On Fri, 21 Jan 2011 23:02:23 -0500, Jeff Thies
wrote:

In this case she has a 256 meg and a 512. It's stated late in one of the
threads. I haven't seen a 256 for some time!

Reported as 750MB makes it shy by 18MB.

I would like to know if the modules are seated in the first two DIMM
slots. That is a potential misread of RAM (corrupt data).

Use slots 1 & 3, separate the modules. MB manual has the various
methods for seating RAM. Sizes, speed and all that boring stuff.

On Sat, 22 Jan 2011 15:05:16 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson
wrote:

Wish there
was a computer silver stake I could drive through the heart of GoBack
-- like they used to do with vampires -- bury them at a crossroads and
drive a silver stake through their hearts. g )

You need a Bowie knife. Texas has few concerns about vampires.

Most computer malfunctions happen between the chair and the keyboard.

On Sat, 22 Jan 2011 14:39:38 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson
wrote:

On Jan 20, 9:53Â*pm, Vic Smith wrote:
On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 19:53:34 -0800 (PST), Higgs Boson

wrote:

WHY DOES YOUR EXTERNAL HD HAVE TO BE IN A DIFFERENT ROOM? Â*Straight
question.

Simply to secure the data.
A lightening strike can wipe out every hard drive in your computer,
and externals connected to it, and so can a fire.
Just talking about where you store it. Â*Unplug it and put it elsewhere
if you're using it for backups and want to be safe about it.

--Vic

Grrrr...I've been asking people (not on this NG) for YEARS about this
subject! At present my 160 GB HD is what I am using for backup. It
is on the same desk as my computer. How can I back up if they are not
connected? Are you saying that I should disconnect it, haul it
somewhere else, and reconnect it every time I want to back up???


Depends on how serious you are about not losing the data.
I don't use an external HD, but their big advantage is portability.
Sometimes my kid leaves me his external with a bunch of stuff on it.
I plug in the power cord, plug in the USB cable, and that's it.
What's the big deal?
Not telling you what to do.
Just pointing out that a lightening hit or a fire will get all your
data.
Maybe you don't care enough about it move backups away from your desk.
I don't do it myself.
When there's thunderstorms around I do usually unplug my PCs and
peripherals connected to them.
Just one plug, since I use a plug strips.
Of course they say you never see the one with your name on it.

Also: When Norton Ghost says it's doing period backup, WHERE IS IT
STORING THE DATA????

You should learn something about file structures on your PC.
If you don't even know where the data is, there's no sense in backing
it up.
You don't even need book nowadays.
http://www.free-computer-tutorials.n...structure.html

If you don't learn some basics, you might as well have somebody else
take care of your PC for you.

--Vic

On Sat, 22 Jan 2011 16:37:26 -0800, Oren wrote:

Most computer malfunctions happen between the chair and the keyboard.

"Tech support: What kind of computer do you have?

Female customer: A white one... "

On 1/22/2011 6:55 PM, Oren wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jan 2011 23:02:23 -0500, Jeff
wrote:

In this case she has a 256 meg and a 512. It's stated late in one of the
threads. I haven't seen a 256 for some time!

Reported as 750MB makes it shy by 18MB.

I would like to know if the modules are seated in the first two DIMM
slots. That is a potential misread of RAM (corrupt data).

Use slots 1& 3, separate the modules. MB manual has the various
methods for seating RAM. Sizes, speed and all that boring stuff.

Manuals? Who has manuals? :^/
(First owner usually throws those things away, etc.)

1 and 3 is a good place to start, but it isn't universal. The nicer
manufacturers make the banks different colors, usually tan and black or
blue. And sometimes, they start numbering the banks at 0. A magnifying
glass and HF flashlight can be very helpful.

Crucial.com has a good downloadable utility that will talk to your
motherboard, and based on the answers it gets, bump a big database in
the sky, and tell you what you have now, how many sockets, what the pair
layout is, and what your options are. I used it just a couple days ago,
just because I was feeling too damn lazy to open up the case to refresh
my memory of what I put in there.

(I've got about 3 half-built machines laying around for far too long
that I need to finish up. The latest upgrade to PCTools antivirus is
very memory-piggy, so I either need to upgrade this machine as well, or
take PCT off of it. Anybody got about 8 1gb ddr266/PC3200 sticks they
wanna sell, cheap? I looked online, and it costs about twice per stick
what more modern memory does. :^( )

--
aem sends...

