Where's the best place to store those precious memories? Or critical backups?

Where should you really be putting your most important Data? CD/DVD Disc? An external hard drive? Tape Drive? USB Memory Stick/Flash drive? Something else perhaps?  And what can we really expect in the way of longevity out of today's storage mediums?



CD/DVD

The vast majority of blank optical media (blank CD's and DVD's) sold today are of very low quality. 

It’s very easy to tell if the spindle of blank DVDs you just bought are junk or not. Look at the sides of the discs in the stack. Do you see lumps, bumps and inconsistencies?

If the answer is yes, they’re low quality. Don’t bother returning them because every spindle you buy will be like that unless you go with a specific brand which I’ll mention in a moment.

Truly good optical discs have no imperfections that can be seen by the naked eye. So should you pop over to staples or best buy and look through all the spindles of optical discs? probably not.

You know from above that off-the-shelf media today are going to fail, much the same way floppy diskettes failed at the end of their tenure. Manufacturers churn these things out without any consideration of quality file writes or reads for the long haul, they are not a "long term solution"

If you do opt to use CD or DVD media, don’t plan on having anything last for longer than 2 to 3 years at most before read failure. It doesn’t matter if you have  the best optical drive available, because there’s nothing you can do to stop the breakdown of the quality over time.




HARD DRIVE

One of the leading hard drive manufacturers Western Digital used to offer lifetime warranties on consumer PC hard drives, they stopped. Why?

There was a point in time when any Western Digital  Hard Disk Drive you bought had a lifetime warranty. Then WD knocked that down to 7 years. Then 5 years. Then for some models 3 or even just 1!

What happened is that the manufacturing process changed, and certain components on the inside of the Hard Disk Drive that used to be made from metal were changed to plastic.

I’m not saying WD drives are bad because I use them myself, but the phrase "they don’t make ‘em like they used to" definitely applies.

As a testament to this, there are still 286 PCs (circa 1982) out there that when started, the drive takes a really long time to spin up, it’s really loud once running, but it amazingly still works almost 30 years later and all the data is accessible and ready to rock. I seriously, seriously doubt hard drives made today will be able to boast that 30 years from now.

In February 2007, Google Inc. released a study that they conducted on their own computers entitled Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population. According to this study, which was the most extensive of it's kind ever completed, hard drives are most likely to fail if they are less than 3 months old, or more than 2 years old.

2 years!?

The best way to make a hard drive last as long as possible is to use two. A smaller hard drive for the operating system and a large one for storage. If you're not already doing this ask your IT technician about it, if you don't have one, we can help. This is a time-honored way of computing and it does allow for HDDs dedicated to storage to last longer than 2 years, but it's not an alternative to a backup, it's just better than one hard drive.

As for how much longer, standard fare is 3 to 5 years. A dedicated storage HDD will last for 5 or greater before showing signs of eminent doom. Doom that doesn't scream "hey I'm dying in here" until well, it's much too late. Luckily IT tech's have tools that measure the drive's S.M.A.R.T. (Self Monitoring and Reporting Tools) and can determine when a drive's on it's last legs, but only if they see it BEFORE that time comes.

And yes there are plenty of instances where people have had hard drives last well beyond the 7-year mark, however it’s never wise to assume that you will achieve that just because someone else did.

Heck lots of people have crossed the lake in early April because the ice looked thick enough, you want to go out on the ice too?

TAPEDRIVE
One word. NO. Not economical, not reliable, not cost effective, not easy to manage, not inexpensive, not an option.





USB FLASH

USB sticks have been around long enough to prove that they can definitely withstand the test of time better than any other immediately available affordable storage media.

If you write data to a USB stick, toss it in a drawer then 8 years later go to use it again, it will work. A hard drive used that way is an iffy prospect at best and I’d never trust optical media to last that long even with premium brands.

I’ll put it to you this way: If I were making a time capsule and wanted to put some data in it, I’d use nothing but USB sticks if I wanted something I could retrieve two decades later and have relative assurance it would still work and not have decayed beyond being usable.

The only known thing that can kill a USB stick is either unmounting it improperly (pulling it out while it's still being written to or read from) or running out of file writes as it does have a predetermined limit - yes you read that right, predetermined number of file writes. USB sticks, as with Memory cards for camera's, cell phones and camcorders have a pre-determined number of writes, somewhere in the multi-billions before they simply give up. And to my knowledge there's no odometer that says "almost done" when it's time to move on.

