If you’ve been following my advice, you back up regularly. But there are times when you should know how to lock, stop, or FREEZE your backups so that you don’t ruin them. Let’s say, for example, you have a REALLY important document that gets corrupted somehow. Maybe the power shut off in the middle of what you were doing, and you can’t open the file any more. THIS is the perfect scenario for retrieving a file from backup. The problem is, if you back up that file again BEFORE you retrieve it, you’re Hosed! Screwed! Dataless! You get the point. The problem is that you overwrote the Good version from the last backup with the Bad version after it got ruined. How to prevent this? TURN OFF YOUR AUTOMATIC BACKUP when trouble occurs. Some do it by plugging in a USB memory stick. If so, just turn off the program that automates the process (like Allway Sync, for example). If you use an Online backup, look for a command or menu item that does this. In Carbonite it’s called Freezing your Backup. For this service there’s about a 6 hour time lag with all files, so you have that long to choose the Freeze option. If you do your backups MANUALLY, then that’s easy… just stop. Don’t run another backup until you’ve retrieved what you needed.
Windows has User Accounts for several reasons. Mainly for 1) personalization and 2) networking. Every once in awhile I’ll get a call from someone in a panic because they logged in and EVERYTHING WAS GONE. Sometimes it’s a virus, but usually it’s because they logged in to the wrong account. It’s good to know what accounts you have on your PC, and that they’re password protected, by going to the Control Panel –> User Accounts. You can change or remove any account as long as you’re logged in as an administrator. You should ALWAYS protect ANY user account with a strong password. It’s just another stumbling block to throw in front of a hacker if they try to get in to your PC. But did you know that you can still have windows log in to your favorite account AUTOMATICALLY? It’s a slick trick that you type at a command prompt (or in the RUN box) –> CONTROL USERPASSWORDS2 (caps are optional). Highlight your user account, then uncheck the box that says “Users must enter a password” then enter your password (twice) when prompted. The next time you boot up VIOLA! it goes straight in to your account. NOTE: You SHOULD NOT do this on a laptop, in case it gets stolen. This trick works in Windows XP, Vista, and 7.
If you like Techno-thrillers, you may have been watching the new series on CBS called Person of Interest. Starring Michael Emerson and Jim Caviezel, the show’s premise is that the US Government has a Super Computer that sifts through and analyzes the whole world’s data for terrorism. It also sees everything else. By 2013, THIS WILL BE FACT, not fiction. The NSA (National Security Agency) is building a “Data Center” in Utah that will collect information gathered from all other sources and sift through it. One of the primary goals is decryption, so it will be able to decode even the most sensitive data floating around the web. Since there is such a HUGE amount of data out there, I assume that it will look for certain “flags” in order to warn the intelligence community of any possible threats. This means that if you email a book report for your child about terrorism (or write a blog about the NSA’s activities 
) you could come up on their Radar. The US has pumped BILLIONS of dollars into post 9/11 technology. Many listening posts are already active, they just needed a really big place to store it and analyze it all. Bottom Line? Watch what you say, and how you say it… Big Brother is Watching. If you’d like to read more about the project, you’ll find a great article here. (Thanks Wired!)
Sync or Swim, I always say. With all the smartphones and tablets out there, lots of folks are “sync’ing” or synchronizing, their emails, songs, photos, etc. from their computer or web accounts. It’s fine when it works, but it can be a real headache if it misfires. How do you track down the problem? First of all, know your apps. You need to be aware of all possible culprits that made the mistake, and it could be more than one. For iPhone users, for example, iCloud can sync, but so can i-TUNES when you plug in to your PC. For Android users most apps are pretty specific to one type of object, like Picasa for photos, Google Calendar for appointments, Soocial for contacts, etc. But for Android THE LOCAL app (on the phone/tablet) may not be so obvious. Calendar is the one to check for your appointments, gallery for your photos. Keep digging around until you figure out this second half of the issue. Now, BEFORE YOU GO MUCH FURTHER… is your stuff backed up? You don’t want to accidentally change something and have all your files disappear. Ok, the next step is to start looking at the settings for the app. You may also need to log in to your online account and check the settings there. If you can’t find it, try Googling the problem to see if there’s an article. I just had a friend who DID NOT want her Picasa photos all dumped to her phone. With a little searching I found this article. (Thanks TricksWindows!). Be aware that occasionally a Rogue App may be involved. Facebook users were taken by surprise last year when the Android Facebook app suddenly added all their friends to the contact list on their phones. Grrr….
