Thursday, May 17, 2007

Are you living right? Here are 12 ways to stay well.

Okay so I know I already live in one of the greatest places in the world, some have called it "God's Country", but that doesn't mean there is no stress. Finally, an easy to use chart to better living!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

We all like a good joke, but sometimes it might not be worth it!

On average, how many of your email messages are junk/spam/spyware... the things you will just delete without opening? Then I ask you how many are jokes from friends and family members? Finally, out of all those jokes you receive, how many of them do you forward on to your 'mailing list' of people?

It is quite safe for me to say that over 80 percent of the problems I see are still related to email issues, or at least that is where the problems would have started.

As much as I would love for the 'don't buy gas on this specific day' to actually work and see how it may impact a company like Exxon, I am pretty sure it will not, so I will not be sending that one on, nor will I send on any form letter email that has no personal touches to it since I know better. One method of helping with the elimination of problems would be to limit the amount of jokes you forward on each and every day. Even if your receivers are fine with the fact that they get their jokes from you, limiting it to say, one per day will make a world of difference. But most of all, the problems with downloading your mail to your computer,regardless of what it is, is the biggest problem by far, this is why using a web-based email, even the one your Internet provider provides to access your email over the web, can save you from potential disaster. Now many of you will say "yes, but I like using outlook express... because I am used to it".. other then the fact that you are used to is, the point being it is time to learn other methods, not that you can't continue to use outlook express, but learning that you can log in to your email account over the web, deleting all the junk and leaving only legitimate email in which you can then open your outlook express to receive will make an impact on potential disaster. One great method I have found is to utilize Google Mail's great filtering and forwarding. You can have all of your mail forward to Gmail, get filtered, and then opened through your normal P.O.P.client such as outlook express. Not only does it filter your mail, but it does a great job of archiving it as well!

Saturday, May 12, 2007

The Internet, How to start a Business

Chris Pirillo knows the Internet because that is what he does. So in my opinion, such 'free advice' about how to start a business is just one way of keeping in touch with future vision from a more technical approach that utilizes technology to teach the masses. The great part is that every year he hosts a small get together called Gnomedex. I say small get together, because it typically tops out at 400 people that can make it in to the main stage, but through other coves within the building, other than looking at the stage absolutely live, you are simply next door, but still get all the other conference benefits. I don't like to use the word conference because it is much more "friendly", more like a large wedding party where you can have a room full of people from all walks of life together for the one reason they all have in common, and that is technology sparks an interest in their life in some way.

Monday, May 07, 2007

Is your data safe and secure?

I am writing this blog entry to remind those of you that have important data that you have created over the time you have been using your computer. This may have been just recently, some business proposal or a resume, maybe a bunch of cooking recipes you have just spent the past few hours inputting so that you would have it handy. It really doesn't have to be something that important, but just the fact that you have spent hours creating the document should make it worthy of knowing it is safe and secure for when you need it.

How many times do I hear people scream at their computer because it 'isn't working the way it should, right when I am in a hurry and I need it to work correctly.

I am over at a friends place where I have just put a very frazzled mind at ease, since a very important document had gone missing. I asked what I was told "a very dumb question", if a complete search of the computer was done. Apparently it had, but I thought I might try anyway. So I entered the search (click on start menu then on search) and entered the word 'final' as this document was the final exam questions which would have had to be completely re-written if it was lost, a job that would have probably taken about 3 hours to complete and even then, it probably would have been a little different since these questions were originally created straight from the brain and not from a text book. Within less than a second I had a full page of different documents so I asked what class was this for and after learning the class number, I entered this after the word final and narrowed the search. This time only two things came up and one of them was the final exam questions. The reaction was one of joy and relief and so all was fine once again.

However, I then asked the question, what if your hard drive crashed right now and you lost everything, I guess that would make you a little upset? Well duh, of course I would be upset, I would be devastated. So on that note, I pointed to the Carbonite backup system which is something that I would highly recommend to any and all that use the computer. Since this is one of those 'set and forget' type of things, there really is no excuse why you wouldn't use such a wonderful program. You can learn more about it here and you can download and install it here. Do yourself a favor by using a little preventative maintenance at this time! Okay sure, there is a cost for this service but considering a large coffee at Starbucks will set you back about the same amount as this service charges for a month....well I'll leave the rest up to you!