If it sounds like I’m telling you to burn discs less and use Flash media more, I am. Flash sticks don’t suffer from scratches or any damage from being a moving part because it doesn’t move.

But that being said if you're looking for something for regular daily use I wouldn't trust a USB stick much longer than a year before I switched to a new one.

CONCLUSION

So wait,  what's the answer? Hard Drives aren't built like they used to be, optical discs aren't long term enough, usb sticks only work if you well, don't plan on actually using them, what's the right answer?

A combination actually. A combination of a local USB flash stick backup of the most important files swapped for a new stick on a yearly basis And a hard drive backup, but not your hard drive, someone else's, somewhere else.

While 80% of computer failures are caused by hard drive crashes, the other 20% are not, the other 20% are fire, flood, theft or sabotage. And if your USB stick backup and backup hard drive are plugged into your computer when the Fire, Flood, Theft or sabotage occur, you've just lost everything.

My real recommendation is use USB sticks daily or weekly to store the most critical data and an online backup solution (which backs up to someone else's hard drives somewhere else out of the way of fire, flood, theft and most cases of sabotage).

But aren't someone else's hard drives just as likely to fail as your own? Yes, but online backup companies know that and prepare for it, everything you ask them to backup is backed up to not one but two hard drives at the same time, and the drives themselves are traded out for newer drives every 2-3 years depending on their previous failure track record.

Worried about security? The security practices that REPUTABLE online backup companies use to store your data, is the same grade of security that the US and Canadian military use to store their data, I won't go into nitty gritty details but you know the story of a million monkey's on a million typewriters? Well all you'd get is a lot of banana peels to compost.

So if you're not sure the backup solution you're already using is "ideal" for your business needs, give us a call, we'd be happy to discuss the details and provide a solution.

Imporant tips for managing employee Internet access

There’s a fine line between being Big Brother and keeping employees from wasting too much time on the Internet. And as we all know, there are plenty of ways to waste time on the ‘net: Facebook, Twitter, chatting, shopping, scores… you name it. But how do you manage control of your employees — and what type of control do you extend over them? Everything gets even more complicated if your business also depends upon the type of PR and marketing to be had from the likes of Facebook and Twitter. As more and more companies and businesses resort to these outlets for free advertising, different levels of control must be put into place.

Here are a few suggestions for tools you can use to manage this control, policies to implement, and ways to keep your employees from revolting.

1st Make sure you have a clear access policy Instead of employing controlling software, it might better suit your environment and employees to have clear policies in place that prevent the usage of certain Web sites during work hours. This method does call upon the honor system (unless you are using a monitoring tool), which gives your work environment a more relaxed feel. The problem with this method arises when you discover an employee abusing the policies and you do not react. If you lay out a clear policy and do not punish those ignoring it, you may as well throw that policy out the window.

If manually monitoring (over the shoulder) would take too much time or feel to intrusve to employees, as most managers feel it does, you'll want to look into tools that will monitor network usage for you. With tools of this nature, you can keep tabs on what your users are viewing online and then act accordingly. This is a much less Big Brother approach to managing what your employees are viewing. By handling this task this way, you are more inclined to have a lower attrition rate from employees not wanting to work in a controlling environment. Monitoring tools allow you to monitor employee Web usage from a single desktop. Some tools even allows the administrator to view employee bookmarks and favorites. Although some think this a better approach than implementing policies and preventing access to certain (or all) Web sites, many people view this quite the opposite. As I said earlier, it’s a very fine line.

DNS Redirection is an industry accepted method for Web content/security filtering using tools that are completely Web based. With DNS control, you can filter content, prevent phishing, block page bypass, protect against malware , delegate administration, and much more. You will have detailed daily reports as well as archived logs and statistics. With content filtering, you can select from more than 50 categories and prevent the use of proxies for bypassing filters.

Along with having clear policies, you have to be willing to offer some flexibility. During the holiday season, employees are going to shop online. During March Madness, employees are going to check basketball scores. You must be willing to give or you will find yourself with some upset employees. If you are never willing to bend on your policies, the attrition rate may rise during certain times of the year or with certain cross sections of employees. (Older employees may be less apt to take issue with such policies than younger employees.) 

