with a Remote Access capability, to operate a Win XP mail server on a commission bases.Really, using Windows XP as a mail server? Smells like SPAM...or worse.
I’ve tried AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition, avast! Home Edition, and now Microsoft Security Essentials in order to avoid paying high prices to McAfee and Norton for products that have caused more problems than they solved for myself, my friends, and family.
I’ve only been running Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) for a few days now, but just reading the fine print I can see a clear advantage for this product: MSE’s license agreement allows for use in your home-based small business, while AVG and avast! have strict non-commercial and personal use only clauses. (See Website Copy and End User License Agreement sections below.) I can think of a handful of friends and family members who would be able to use MSE but not the other guys due to the personal use/non-commercial clauses.
Additionally, MSE doesn’t require you to fill out a form to register the product, it only performs a Windows Genuine Advantage check. Not having to deal with red-tape is always nice.
Lastly, there is no up-sell from MSE. My Grandmother became rather frustrated when AVG kept displaying ads trying to sell her the latest version of the AVG paid edition when AVG 7.5 was retired earlier this year. If I had the choice then, I would have switched her from AVG to MSE.
Website Copy
avast! Home Edition:
avast! Home Edition is free of charge for non-commercial and home use only. Both of these conditions should be met!
AVG:
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition may only be used on one computer for personal use.
Microsoft Security Essentials:
Your PC must run genuine Windows to install Microsoft Security Essentials.
End User License Agreements
avast! Home Edition:
avast! Home Edition: You may install the Software in a single location on a hard disk or other storage device of all computers located in your HOME, which are used for NONCOMMERCIAL usage only.
AVG:
AVG Technologies, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, hereby grants to you a non-exclusive and non-transferable license during the Term to use the Software
(i) solely in executable or object code form, on a single computer, and
(ii) solely for your personal use and not for purchase, sale or delivery of any product or service to a third party or other commercial or business purpose, if not explicitly stated in the terms of using the Software otherwise.
Microsoft security Essentials:
Microsoft Security Essentials: You may install and use any number of copies of the software on your devices in your household for use by people who reside there or for use in your home-based small business.
1. Home Use. If you are a home user, then you may install and use any number of copies of the software on your personal devices for use by people who reside in your household. As a home user, you may not use the software in any commercial, non-profit, or revenue generating business activities.
2. Small Business. If you operate a small business, then you may install and use the software on up to ten (10) devices in your business.
I have a Windows Mobile Phone. I’m not exactly a fan. I really tried to find useful things to do with this device beyond the obvious check email, SMS, etc., but I can only use my device so long before I’m overcome with an urge to throw it across the room or drop it in the toilet and flush. I put the positive stuff I’ve run across in bold text, as for the rest, Windows Mobile fans can write it off as filler or the ramblings of an idiot. Everyone else can get a feel of what the Windows Mobile experience is like without having to experience it for yourself.
This is for my friends and family in hopes that you read it and take action before you have the “Oh crap my computer won’t boot now what?” scenario. I’ve worked in Information Technology for 10 years now. Trust me, if you use a computer, some day you will find yourself in this scenario.
Your data is valuable
What is on your computer’s hard drive?
You may be able to recreate those documents, but some of that data cannot be replaced if it’s lost. If you want to download the music from the iTunes Store again, you’ll have to pay full price for each song/album. The same is true for Amazon’s MP3 store. (iTunes: Why do I need to back up my music library?, Amazon MP3: Can I download another copy of my MP3 files after the initial purchase?) Your pictures are a snapshot in time. We don’t have time machines that will allow you to go back in time and take another picture to replace the ones you lost.
Do you consider your time to be valuable? If you can honestly answer no, please write out a full argument justifying your position. I’m sure that it would be worthwhile reading. For the rest of us who will answer “yes, my time is valuable” consider that creating those files stored on your computer took time. We haven’t attached a dollar value to it, but already that data has some value.
In the case of digital data that you have purchased, assigning a value is obvious enough. A song purchased from the iTunes store costs $0.69, $0.99, or $1.29. The latest version of Turbo Tax costs around $60 to buy and download. The school work for your college degree could be valued in the time it took to create the documents as well as the money that you are paying for for education. Even if you’re a K-12 student your education isn’t free. Taxpayers are funding the public schools, and some day you’ll be a taxpayer too.
So how much is that data worth?
It seems like a hard question to answer, and would involve multiple spreadsheets, extensive time tracking, job costing, and any multitude of processes that could be applied to determine the value of your data. At first glance, it seems like a task that could take hours, days, or even longer to answer.
Let me make it much simpler. The minimum worth of the data stored on a single hard drive is $600-$2,500. That is what I was quoted when I looked into a well known service to recover data off of a failed hard drive. Fortunately for me, the failed hard drive had nothing that couldn’t be replaced, and most of it was backed up. Keep in mind, this pricing was from 2007. At work, we’ve paid the same well known service $1,500 to recover a single file that was accidently deleted.
