I received an email from a company (Digital Agency) that I have been speaking to about some work and the email address of one of the staff members was a Hotmail address. At first I thought it was spam coming in but after looking at the content of the email it was the itinerary for an event/discussion I was scheduled to attend.
It got me thinking though. How many companies small ones I suppose still use their hotmail address and account to communicate with clients. Surely there must be some out there. If you troll through the flyingsolo.com.au forums you will see hotmail addresses and probably this very topic being raised regarding whether it is time to make the move to an email address that atleast matches the businesses name.
Obviously not everyone is ready for that so they continue to use Hotmail. Then if that is the case what if anything can they do to backup their important data like the emails, docs (attachments) and contacts that are stored within your Hotmail account.
So I dug around and found the common solution that is recommended by the tech geniuses out there and here it is.
This is the recommended method and it involves you downloading Windows Live Mail to your machine. This is the free email program that was launched as a replace to Outlook Express and of course Windows Mail which came with Vista.
Once you have it installed you need to sync the two systems so that a backup can be started and then maintained. Configure your email account with your Windows Live Hotmail email address and password.
Once the configuration is done, the syncing can then begin. Find the Sync menu within Windows Live Mail.
The Sync function enables your Windows Live Mail to download/upload all messages (and attachments) from your contacts. It ensure that you can now use either Hotmail or Windows Live interchangeably. This should remain in sync.
This backup method is great if you think your PC will live forever that your files will do the same. We all know that PCs crash and with the crash goes the data. The only way to secure this data is to make another copy of the email contents file and store it remotely using an external drive or even better an online backup service.
You can find all of your email as individual “.eml” messages in the Windows Live Mail storage folder. Located by clicking on C:\Documents and Settings\PC name\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows Live Mail
These are the files that need to now be backed up offsite.
If you don’t like using a service like Windows Live Mail, then maybe consider feeding your Hotmail emails into your desktop email client eg Outlook or into an alternative online email account such as GMail. By sending a copy through to another service you are effectively creating an automated backup.
Receiving: pop3.live.com
Sending: smtp.live.com
Use your full Hotmail email address and password for the login authentication.
Yes it is finally here. Are you ready for it though?
The new PC Operating System from Google which will be made available later this year via PCs called ChromeBooks is Google’s attempt to redesign the PC market.
ChromeBook is a PC that lives on the web, well everything inside it does not the physical PC itself. What does this mean?
It means that software doesn’t reside on the PC anymore, it all lives online and is accessed on the net. With a very light operating system and with applications living offline there isn’t much for a virus to latch onto, therefore no need for antivirus software.
The actual ChromeBook also comes with a very light hard drive so there isn’t an incentive to save much locally. Your data lives on the web, yes in that big cloud that we talk about. Your emails, your word documents, your spreadsheets, your photos, they are all up there, being securely stored for you.
It’s new, well it is an extension of the Chrome web browser as a thin desktop operating system.
What is also interesting is the deal for Government, Not For Profit and Business, where Chrome is looking to lease these notebooks out and then manage them on behalf of these users.
It will rent these laptops in bulk to businesses with the rental including tech support, rapid hardware replacement, automatic background updates, a Web-based management console for IT professionals (for managing users, apps, and policies) and a hardware refresh every three years. ZDNet
“The Google Chrome notebooks are almost effortless to manage. Staging, imaging, updating and repairing software problems are almost non-existent issues at this point. Replacement is as simple as handing out a new device with no IT involvement necessary.”
If these experiences by business are real and not PR then it will be attractive for many businesses as they look at ways to reduce their IT overheads and the ache of ongoing PC management. It certainly isn’t for everyone nor every business but there is a market for it.
Can you come to terms with having everything in the cloud? Having Google collect and protect your information for you. Protect you and your internet and digital experience, because it knows best.
Bare in mind, sharing it all with Google means you are sharing it overseas, not locally unless it decides to create local data centres.
It is all very new but not entirely new as we have all heard this stuff before but never has a big player brought to the market. Yet how successful will Google be at commercialising it? They are not the marketing machine that Apple is, far from it. In the business and Govt sectors they are trying to gain market share with the Apps and Gmail products. Long way to go though but they are making some in-roads.
I personally trust my backups to the cloud, I trust my email to the cloud but I also want them with me, somewhere locally. I would be ready to have a 2nd or third PC at home live on the cloud. I think it could work. I could get used to it.
The cloud seems to be in the media for the very wrong reasons of late. Or maybe they are the right reasons because one of the things that the cloud or shared services does, is share the good and the bad with everyone (literally).
I mean, if your local server goes and you revert to backup or revert to nothing at all, then the only people to suffer are your staff. They will probably get a few hours extra lunch or longer depending on the severity.
However, when Google loses Gmail data, everyone knows and lots of people are affected. This isn’t good for anyone but it does point to the reality of the cloud and relying upon it for everything you do.
All this recent media attention over the past weeks has shown me personally is that you can’t rely on any one source of data storage. Take Gmail email for example. I use it extensively and until last year I had never thought to back it up locally. I had never had reason to.
But in looking for article to cover in this blog, it occurred to me that millions of people trust their email to Google and millions have no real control over it should Google purposely or accidentally delete it. So I started to look up ways that it could be backed up and now I have a local version of Gmail that I can sync with my online version.
You see the reverse is also just as dangerous. If you use a local version of Outlook and your PC goes, so does your email. No one will complain to Microsoft (well they might bag Vista or XP). Should you also keep an offline copy of the .PST file, your data is safe. To me the risk is the same.