The saying “Everything is relative” applies here — as does “Everything in moderation.” The real problem with employees surfing the Web happens when it interferes with actual work. This could be too much browsing or browsing to unsafe or inappropriate sites. You, as an employer (or manager) must tread that fine line between too much and too little control over what employees can do with their Web browsing. 

What measures does your organization rely on to manage employee Internet activity? If your approach isn't working, or you don't have one at all, Give us a call at Outhouse IT, we're here to help.

Your own email @facebook.com? Beware Facebook survey scam

Thousands of Facebook users have been hit by a scam which claims to give them early access to a facebook.com email address.

Messages, appearing in the news feed of users who have fallen for the scam, read: 

Just got my own email @facebook.com! Quickly get one before someone takes your name [LINK REMOVED]

However, clicking on the links leads you to a webpage which tricks you into giving a third party application permission to post to your Facebook wall.


Don’t, whatever you do, allow the app to have permission to access your profile. Because then it will start to spread the messages even further, starting with your online Facebook friends.

You won’t realise it’s doing that, of course, until it’s too late – as you’re too distracted by the form asking you for your email details.. oh, and the revenue-generating online survey that the scammers have put up in the front of it..

Note, these scam messages are not connected with Facebook’s genuine plans to give everyone a @facebook.com public email address.

Facebook expects to roll out that service more widely in the coming months, and will use your “publicusername” when live.

Here’s a YouTube video where Sophos will show you how to clean-up your Facebook account if you were hit by this, or similar scams:

Talking with techies

Talking with techies

As a techie* you probably have no difficulty communicating with your peers. You use acronyms, terminology and examples that your colleagues understand. The difficulty arises when you need to communicate with techies in different fields or when you need to talk with non techies such as customers, upper level management or the sales staff.

I write marketing material, presentations and web content for technical products and services. When I talk with techies I need to play the role of “designated idiot.”(I first heard this term used by Bruce Madole in 1994 at an HPCA presentation.) I have found that techies often assume knowledge that their audience may not possess. By being the designated idiot, I ask questions until I understand the process or product. When I understand, know the acronyms, expressions and terminology I can then write the web page, the white paper, the case study, the testimonial story or the marketing brochure.

When techies are presenting, talking to customers or training their sales staff they need to keep in mind the following principles .

Know your audience. Find out who they are, what they need and want to know. Determine their level of technical understanding. Some may not know the difference between an extruder and a die, or a browser and a hard drive. You need to be able to talk to them at their level – not down to them. You need to help them follow your train of thought, and use real examples that they can understand.

Talk about the benefits of features. As a subject matter expert, you know your product better than anyone but sometimes you see all the features and are blind to the benefits of your product. The benefits are what interests potential buyers and it’s what sells the product.

When talking to your sales staff or to a customer about design issues, talk about the benefits of the features. Describe how a feature will contribute to efficiencies, cost savings, or ease of use. Use practical examples from the field, not from the lab.

Beware, the devil is in the details. Techies are often frustrated because they want to talk about every detail such as the thickness and type of plating on a particular part. But the audience only needs to be assured that the part will stand up to the rigours of use. You may have spent months testing various plating materials to come up with the right one. So what? You now have the part that works effectively and won’t wear out like the one competition uses. When a savvy customer asks about the type of plating then you can provide the justification for the type of plating.

As a techie, you have a detailed knowledge about the products you design, and we hope you demonstrate that enthusiasm for the product. Be cautious about delivering a brain dump. Not only will you intimidate the technically challenged and but you will fail to impress the knowledgeable members of the audience. It is a fine balance. You need to provide enough information without overwhelming.

A techie with well-developed communication skills can be a powerful partner to sales staff and the marketing team, including outsourced suppliers (such as buzz4biz). You can provide great support when you are able to communicate with customers and provide in-depth and understandable answers to customer questions.

*For the purposes of this article “techies” is an all-encompassing and endearing term to describe engineers, engineering technologist and IT professionals of all kinds. It is not a term of derision, but a term of convenience.

This article shared from buzz4biz.

buzz4biz creates success through the written word.

They write to

• motivate employees
• protect brands
• maintain customer awareness.

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