Higgs Boson wrote:
On Jan 21, 12:31 pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
Higgs Boson wrote:

WHY DOES YOUR EXTERNAL HD HAVE TO BE IN A DIFFERENT ROOM? Straight
question.

So that whatever happens in the vicinity of your computer does not
affect your backups.

So, what could happen?

* A burglar breaks in and carries off everything in sight. I had
this happen to one of my customers THREE TIMES in ten days. If not
for backups that were completely out of the building, he'd have been
more screwed. Computers and software are easily replaced; it's the
data that's valuable.

* A small fire, perhaps started by a cheap computer built in
Bangladesh.

* A user has a fit and smashes everything on the counter.

The best backup is one that is completely out of the building, since
the whole building could burn down (or be covered in a mud slide,
blown away by a tornado, collapsed in an earthquake, etc.).

One easy way to get your backups out of the building is to send them
as an email attachement to your Gmail address. Google now allows
almost 8 gigs of storage space.

Now THAT sounds like a keeper. I'm assuming we are talking only about
DATA files, not programs, etc. that can be reinstalled (though a
PITA).

Question #1: If I have more than one Gmail address, can I send
"almost 8 gigs" to EACH of those addresses? Or only a total to ALL
Gmail addresses?

Each. Gmail has no (easy) way of knowing that multiple email addresses
belong to the same person or company. Nor do they care.


Question #2: How do I back up the backups? IOW, I send, say 7 gigs
of data files today. What happens when I have new data next week?
Does the new batch override the existing, or supplement it?

I know these are pitiful questions, so be kind g

The attachement is part of a specific email. Subsequent emails will not
overwrite existing emails, so you'll have sequential backups. Of course with
a 7gig backup and an 8gig limit, the second email will fail with a "mailbox
full" (or similar), so you'll have to delete the previous email (and its
attachement) before you can send the current backup (usually a bad move
inasmuch as its prudent to maintain several "generations" of backups).

You could establish, say, five Gmail addresses: ,
, etc.

Then, each Monday, delete all your emails from the corresponding account -
thereby freeing up space in the mailbox - before firing off the latest
backup.

In the alternative, there are companies that will automate the entire
process for you (at a cost). Here's a chart:
http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=12572...able&zoomIdx=1

In passing, I must say that 7gigs worth of backups is a LOT. It's an
ENORMOUS amount! I suspect you're backing up stuff that exists on CD-ROMS or
the web that can be easily replaced - things such as programs, operating
systems, and the like. You may be able to reduce the size of the backup in
several ways:
* Don't backup stuff that can be downloaded or restored from other media,
such as application programs.
* Copy never-used stuff (vacation pictures from 1998, etc.) to a CD or DVD
and put that in a fireproof box under the bed.
* Move your pictures to a free web-hosting service such as Photobucket or
Imageshack. Your photos are readily available to you, but take up zero space
on your hard drive.
* Use a backup method that compresses whatever is being backed up, rather
than a file-to-file technique. The gold standard is some ZIP utility. Word
processing documents can be compressed 90%, photos almost not at all. In
general, a ZIP file will occupy 20% or less of the total disk space of its
constituent members.

Work on these suggestions. Come back for more.

Best of luck.

P.S.
Do you have access to a 12-year old male?

On Jan 22, 7:37*pm, Oren
Most computer malfunctions happen between the chair and the keyboard.

The technical term is PEBKAC: 'problem exists between keyboard and
chair'. It's a common variant of the ID10T error.

On Jan 21, 12:31*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
One easy way to get your backups out of the building is to send them as an
email attachement [sic] to your Gmail address. Google now allows almost 8
gigs of storage space.

On Jan 22, 5:44 pm, Higgs Boson wrote:
If I have more than one Gmail address, *can I send
"almost 8 gigs" to EACH of those addresses? *Or only a total to ALL
Gmail addresses?


As far as backups go, most of us aren't nearly paranoid enough, given
we keep personal financial and other critical data on our computers.
What would you do if you had a fire that destroyed the room where the
computer (and back-up external drive) are kept, or the whole house?

One on-site solution is to make your backups to your external hard
drive, unplug it and put it in a small fireproof safe with the rest of
your irreplaceables like birth certificates, passports, deed to your
house, etc. (How many of you don't even have those protected?)

HeyBub's off-site suggestion with Gmail is one way to go.

