From the Grand Bend Strip Community Newspaper

Never blog while operating heavy machinery

…as you may become dizzy by all of the no cost, easy to learn options available.

Blog is a term that describes a thing, a website. It also describes an action. To blog is to add (post) something to your website. It is a part of what has been dubbed the Web 2.0 revolution; the move to collaborative information sharing on the internet.

What is it in English? It is anything you want it to be. It is an opportunity to share your world view, your passionate hobby, news & events for a small business or simply to post your family photos. It can cost a little money to start or nothing at all. If you can compose an email, you can publish to the web in 15 minutes or less. There are millions of people doing it and hopefully after reading this column a few more folks will jump in and contribute to the Grand Bend area bloghood.

Special software structures your blog like an interactive diary. New posts show up at the top and older posts eventually become archived. Your blog can be open to the public, or a private website you share only with family and friends. If you choose, people who read your blog can leave comments. They can easily subscribe to your blog and see your new posts automatically. Not long ago, adding interactive features like this to a website required extensive computer programming knowledge. Blogging software now makes this and many other features quite simple.

If you consider yourself a newbie I recommend that you begin the journey by trying out Goggle’s free service, http://www.blogger.com. Follow the online instructions or take the quick tour for more information.

Once you have created your blog you can post new stuff by logging in from your computer, by sending an email to a special address or even post from your cell phone via text message.

It doesn’t take long to become a pro and you will discover there are countless services and software packages to satisfy your blogging needs. One of my favorite websites for learning is http://www.wikipedia.org. Here you can decipher any computer lingo you encounter along the way as you explore the ever expanding blogosphere.

Some of my local favorites include:
The self described “Beautiful Bodacious Succulent Diva” who authors the Red Hat Society blog for Grand Bend & Bayfield, http://sisterhoodofcelebration.wordpress.com/
Follow along as David Bannister shares his latest photography projects
http://web.mac.com/davidbannister
Stay informed with up to the minute news affecting our communities at http://www.grandbendstrip.com

From the Grand Bend Strip

Save the tears and back up your data

April 14, 2008

Technically Speaking
By Tamara Nicola

After years working as a software executive in a fast paced, high pressure career, I decided to quit my job, sell the house, and buy a Winnebago… to the shock of everyone close to me. Okay they talked me out of the Winnebago, but they couldn’t talk me out of moving to Grand Bend. I have fallen in love with our village and it’s a privilege to share some of my computer knowledge with the Grand Bend Strip readership. Today I spend my time focusing mainly on web design, e-commerce and the marketing of both. For my first article I want start with a very important topic, and that is Backup and Restore.

A healthy sob
It’s almost time to put down the TV remote, dust the Doritos off your chest and head outside in the evenings. I have to admit that I have become addicted to reality TV over the winter. Is it just me or have you noticed the contestants crying a lot more this season? From Biggest Loser to Survivor they are all having a healthy sob on national TV.
This reminds me of my years working for a Backup & Restore software company.
See where I am going here? Everyday I encountered people sobbing over lost data. Even if they managed to hold themselves together initially, they most certainly lost it when they saw the price tag to manually recover a hard drive.Literally thousands of dollars, and often times it was only partially successful.

Off-site solutions
Businesses have long understood the importance of storing backups off-site. A disaster that wipes out one location won’t destroy the backups, too. Online backup services, which automatically move duplicates of your critical data over the Internet to remote servers, are now available to everyone.
It’s not just businesses that need to plan for disaster recovery; with digital cameras the new norm, important family memories reside on hard drives that will eventually fail.
If you have DSL or a cable modem and are backing up to floppy disk (yikes!), burning files to CD/DVD, or lugging around a zip drive, it may be time for a change.
Online backups are affordable and some are even free. While not designed for a full system backup, they are a great way to protect your critical documents, pictures, email and music.
Security is an important concern. The online service should offer encryption of your data so that any stolen files are unreadable. Restoring should be quick and easy. I recommend that you practice restoring so when a crisis hits, you are calm and ready to go.

Hay Communications in Zurich offers a $9.95/per month plan and they have a free trial offer. Sign up online at www.hay.net
At Mozy.com, you can sign up for 2 GB of free space. They support both the PC and the MAC. PC Magazine rates Mozy as Editors Choice. www.Mozy.com
Windows Live SkyDrive. 5 GB of free storage is available. SkyDrive only backs up individual files, not directories but it has built in file sharing capabilities. http://www.skydrive.live.com