The lesson in all of this is that not keeping both a local and offline/online version of your critical personal or business files can be fatal. It has nothing to do with the cloud being safe or not. Things do go wrong, servers do fail, backup servers can also fail, local PCs crash, they melt in a fire and are damaged beyond repair when contaminated by water. These disasters happen to home PCs, to small business systems and even those used by large corporate.
What it doesn’t mean is that can’t trust anyone with your data. All you need to do is share it around (in a secure way of course). That is what big businesses do. They have local and offsite backup. They have disaster plans. Plans that enable them to continue operating their business even should their premises be damaged beyond repair.
Gmail’s failings couldn’t have come at a worse time for Google and several of its partners who are in the midst of launching Google Apps services in Australia. Backup will be the first thing executives will ask for before they even see the services they have to offer. They will want to be reassured that this new cloud solution is less risky when compared to what they have in place at the moment.
These are I suppose defining moments for cloud services in Australia. To date we have heard so much about what will come but have not really seen a lot. Now just when we start to see some real evidence of services, cracks start to appear that will push the acceptance of these services further back.
Searching through the NRMA website yesterday I came across their collection of iPhone Apps. One in particular caught my eye called the Valuables Vault and I will tell you why.
Over 12 months ago (and there is a post about it in this blog), I started contacting insurance companies such as the RACV, NRMA and several state based bodies regarding offering their members Carbonite as a way of backing up their Contents Checklist. You see, most of us have no idea what contents we have insured in our home.
If your house was to hypothetically burn down today, would know what to claim? Can you remember what you have in each draw that is of value. What tools you have in the garage. Think about each piece of clothing, each children’s toy, each DVD you own. There would be hundreds if not thousands of items.
The only way to accurately record this is to audit your home and list them all. Some insurance companies eg Suncorp where offering a piece of software that you could use to store this information in. When I spoke to them about it they were keen to phase it out because supporting it was quite difficult. There are also online versions of these tools and some are actually free. They also allow you to record pictures supporting your listing.
The danger with all of these tools is that if they are kept on your PC and your PC burns with the rest of the house they are useless. What you need is an online version of these tools or a backup of the data. That is the only way to ensure that your contents checklist is secure.
NRMA’s iPhone App the Valuables Vault is another of these tools. However instead of sitting on your PC the information sits on your iPhone. Personally I like the idea, however as with anything with an operating system it can crash or more likely you could lose your iPhone or break it. If the operating systems gets wiped then all of your data is gone.
What you keep on your phone needs to be backed up, particularly if you are going to be using tools such as the Valuables Vault.
I don’t have an iPhone to test this App and when they produce an Android version of it I will play with and let you know what I think of it. As I said I think the need for tools such as this is very important. The failure of the strategy for me is that only a small percentage of Australian’s have an iPhone. So the rest of the population don’t have a ‘special’ solution.
With the growth of mobile operating systems such as Android and WP7, NRMA has some catching up to do, because in no time, Android will over take Apple’s iOS system. WP7 might be some way behind.
If you don’t have an Apple iPhone then what I suggest you do is jump on the computer and open Excel. If you don’t have Excel then open your Word Processor. Create a table and begin listing all of the items you own. You will need to categories them eg clothing, toys, jewellery, electronics, DVDs, CDs, Furniture, Kitchen, Garage. It is a big job but well worth it once it is done.
Once you have it all accounted for, please then back it up. If you aren’t using an online backup service then back it up to an external drive as well as email it to your Gmail or MSN email account. You need to take a copy of this document offsite.
Picks below are from NRMA’s Valuables Vault, which you can access from the App Store.
I promise that this is my final post on my PC crash from last month. The point of this post is to give you my experience on what it is like restoring your Carbonite files from a previous version of Windows to the latest Windows 7.
The current and even previous versions of Carbonite are fully configured to work with Windows 7. When I performed my restore using Carbonite, I was really given two choices. Use the Remote Access service download the files I required for my immediate needs. Remote Access is accessible from any PC anywhere you have an internet connection. Remote Access is actually what you are given access to if you are using the mobile apps built for the iPhone or most recently for Android phones.
The alternate option you have is to do a full download of all of your files, that is a full restore. When I did my upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7, my PC actually created a directory for me for my Vista files.
You can see this via the image below:
With my Vista C: drive created, when I attempted to Restore my full backup from Carbonite, the files where restored to their original place which is as you can see marked by the Carbonite green markers on my Vista C drive. Given Carbonite restored them here it also recognised them as backed up.
The challenge with Windows 7 however is that the My Documents equivalent is not where Carbonite restored them to. Now from memory, I don’t think I was given a choice of where to restore them to. You are however given a choice when you manually restore files from your backup drive.
So with my files safe on my Vista Drive, I knew at the very least that I had access to all of them and that Carbonite recognised them and was keeping its copy of them. The next challenge I had was how to move them and what would happen within Carbonite when I did. What I have always told customers is that when you do your restore, if the green Carbonite dots don’t automatically appear (give it a little while) then Carbonite has not recognised the files as the original files and you will need to back them up again.
If I cut and paste these files into a different directory Carbonite isn’t picking them up automatically. I can only assume this is due to the file structure changing significantly.
Its certainly something to be wary of as you move from one operating system to another. Carbonite will do its job to bring the files back for you but it will place them where they originally where, and if it can’t find this place it will select one of the C: for you. This is a fantastic result but then the challenge remains moving them around within your Windows 7 directory and ensuring that they are backed up.
For me, this will have to wait till Dec 1, when my new Optus data quota kicks in and allows me to back 500GB apparently. I can then back it all up again and not worry about over stepping my quota.
Obviously not everyone is ready for that so they continue to use Hotmail. Then if that is the case what if anything can they do to backup their important data like the emails, docs (attachments) and contacts that are stored within your Hotmail account.