One that Lifehacker.com recommended that I'm going to set up this week
(now that our church has handed off running the cold weather shelter
for the homeless to another church) is called Dropbox: www.dropbox.com,
tho' you only get 2GB storage for free, and pay monthly for more.

Another idea is something my brother-in-law uses called Carbonite
(www.carbonite.com). While you pay a yearly subscription of $55, it
gives you peace of mind in a lot of ways, with guarantees of never
losing your data, heavy-duty encryption to protect very private data,
and simply automation of the back-up process.

HTH!

On 1/22/2011 10:20 PM, aemeijers wrote:
On 1/22/2011 6:55 PM, Oren wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jan 2011 23:02:23 -0500, Jeff
wrote:

In this case she has a 256 meg and a 512. It's stated late in one of the
threads. I haven't seen a 256 for some time!

Reported as 750MB makes it shy by 18MB.

I would like to know if the modules are seated in the first two DIMM
slots. That is a potential misread of RAM (corrupt data).

Use slots 1& 3, separate the modules. MB manual has the various
methods for seating RAM. Sizes, speed and all that boring stuff.

Manuals? Who has manuals? :^/
(First owner usually throws those things away, etc.)

1 and 3 is a good place to start, but it isn't universal. The nicer
manufacturers make the banks different colors, usually tan and black or
blue. And sometimes, they start numbering the banks at 0. A magnifying
glass and HF flashlight can be very helpful.

Crucial.com has a good downloadable utility that will talk to your
motherboard, and based on the answers it gets, bump a big database in
the sky, and tell you what you have now, how many sockets, what the pair
layout is, and what your options are. I used it just a couple days ago,
just because I was feeling too damn lazy to open up the case to refresh
my memory of what I put in there.

I good plan, but near as I can tell HB hasn't indicated she is heading
toward buying memory. It looks to me like she is heading towards
installing more software.

(I've got about 3 half-built machines laying around for far too long
that I need to finish up. The latest upgrade to PCTools antivirus is
very memory-piggy, so I either need to upgrade this machine as well, or
take PCT off of it. Anybody got about 8 1gb ddr266/PC3200 sticks they
wanna sell, cheap? I looked online, and it costs about twice per stick
what more modern memory does. :^( )

I see what you mean:

$39 from Frys for Patriot:

http://www.frys.com/product/3976678?...H:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Didn't even know they were up to DDR5!

Jeff

On 1/23/2011 1:42 PM, Kyle wrote:
On Jan 21, 12:31 pm, wrote:
One easy way to get your backups out of the building is to send them as an
email attachement [sic] to your Gmail address. Google now allows almost 8
gigs of storage space.

On Jan 22, 5:44 pm, Higgs wrote:
If I have more than one Gmail address, can I send
"almost 8 gigs" to EACH of those addresses? Or only a total to ALL
Gmail addresses?


As far as backups go, most of us aren't nearly paranoid enough, given
we keep personal financial and other critical data on our computers.
What would you do if you had a fire that destroyed the room where the
computer (and back-up external drive) are kept, or the whole house?

One on-site solution is to make your backups to your external hard
drive, unplug it and put it in a small fireproof safe with the rest of
your irreplaceables like birth certificates, passports, deed to your
house, etc. (How many of you don't even have those protected?)

HeyBub's off-site suggestion with Gmail is one way to go.

One that Lifehacker.com recommended that I'm going to set up this week
(now that our church has handed off running the cold weather shelter
for the homeless to another church) is called Dropbox: www.dropbox.com,
tho' you only get 2GB storage for free, and pay monthly for more.

Another idea is something my brother-in-law uses called Carbonite
(www.carbonite.com). While you pay a yearly subscription of $55, it
gives you peace of mind in a lot of ways, with guarantees of never
losing your data, heavy-duty encryption to protect very private data,
and simply automation of the back-up process.

HTH!

All these cloud solutions have one major drawback- they assume the
internet will be running. Major natural disaster, it could be weeks
before you have a good connection. I am guilty as most about no backups
or safe storage, especially considering that I sorta do computers for a
living, and have actual training on this stuff. Bought a fire safe five
years ago- it is still in the box.

For the REALLY critical stuff, 8gb thumb drives are down below 20 bucks.
Zip it to that, or to an alternating pair of them, Hide it at least at
the other end of the house, or if you have a lockable desk at work or a
nearby relative, hide it there.

--
aem sends...