Keyboard nasty? Broken? Here are some tips: If it’s not working, try unplugging it and restarting your PC. Wireless? Check the batteries, and push the “connect” button. If it still doesn’t work, see if it’s programmable. These keyboards have lots of special (extra) keys, and can misfire. Google them by model and “reset” and you’ll find instructions. I just fixed my favorite wireless keyboard by doing this. But for GRIME and GOO what do ya DO? Lots… first of all, if you KNOW it will be in a nasty environment, buy a skin. It’s a cover that will prevent spillage. Otherwise it can help to use clean air and blow it out, but be careful not to apply so much pressure that it blows the keys off. If you REALLY messed up and dumped a Coke down there; 1) Unplug it… QUICK (remove the batteries if it’s wireless) and 2) wash it thoroughly in water. You can even put it in the dishwasher but use a gentle cycle and no heating on the dry cycle. Then 3) LET IT DRY – COMPLETELY. This is the most important part. Moisture and electricity don’t mix, so either let it sit for a few days, or warm it lightly in the sun, oven, etc. These steps may not save your keyboard, but then again, they might! Finally, keep some antiseptic wipes handy and clean the keys regularly. They can harbor some nasty critters. 
Self destruction isn’t just a human trait. Viruses do it too. I just removed one from a PC that caused EVERYTHING on the hard drive to disappear. I haven’t seen this type of critter in quite awhile. Another good reason to BACK UP YOUR STUFF. NEWS: Because of the surge of Smartphones and Tablets, IT analysts are trying to brew up a way to prevent sensitive data from getting into the wrong hands. See, these devices aren’t designed to mesh with corporate networks properly, so businesses are scrambling to plug the holes in security. Rather than try to fight this monster, they’ve realized that it’s much easier to simply have the data SELF DESTRUCT if this happens. So, much like Digital Rights Management (DRM) that we all know and love <– {dripping with sarcasm} this data would check for a “key” and then destroy itself if it weren’t present, much like a virus. This is just an idea at this point, but I expect to see it implemented within the next few years. Thanks for a great article by Matt Hamblen at Computerworld.
“What is a Searchable PDF?”, my customers often ask. Well, there are basically two ways to scan a document; 1) As a picture. These can be saved as JPG, BMP, or any other picture format. BUT they can also be saved as a flat, or picture-style PDF document. You’ve probably run across these if you’ve ever had a PDF where you COULD NOT select text. To get around this you need 2) to scan the WORDS within the document. This is called OCR, or Optical Character Recognition. The computer tries to interpret every little symbol as a letter or number, and then indexes those words for you, making it SEARCHABLE. Note that you can often OCR to a Word document or other editor and then spellcheck, edit, etc. You may need this because the accuracy of the OCR depends on the software and quality of scanned document. A lot of scanners now offer these options. OR if you own Adobe Acrobat (rather than just the Reader) it will OCR as well. Here’s an article that steps you through it (thanks CreativeTechs!). Powerful stuff…
Sometimes Outlook, or your email server, messes up. With all the syncing and smartphone use these days, there are more ways than ever to get COPIES, or duplicates, in your email, calendar, contacts, etc. If it’s email, there can be several causes. Here’s an article that has good starting points for troubleshooting this issue (Thanks Mike at Demand Media!). If these don’t help, keep searching, there is a LOT of info out there. But after the fact, once you fix the source of the problem, you STILL can have a big mess to clean up. I found a nifty free tool that can remove all duplicates from any given folder in outlook. You can download it here.
Did you know that deleted files aren’t REALLY deleted? Normally, even if you remove a file from the Recycle Bin in Windows, it only removes the first bit of the file, the rest stays intact. So if you’re getting rid of an old PC, for example, a savvy user can pull up things you intended to delete. The answer? File Scrubbing. This is a method of going through the free space on your drive and re-writing it several times with 1′s and 0′s. I found a great, free, utility that does this called Summit HDScrubber. You can get it here. Of course, you also need to watch out for hidden files, and other stuff. Before you scrub, remove your Windows account and the data in it. If you’re just going to throw the PC away, you can always just remove and pound the hard drive with a hammer.
I’ve been using the Samsung Intercept for about 8 months now, along with Virgin Mobile’s (VM) pre-paid service. I still like it, mostly for the price. This Android phone (and service) have issues that make them both mediocre at best, but I feel like I’m taking a stand against outrageous fee practices with the other “mainstream” companies. If you’re interested in cutting your monthly mobile bill in half, VM has several new Android phones available that are getting much better reviews. The one I’m eyeballing is the LG Optimus Slider. My wife bought the Optimus V, and it’s better than mine. But I REALLY like having a slide-out keyboard, so the new slider phone fits me to a tee. (See it here) It has a faster processor than most of the other offerings, which will be a much-needed improvement. The only other (repeated) gripe I see is about battery life. I’ve said it before, but just a reminder: On ANY smartphone, you will greatly improve your battery time if you’ll disable the GPS and WiFi features. Just turn them on when you need them, and you’ll get hours instead of minutes of phone time.