By Richard Churchill – First Published August/September 2010
If you think about international calls, I’ll bet you think of long numbers and high bills. If you have relatives that live abroad, it is a real pain, especially if you also have to think about time differences.
While it has been possible to talk to someone over the internet for at least 10 years, until recently it wasn’t easy. Slow connections meant call quality was poor, even getting a connection seemed to require a degree in computing, certainly not for the general user. What we want is a service that is easy to use, tells us when our friends and relatives are available, it would even be nice if we could see the person we are talking to. (more…)
By Richard Churchill – First Published July 2010
Backup, its an awkward subject, something we should all do but with no right answer for everyone. How do you keep your treasured holiday pictures safe without it costing more that the holiday did?
There are a number of strategies that can be used singly or in combination to keep your valuable files safe. I’ll go over each here so you can work out what is the best solution for you.
The first is the simplest, but most time consuming; keep lots of copies of your files in different places. Normally any pictures you take, are of interest to at least one other person who lives elsewhere. Be they parents, grand parents, other relatives or friends. So you can help your popularity and “backup” your files by giving CDs with the pictures of your last holiday, Christmas, & birthdays etc. to the friends that went with you, or family members who were there.
The second is the most popular, purchase an external hard disk, and once a week copy all your files onto the disk. You can also get software for your computer that will copy your files for you when the external hard disk is connected. Some of these pieces of software can even do ‘proper’ backups where copies of changed files are kept for a period of time, so if you make a mistake you can get an older copy of your file back.
The third method is the most expensive but also the most reliable; make use of one of the many online backup services. These services vary in cost and features but they all supply the same basic functionality. You install a piece of software on your computer, once an hour/day/week this will check for changed files, and encrypt and upload the changed files to a secure storage location on the internet.
As I said before, backup is difficult to get right, how far you go has to be a matter of personal choice. The one thing you must remember, computers fail, not making a copy of your files means that it is almost certain that one day you will loose them.
Going further
If you are fortunate enought to live in Bristol or South Gloucestershire and wold like help with your computer why not give us a call? You can call us on 01454 616365 or use our contact form and we will call you back.
