You are currently browsing the Techno Blog weblog archives for November, 2008.
30. November 2008 by Rob.
Well Microsoft has kept no secret that Windows 7 is almost ready. The launch is headed before the school buying season is 2009.
This just about kills Vista which I really like as an operating system. A couple of reasons for this:
1. Microsoft is losing share to Apple due to Anit Vista marketing campaigns.
2. Vista’s hardware requirements are way to high.
3. Due to point 3 Vista can not run on the new generation of Netbooks. The Netbooks are restricted to Linux and XP home at this point.
4. Buisness has not embraced Vista.
Posted in Windows 7, Microsoft | No Comments »
28. November 2008 by Rob.
I installed Eset’s Nod32 30 day evaluation last night. The product really does have a low resource requirement. It runs great:) The install was pain free and did not even require a reboot. I am testing it on my Windows Vista System for now and we will see how the next month goes.
Posted in Nod32, Virus | No Comments »
27. November 2008 by Rob.
I am going to be trying Eset’s Nod 32 on my home pc. I will post a review in the next few weeks. The resource requirement is less then most virus checkers and its clean rate is better. So we will see.
Posted in Nod32 | No Comments »
27. November 2008 by Rob.
In the old days we all backed up to floppy disks. The floppy disk has died in recent years. The two big factors in this happening were reliability and size of the files. Files are just way too large to fit on a floppy.
People then started burning files on cd roms and later DVD drives. This was done using the CD/DVD burning software that came with your writer. The reason this solutions works well is media is cheap. CD’s and DVD’s cost next to nothing. The problem with this solution is that people generally avoid doing it because this solution requires manual intervention. Also most people do not take a copy of the media off site so if something happens at your location(eg fire/flood etc) the backup is lost.
Some people like to use USB keys. The reason these have been effective is they are cheap per the size. USB keys are today’s version of a floppy disk with much better reliability. A 8GB USB runs for about $20-$30 Canadian. The two biggest problems with USB keys are because they are small some people lose them. The other issue is that most people never keep the USB keys off site away from their pc so their is no offsite backups. Also USB keys tend to stillbe too small in size to backup today’s Multimedia files.
Some people use an external Hard Drive to backup on. They come in different sizes and tend to hold more data then most types of media. They are not that expensive these days - a 250GB drive is worth under $100 Canadian. Often a lot of them come with software to make your backup a little more intelligent then just dragging and dropping files.
A relatively new option is using a online backup service. Two that come to mind are called Carbonite and Mozy. They are easy to setup, run relatively unattended and provide you with an offsite backup. A couple of issues is that these services only run as fast as your Internet connection can since they store your data encrypted on their servers. They do have a monthly or yearly fee. Carbonite for example is $49.99 a year.
In my next post I will talk about what types of Backups that you can use and the differences between them.
Posted in Backup | No Comments »
27. November 2008 by Rob.
Well I got a call from a friend last night saying their was a problem with his email. He is a Sympatico subscriber in Canada. It turns out his email was not being automatically forwarding his email anymore to his Gmail account.
What caused this issue? It turns out that his account was converted to Sympatico’s new and improved enhanced email service. Basically it is a rebranded MSN hotmail account. Hotmail does not have email forwarding as part of its services. According to Symaptico this issue will not be resolved until Dec 4th.
This is really bad customer service. They just do not get it at all. A week to fix a problem when you take away services. This is not improved services.
This is why I am not a Sympatico user.
Posted in Sympatico | No Comments »
21. November 2008 by Rob.
I have really been a little negligent on keeping my blog updated. I am currently working on the new The Techshop web site. I am a few days away from releasing it. Once the site is done I will release it here. It will be the point for all things technical including this blog. In the long run the growing pains are worth it.
Stay Tuned……
Posted in Technology | No Comments »
7. November 2008 by Rob.
In the last few weeks I have found another really good product for cleaning spyware. This product does have a free version and a really good blog on their web site which explains which products they clean and which ones they do not. The product has helped me clean several bad infestations of Antivirus 2009.
Posted in Spyware, Security | No Comments »