Most people know they should back up their systems, but few people do it.
There are many different ways you can back up. Most backup software backs up files. So if you have a hard drive failure, you have to re-install Windows, re-install all of your programs, manually set everything back the way you had it, and then restore the files from your backup.
With our backup package, we back your entire system up in a way so that if your system crashes, we can restore it exactly how it was as of the last backup. You don’t’ have to reinstall windows. You don’t have to reinstall all of your programs. It just puts it back the way it was.
Our recommended backup strategy not only makes recovering from failures quick and easy, it fully automatic. You don’t have to do a thing!
Our strategy includes a local backup of your entire computer and a remote backup of critical files. You can provide your own external hard drive for the local backup, or we can sell you one. We recommend a minimum size of 500GB. If you provide your own external hard drive, then the rest of the package can be installed remotely. We also include a one month free trial of our remote backup so you can see how you like it.
If you provide your own external hard drive and the installation can be done remotely, then the cost of the backup software and labor to install this package is only $90+tax.
Remote backup protects your critical files in case your computer and the backup are destroyed (fire, flood, storm, etc.) or stolen.
It’s not a question of if your hard drive will fail. It’s a question of when it will fail. We see many hard drive failures each month. Don’t get caught off guard. Don’t be one of these people who thinks it won’t happen to you. At some point, it will.
RSS is a neat way you can have information from a website automatically updated and displayed for you on your computer. For example, if you were to subscribe to the RSS feed on our website, any time new information is posted to our web page, it would show up in your RSS feed.
Subscribing to an RSS feed is easy. On the webpage you want to subscribe to, look for a link that says RSS or Subscribe. Click that link to subscribe. Note that not all web pages have RSS feeds.
Once subscribed, you now need to decide the best way to read your RSS feeds.
If you have Vista, the sidebar has an RSS reader built-in. Right click on it and tell it which of your subscribed RSS feeds you want it to display. If you don’t’ have Vista, you can get Yahoo Gadets that are very much like Vista’s sidebar that do the same thing.
If you use Outlook 2007 (not Outlook Express) to read your e-mail, you can have Outlook show your RSS feeds. You can read RSS feeds with older versions of Outlook if you purchase a plugin called NewsGator ($29.95).
You can also download special applications for reading RSS feeds. One that is free is called Awasu.
I personally like having my RSS feeds go into Outlook. Then new posts look like new e-mail. That way I just get the new posts sent to me and I don’thave to remember what I’ve read before.
Look over in the right-hand column of this web page. See where it says, "Subscribe"? That’s so that you can subscribe to the web page using RSS. You can subscribe to entries so that any time we post a new item on the web site, you’ll see it in your RSS feed. You can also subscribe to comments so that anytime someone posts a comment on one of our entries, you’ll get that in RSS as well. Give it a try!
Printing problems can often be attributed to a configuration problem in Windows, a driver conflict, a bad cable, or a bad or incorrectly replaced ink cartridge. These types of problems can be fixed. If the lights on your printer are on and look normal, but nothing prints, chances are we can fix that problem for you.
If the printer tries to print, but the quality is bad or there are colors missing, then run your printer’s cleaning cycle first. If that doesnt help, replace the ink cartridges.
If the printer lights are not on, or there are red flashing lights or if you tried replacing the cartridges and it still does not print, then chances are something is broken on the inside of the printer. These days, it is cheaper to replace a printer than it is to fix it.
If you need a new printer, here are some things to think about when buying a new printer.
There are two basic types of printer technologies. Inkjet and Laser. Inkjet’s print color. Lasers come in monochrome (black and white) or color. Inkjet printers are cheaper, but they are slower, the print quality is not as good as laser printers, and they are more noisy.
Laser printers are more expensive but have a higher quality of print, they are faster, and they are more quiet.
For your average home user, an inkjet is fine. Small businesses may want one laser printer for certain types of printing jobs, but may also want to have several inkjet printers for other jobs. Big businesses will probably mainly need laser printers.
Once you decide on the printing technology that is right for you, you must decide on what features you need. Printers are generally either basic printers, or multi-function printers. A basic printer just prints. A multi-function printer will print, but may also scan, fax, and copy as well. If you need to scan, fax, or copy (on a limited basis) and have limited space, then a multi-function printer may be right for you.
Other features to look for are how fast a printer prints. This is usually expressed in pages per minute (PPM). Also look for how much paper the printer will hold so you know how often you are going to have to be loading more paper into it. For laser printers, a feature to look for is duplexing. If a printer can duplex, this means it can print on both sides of the page without user intervention.
Something else to look at is the cost of ownership. Here’s how to figure out the cost of ownership. First, figure out about how many pages of black and white you print a month and how many pages of color you print a month. Now multiply that by 36 to get the number of black and white, and the number of color pages you print in 3 years. Now find out how many pages a black cartridge will print for each of the printers you are considering. Do the same for color. You can then figure out how many ink cartridges you will need. Multiply that by the cost of the ink cartridges. Add that to how much you paid for the printer and you’ll get the total cost of ownership. You can then compare printers that way. Note that one particular brand is not consistently the highest or lowest cost of ownership. You must check it for each model.
Another feature to be concerned with is compatibility. If you have a network with different versions of Windows, then mae sure the printer you are purchasing provides drivers for all of the different types of windows other operating systems (Mac, Linux, etc.).
In our experience, HP printers seem to be the most compatible and have the least problems with different types of computers printing to them over the network.
Speaking of printing over the network, did you know that you can have a printer installed on one computer on your network, and print to that computer from any other computer on the network? You can. Doing this cuts down on the number of printers you have to have. It saves space and saves you money.
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