In Sex in the City Carrie doesn’t back up her computer and loses all her writing.  We all feel her loss,  because most of us have been crippled by the loss .  Today, you can avoid the misery of resurrecting the software packages and personal files on your computer by backing it up onto servers. 

Two companies that assure you that they will be good stewards of your work are www.mozy.com and www.carbonite.com.  Both are easy to install.  Both are hassle free.

The quick run down:

www.mozy.com is designed for non commercial use.  It is secure.  And best of all, there is a generous FREE basic version.  The FREE version gives you 2 GB, with no setup fee, no credit card information, and no expiration date.  It is virtually hassle free to store documents, photos, etc.

All you do is register to set up the account.  Then, download the software and select the files you wish to upload.  Mozy.com uses the same encryption that many banks  do (128 bit SSL).  For unlimited storage capacity, the cost is $4.95 a month…a real bargain for peace of mind.

If you listen to Glenn Beck, you’ll hear him hawk www.carbonite.com on his radio show.  Unlike www.mozy.com, carbonite.com has a free trial for 15 days, whereas www.mozy.com will give you the basic package free for as long as you want.  However, just like www.mozy.com, the companies both claim they are risk free.  Neither will require a credit card number until you get to know. 

Once the trial period is over, the annual cost for unlimited storage is $54.95.  You can upload music, photos, documents, and videos.  It claims to be safe and secure.  The easy file recovery and the remote file access make it attractive for people on the road.

Mess around with these sites.  See which one works better for you. Let others know your thoughts by commenting below.

It isn’t enough that we are faced with the worst economic conditions since the Depression in 1929, but now we have to think about clickjacking.  Your probably haven’t a clue what clickjacking is, because I didn’t know either until a few hours ago.

Clickjacking is when someone uses a malicious webpage as an entrance into another’s computer to take control of the links that the victim has visited without his or her knowledge.  All desktop platforms seem to be vulnerable — internet explorer, firefox, Mozilla, Apple Safari, Opera and Adobe Flash.  I found this information on a ZDNET blog.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1972&tag=nl.e589

It’s scary that the brightest and best software engineers have been working on developing a patch and haven’t come up with anything yet.  But it is even scarier to think that anyone could come in your computer (your life in a box) and steal your identity, know your preferences, discover who you talk to.

How many of us use online banking?  Are secure pages going to stay secure if the clickjacker can access any link that is stored on my computer?  Are these clickjackers doing this for fun or are they serious thieves?  Government, hospital, and military records would be vulnerable to penetration.  This, coupled with our current economic conundrums, could really send the world in an economic tailspin.

On the bright side, I have confidence that the software engineers will find answers.  Somehow we always manage to pull it out.

We have all cursed at our computers.  Crashes, printer disconnects, log on issues, and the list is endless.
If you have any tech knowledge at all (and how can you avoid absorbing some things when evidence of the digital age is everywhere), www.zdnet.com has good articles and reviews on everything computer. 

The other site which is informative is Kim Komando’s site.  www.kimkomando.com.  If you can ignore all the surrounding things for sale, her information is solid.  She recaps what is going on in the IT world and offers interesting free downloads.  You should certainly check it out.  This site is not as tech sophisticated as zdnet, but I’ve signed up for her e-newsletter (she has four. I had to cancel three of them.  Way too much time to read them all.). In each newsletter I’ve learned something new.

You might also catch the Digital Goddess, as Kim Komando likes to refer to herself, on her syndicated radio program that airs usually on the weekends in the afternoon.  It is a call in show and this is probably the best way to learn this tech stuff passively. 

TIP:  Hey, I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t write this, but I know that most people do this, right?  As writers, we save our material every 15 minutes or so.  Instead of printing a hard copy at the end of each writing session, of course you make a back up on a flash drive.  Hard drives do crash!  And so will you, if you lost the only copy of your work.