Ouch.

Much like going to the dentist, backing up your data is something you know you should do regularly, yet regularly gets forgotten.

A wiser man than I once said:

“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

In today’s day and age, Ben Franklin’s statement could also include “…and losing your data”, because believe me, at some point in your computer life, be it through hardware failure, theft or “Oh shit, I hit the wrong key!” it will happen.

(I feel qualified to say this as I used to run a data backup service)

And to bring us back to the dentist analogy, when it does go wrong, you know it’s likely to cost you a small fortune (think circa $2K for a dead hard drive).

Why you shouldn’t be using a USB drive

You’ve probably discovered the idea of using a removable USB drive by now. I like them because they’re simple, and they do solve the immediate issue of duplicating your data. For my mind though, they offer a false sense of security.

Sure, you’ve got a copy of your data, but unless you are super vigilant and doing your backups every night, and then taking that USB drive somewhere away from your home or office, a fire or theft is still going to leave you back at square one.

Look Out, Here Comes A Time Saving Tip!

Here’s a much simpler idea: Online Backup. Download the client software, tell it what you want to backup and when, and you’re done. No really – that’s it; your data is automatically backed up at whatever interval you set, whilst also being offsite and far away from any localised threats you may experience.

As far as choices of online backup services go, there are many. I currently use a free service from Mozy; ideal for a single PC, it allows up to 2GB of data to be backed up (rising to US$4.95/month for unlimited data). A business oriented version called MozyPro is also available, priced from US$3.95/month; it allows you to back up multiple PC’s and servers.

If you’re looking closer to home, there is also a company called Carbonite, offering an unlimited plan for AUD$71.99/ year. If you have more than approx 3.5GB of data, Carbonite is the better value offering; they also have an offer running until the end of January: sign up for a year and get two extra months for free.

Yes, there’s a catch…

Just a quick heads-up when using an online backup service for the first time – you will need a decent internet usage plan, plus a bit of time, depending on how much data you wish to upload, for the first backup to complete.

Got a data backup service you use that you’d like to recommend? Have a data loss horror story you’d like to pass on? Tell us all about it in the comments box below.

Photo: Topato

So following a quick review of this site in the newly released Site Performance section of Webmaster Tools and not liking what I saw:

Ouch!

So I’ve decided that it’s about time for TCG to get a bit of a site refresh. In the coming weeks, I’ll be making some changes to the site – and re-launching it on the awesome Thesis Theme from DIYThemes.

The iNove theme I have been using has served me well this past 9 months or so, but I’ve been building a few sites on Thesis of late, and all I can say is that if you are wondering whether there is a difference between free and paid WordPress themes – the answer, when it comes to Thesis, is definitely YES!

One of Thesis’ major strengths is its impeccable coding; and having the right code in the right place in the infrastructure of your site, well, it’s like the concrete in the foundations of your new apartment building – you want it there!

(Oh, and before I crack another bad metaphor, good coding can also make your website load quicker.)

I also be launching some new services, so look out for the new site in the new year, and have a great festive season!

Off to see a new client earlier today, I planned my route using Google Maps. Unfortunately for me, Google Maps had seemingly created a road I needed to travel on out of thin air, and then forgotten to tell the road that it now existed.

What’s worse, is that this is the second time now this has happened to me. I think Google is out to get me lost.

Do you have any tales of technology failures? Leave a comment below.

Take for instance a “special offer” a client of mine recently received. Completely unsolicited, a Melbourne based domain name registrar (who’ll remain nameless) mailed the client a letter offering the ‘.com’ of their Australian domain name for $249 inc GST for 2 years. With a sweetener of a free iPod Shuffle, the MD of the company asked me if it was worth buying. My reply was to send him a screenshot of the same domain name over at Namecheap.com for the Australian dollar equivalent of some $24. Not a bad markup by the domain registrar and it left me wondering just how ‘free’ that iPod really was. Unsurprisingly the MD didn’t go forward with that one.

What concerned me was that it was obviously a tactic that worked for this company, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it. I shudder to think how many companies may have fallen for this.

The lesson here is to shop around – domain names are available from hundreds of sites across the web, and prices can vary wildly. Educate yourself on a median price and what extras may be included (things like URL forwarding, where you can forward one domain name to a site at another you own. This can be useful if you have a strong brand or want to catch all important traffic to variations of your domain name).

From my own experience I’ve found the above mentioned Namecheap is a good source for .com and .net based names; while Netregistry here in Australia is a good source for .com.au and .net.au names. If you have any you’d like to tell others about, or if you’ve been caught out a similar way and would like to warn others, please let us know in the comments below.