On 1/23/2011 1:42 PM, Kyle wrote:
On Jan 21, 12:31 pm, wrote:
One easy way to get your backups out of the building is to send them as an
email attachement [sic] to your Gmail address. Google now allows almost 8
gigs of storage space.

On Jan 22, 5:44 pm, Higgs wrote:
If I have more than one Gmail address, can I send
"almost 8 gigs" to EACH of those addresses? Or only a total to ALL
Gmail addresses?


As far as backups go, most of us aren't nearly paranoid enough, given
we keep personal financial and other critical data on our computers.
What would you do if you had a fire that destroyed the room where the
computer (and back-up external drive) are kept, or the whole house?

One on-site solution is to make your backups to your external hard
drive, unplug it and put it in a small fireproof safe with the rest of
your irreplaceables like birth certificates, passports, deed to your
house, etc. (How many of you don't even have those protected?)

HeyBub's off-site suggestion with Gmail is one way to go.

One that Lifehacker.com recommended that I'm going to set up this week
(now that our church has handed off running the cold weather shelter
for the homeless to another church) is called Dropbox: www.dropbox.com,
tho' you only get 2GB storage for free, and pay monthly for more.

Another idea is something my brother-in-law uses called Carbonite
(www.carbonite.com). While you pay a yearly subscription of $55, it
gives you peace of mind in a lot of ways, with guarantees of never
losing your data, heavy-duty encryption to protect very private data,
and simply automation of the back-up process.

HTH!
How do they guarantee they will never loose your data? Do they guarantee
they can never go out of business or maybe that their system has no
possible flaws?

How can you know the encryption is "heavy duty"? I will grant you that
they have great marketing but where is the peer review of their methods
so there is reasonable assurance a back door isn't built in?

aemeijers wrote:

All these cloud solutions have one major drawback- they assume the
internet will be running. Major natural disaster, it could be weeks
before you have a good connection. I am guilty as most about no
backups or safe storage, especially considering that I sorta do
computers for a living, and have actual training on this stuff. Bought a
fire safe five years ago- it is still in the box.

For the REALLY critical stuff, 8gb thumb drives are down below 20
bucks. Zip it to that, or to an alternating pair of them, Hide it at
least at the other end of the house, or if you have a lockable desk
at work or a nearby relative, hide it there.

VERY good idea. Used as a backup, thumb drives should work well in that it's
unlikely you'll hit the wall on dependibility. Thumb drives have only so
many read-write cycles (in the low thousands) before they crap out. Used as
backups, it should be many years before you hit the limit.

Higgs Boson wrote:

I should have mentioned that a rep. at Norton sent me the Ghost FREE
because I had been unable to get GoBack to work. She explained that
Ghost had replaced GoBack. (Now I can't get GoBack to shut the hell
up; every time I boot up, it's there, asking if I want to reinstall
it. I can't get rid of it through Control Panel Add/Remove Programs.
It comes up with "error 1327, invalid Drive F". (My Ext. HD varies
between E and F depending what else is running.) That's when I
contacted Norton in despair, and they sent me the Ghost. Wish there
was a computer silver stake I could drive through the heart of GoBack
-- like they used to do with vampires -- bury them at a crossroads and
drive a silver stake through their hearts. g )

There is. Download RevoUninstaller. Universally acclaimed as an
industrial-strength removal tools. Free.

On Sun, 23 Jan 2011 17:04:36 -0500, aemeijers
wrote:

On 1/23/2011 1:42 PM, Kyle wrote:
On Jan 21, 12:31 pm, wrote:
One easy way to get your backups out of the building is to send them as an
email attachement [sic] to your Gmail address. Google now allows almost 8
gigs of storage space.

On Jan 22, 5:44 pm, Higgs wrote:
If I have more than one Gmail address, can I send
"almost 8 gigs" to EACH of those addresses? Or only a total to ALL
Gmail addresses?


As far as backups go, most of us aren't nearly paranoid enough, given
we keep personal financial and other critical data on our computers.
What would you do if you had a fire that destroyed the room where the
computer (and back-up external drive) are kept, or the whole house?

One on-site solution is to make your backups to your external hard
drive, unplug it and put it in a small fireproof safe with the rest of
your irreplaceables like birth certificates, passports, deed to your
house, etc. (How many of you don't even have those protected?)

HeyBub's off-site suggestion with Gmail is one way to go.

One that Lifehacker.com recommended that I'm going to set up this week
(now that our church has handed off running the cold weather shelter
for the homeless to another church) is called Dropbox: www.dropbox.com,
tho' you only get 2GB storage for free, and pay monthly for more.