Back it up!
Instead of depending on a service who may or may not be able to recover data that was accidently deleted or was stored on a damaged drive, back your data up! If you have only a single copy of your data your data is at risk, but proper data backup goes beyond having a second copy of your data.
For starters, get yourself an external hard drive to connect to your computer(s) that is exclusively dedicated to backups. My current favorite drive is the LaCie Rugged Hard Drive ($96.96 – $128.99 on Amazon.com). The drive is bus powered so you simply connect it to your computer’s USB or FireWire port. No power supply required. The drive works great with both Windows and Mac OS.
Backing up to an external hard drive is a good first step. To really protect yourself, you need to have an off site backup as well. If your house was broken into the thief would take your computer and your external hard drive. Keeping your backup hard drive in your safe may solve the problem of the thief (you do have your safe bolted to the floor so the thief can’t steal your safe right?) but what about fire?
Paper documents stored in a fire safe are more resilient to heat than our digital media. Your safe may only have a half-hour to two hour rating for fire protection, and even if the fire is extinguished before you meet your safe’s UL rating your data is still at risk.
You need an offsite backup.
One option would be to have two external hard drives. One that you have at home and another that you store offsite. The LaCie drive I linked to above is small enough that you could easily fit it into a smaller safe deposit box at your bank. It fits perfectly in my $40 per year box. Having two external drives requires some diligence on your part as you have to remember to change your drives on a rotation.
In any backup strategy, the human element is the most common failure. An alternative to this type of offsite/onsite rotation that requires human intervention is to use a service that will backup your data to a company’s servers on the internet. This option shouldn’t be used by anyone on dial-up or who is using a Version, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc. cell phone or data card as their primary internet connection. Dial-Up is too slow, and the cell phone companies usually have a 5 GB limit on data transfer.
If you have DSL or cable internet service, services such as Carbonite, JungleDisk, and BackJack provide excellent offsite backups. To be on the safe side, store a hard (paper) copy of your offsite backup’s authentication information (username, password, encryption keys, etc.) in that $40 a year safe deposit box at your bank.
I’m using JungleDisk myself and it’s working well for me. I’ve heard good things about the other services but I haven’t used them myself. JungleDisk uses Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) or Rackspace Cloud Files to store data. Carbonite and BackJack provide their own storage service.
OK I’m convinced, now what?
Now it’s time to get your backups working. I would never finish this post if I wrote out instructions. Here are a few resources to get you started:
Leaving you with a song…
I don't remember where I found this little adaptation of "If You're Happy and You Know It," but I never forgot it after reading or hearing it for the first time.
Sung to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It:"
If you can't afford to loose it back it up!
*clap*clap*clap*
If you can't afford to loose it back it up!
*clap*clap*clap*
If you can't afford to loose it
then there's no way to excuse it.
If you can't afford to loose it back it up!
*clap*clap*clap*
Silly maybe, but also true.
Work provides me with a Windows Mobile phone. For the most part, I don’t find it overly useful. It syncs my Exchange Email, Contacts, Calendars, and Tasks except when ActiveSync decides to stop syncing for inexplicable reasons. It has the worst calculator I’ve ever seen on a phone. Website browsing is a horrendous experience. Adding useful applications is a costly exercise in futility. In alerts me endless to calendar reminders I’ve already dismissed in Outlook. The only useful things I’ve found for it our the Live Search application and SMS messaging, and SMS messaging is only useful because it has a full thumb keyboard and the cost for the data plan isn’t coming out of my pocket.
While listening to Windows Weekly Episode 100 Paul Thurrott (of SuperSite for Windows) fame mentioned a Windows Mobile application named WMWifiRouter that will turn your Windows Mobile device into a Wi-Fi router that uses your cellular data plan on your laptop or other Wi-Fi device without the need to pay extra to your provider to add the tethering option to your phone and data plan.Sounds good. I’ve used PdaNet to do this in the past, but PdaNet requires software to be installed on the client side, and PdaNet requires a physical USB connection. No Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connectivity between your computer and phone, and since it requires software on the client, PdaNet is Windows only.
WMWifiRouter allows connectivity via Wi-Fi, USB, and Bluetooth. In Wi-Fi mode, WMWifiRouter sets up an Ad-Hoc network.A slight downside for me as corporate Group Policy has Ad-Hoc mode disabled on wireless network connections. I tried with my iPod Touch and it worked no problem. That alone opens a whole new world of possibilities with the iPod Touch. I also tested it on a Mac Mini (stil in Wi-Fi Ad-Hoc mode) and it worked great.
Still trying to figure out if I can overwrite the lockout on Ad-Hoc networking on my Windows computer to test that...