Image: A Million To One

Did you catch Four Corners on ABC this week? It featured a report on the growth of cybercrime in Australia, indicating it’s a problem likely to get bigger with the advent of a national broadband network. I had been looking forward to the piece – sadly though it turned out to be little more than an exercise in fear mongering, complete with over the top soundbites:

“I expect at some stage in the future there will be a real debate on the benefit of the internet. Should we turn it off?”

Don’t get me wrong, it’s good that the subject is exposed to the masses (I’ve had many enquiries regarding computer security since the show aired), and I’m not going to say that cybercrime isn’t a growing issue; but you can certainly inform people in ways that don’t involve scaring the living bejesus out of them!

Obviously this sort of journalism sells, but getting people running around like a headless chook ain’t going to solve the problem. That’s down to education. So, in the spirit of getting things done, let’s get educated shall we? Here’s 5 things you can do to help protect yourself against cybercrime.

(By the way, these tips aren’t new and they certainly aren’t definitive, but obviously they seem to be one of those things that people still need to be told)

1. Think before you click.

No genuine financial institution will send you an email saying they need to verify your details. The best course of action for anything suspect is to phone the institution direct (and either shift+delete to permanently remove the mail from your computer, or follow the procedure the institution advises to send the mail to them if they want to investigate further.)

2. Keep your computer updated.

Installing the latest manufacturuer patches and anti-virus signatures kind of goes without saying, but I’ll bet many of you don’t do it!

3. Install an Anti Spyware product.

Most of the brand name security manufacturers such as Symantec / Norton & McAfee will have an “Internet Security” product that bundles this with Anti Virus software. If you don’t have one of these products already or have just standard AV software, I recommend “Spybot S&D” which you can download for free, or Windows Defender, also free.

4. Ensure your user account doesn’t have administrator rights.

Hackers like to install software that does their bidding on your PC, but they usually need administrator rights to do it. By only giving the account you log on to your computer with the minimum of privileges, it makes it all that much harder. Microsoft Vista introduced a feature called UAC (User Account Control) to try and fix this problem; sadly it was so poorly implemented that many people turned it off altogether. Happily though, the version in Windows 7 works.

5. Protect your wireless network.

There are many things you can do to aid your protection if you’re running a wireless network in your home or office. First, check the type of security you’re using. If you have a setting for WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) or WPA2 and higher, make sure you’re using it. If your router is slightly older and only has a setting for WEP (Wireless Encryption Protocol), please go and drop some cash on a new one – WEP was cracked a few years ago, so you could be leaving yourself wide open.

Also, make sure your firewall is turned on; change and then turn off the broadcast of your network’s name (known as the SSID) and use a pass phrase (including upper case letters and numbers), rather than a password for the wireless authentication.

Hopefully you found these tips on protecting yourself against cybercrime useful. If you have any more, or if you want to add your own opinion on this topic, please leave a comment below.

In my defence though, I have to say that’s it’s purely for the simplicity and usefulness of their products. You have a problem, they solve it. You have a problem you didn’t know you had? Chances are they’ve got that covered too. And into this latter group falls a new feature in Google’s email client – Gmail.

Gmail has been a staple for me for a while now, and I’m hooked on that you can centralise all of your email domains to it. Being a mobile worker and yet still able to access any of my email addresses in one place is a golden goal!

What I’d overlooked until recently though was that users of some email software, and in particular Microsoft Outlook, would see my emails as coming from “myaddress@gmail.com on behalf of myemail@mydomain.net”. Now, given my rant on why you should get your business a domain name, this was not ideal, to say the least!

Today, the “Big G” ticks off that box by introducing the ability to set which outgoing mail server you want to use for your mail – your domain server or Google’s server. Here’s how the process looks without this feature:

Image: Google

And here’s how it works after enabling:

Image: Google

For mobile workers or those with multiple email addresses like myself, this means I can log on to my Gmail wherever I happen to be, and still know that emails to my clients appear as if they are from my domain address, regardless of the software they are using.

Here’s how to set up “Send mail from another address without on behalf of” in Gmail:

Firstly, you’ll need your email domain details. You can usually find these on your ISP’s website, in a welcome letter, or on your website’s control panel (cpanel or similar). Once you have these, log in to your Gmail account and look for “Settings” towards the top right hand corner.

Select the “Accounts” tab:

And then click on “Edit Info” on the right:

If the settings you have in the next screen are as you want, click “Next Step”

Hit the radio button for “Send through your ‘domainname’ SMTP servers…” and enter the details you gathered previously. Depending on your settings, you may need to tick the checkbox to always use a secure connection. Click “Save Changes” and you’re all done!

As this is my first tutorial here on the TCG blog, I’d be interested to know if you found it useful? Did you like it? Hate it? Please let me know in the comments – it’s only going to make the posts better!

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