Another idea is something my brother-in-law uses called Carbonite
(www.carbonite.com). While you pay a yearly subscription of $55, it
gives you peace of mind in a lot of ways, with guarantees of never
losing your data, heavy-duty encryption to protect very private data,
and simply automation of the back-up process.

HTH!

All these cloud solutions have one major drawback- they assume the
internet will be running. Major natural disaster, it could be weeks
before you have a good connection. I am guilty as most about no backups
or safe storage, especially considering that I sorta do computers for a
living, and have actual training on this stuff. Bought a fire safe five
years ago- it is still in the box.

For the REALLY critical stuff, 8gb thumb drives are down below 20 bucks.
Zip it to that, or to an alternating pair of them, Hide it at least at
the other end of the house, or if you have a lockable desk at work or a
nearby relative, hide it there.
There is another problem. There is NO security in the cloud that
cannot be easily defeated. No expectation of privacy/security.

On Sun, 23 Jan 2011 18:50:53 -0600, "HeyBub"
wrote:

aemeijers wrote:

All these cloud solutions have one major drawback- they assume the
internet will be running. Major natural disaster, it could be weeks
before you have a good connection. I am guilty as most about no
backups or safe storage, especially considering that I sorta do
computers for a living, and have actual training on this stuff. Bought a
fire safe five years ago- it is still in the box.

For the REALLY critical stuff, 8gb thumb drives are down below 20
bucks. Zip it to that, or to an alternating pair of them, Hide it at
least at the other end of the house, or if you have a lockable desk
at work or a nearby relative, hide it there.

VERY good idea. Used as a backup, thumb drives should work well in that it's
unlikely you'll hit the wall on dependibility. Thumb drives have only so
many read-write cycles (in the low thousands) before they crap out. Used as
backups, it should be many years before you hit the limit.

Use two. Keep one locked in your car glove compartment and the other
either at home or work, depending which computer you are backing up.
Encode with your password.

On 1/23/2011 8:25 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 23 Jan 2011 17:04:36 -0500,
wrote:

On 1/23/2011 1:42 PM, Kyle wrote:
On Jan 21, 12:31 pm, wrote:
One easy way to get your backups out of the building is to send them as an
email attachement [sic] to your Gmail address. Google now allows almost 8
gigs of storage space.

On Jan 22, 5:44 pm, Higgs wrote:
If I have more than one Gmail address, can I send
"almost 8 gigs" to EACH of those addresses? Or only a total to ALL
Gmail addresses?


As far as backups go, most of us aren't nearly paranoid enough, given
we keep personal financial and other critical data on our computers.
What would you do if you had a fire that destroyed the room where the
computer (and back-up external drive) are kept, or the whole house?

One on-site solution is to make your backups to your external hard
drive, unplug it and put it in a small fireproof safe with the rest of
your irreplaceables like birth certificates, passports, deed to your
house, etc. (How many of you don't even have those protected?)

HeyBub's off-site suggestion with Gmail is one way to go.

One that Lifehacker.com recommended that I'm going to set up this week
(now that our church has handed off running the cold weather shelter
for the homeless to another church) is called Dropbox: www.dropbox.com,
tho' you only get 2GB storage for free, and pay monthly for more.

Another idea is something my brother-in-law uses called Carbonite
(www.carbonite.com). While you pay a yearly subscription of $55, it
gives you peace of mind in a lot of ways, with guarantees of never
losing your data, heavy-duty encryption to protect very private data,
and simply automation of the back-up process.

HTH!

All these cloud solutions have one major drawback- they assume the
internet will be running. Major natural disaster, it could be weeks
before you have a good connection. I am guilty as most about no backups
or safe storage, especially considering that I sorta do computers for a
living, and have actual training on this stuff. Bought a fire safe five
years ago- it is still in the box.

For the REALLY critical stuff, 8gb thumb drives are down below 20 bucks.
Zip it to that, or to an alternating pair of them, Hide it at least at
the other end of the house, or if you have a lockable desk at work or a
nearby relative, hide it there.
There is another problem. There is NO security in the cloud that
cannot be easily defeated. No expectation of privacy/security.

But what about the commercials? Surely they must be telling us the truth
when they tell us how absolutely safe and secure our data will be?

Oh wait, a principle rule of data security is that you always must
maintain physical control over your data.