Backup: Easy. Secure. Inexpensive. Pick Any Three.
The joke is "good, fast, or cheap—choose any two" and for most things that is true. Carbonite, an online backup service breaks the rule by providing a service that's easy to use, secure, fast (depending on your Internet connection), and inexpensive. In 2006, an insert in an office supply mailing told me about Carbonite. I signed up for the free trial, expecting to drop it at the end of the trial period. Instead, I paid up and have continued to pay up. Carbonite is the future of backups, but you can have it today for less than $50 per year. Recent system upgrades to Carbonite's service make it an even better value.
Carbonite was good, but version 3.5 is better. For one thing, it's a must-have for anyone who's thinking about migrating from XP to Vista. Because Vista stores important files in different locations from XP, Carbonite's file migration wizard makes the process much easier. The new version of Carbonite also includes backup scheduling, file versioning, incremental backups, advanced file type selection, and the ability to select your own private encryption key.
All files stored on Carbonite servers are encrypted, but if you're the paranoid type and you want to select your own key, keep in mind that if you forget the key, your files are gone. I know that I could easily secure my own private key so that it would always be available, but I'm passing up the opportunity. I'll let Carbonite manage the key. Advanced users will like the ability to schedule backups and retrieve previous versions of documents. That's because Carbonite will automatically store multiple versions of files going back at least 90 days. If you overwrite a file, you can restore the earlier version.
This also addresses a concern I expressed in 2006: If a virus attacks files (as, for example, the "I Love You" virus did) an automatic backup system would overwrite a good backup with the damaged files. Versioning lets you get the good files back.
Another plus, and one that makes backups faster, is called block level incremental backup so that if you have a 3MB Excel file and you change a single cell, just that one cell will be backed up incrementally. And, if you shut down your computer when it has backed up 3,999,999,995 bytes of 4,000,000,000 file, the process won't have to start over when you turn the computer on again. Carbonite will remember where it was and back up just the remaining 5 bytes of the 4GB file.
I had an opportunity recently to speak with Carbonite CEO David Friend and I started by asking him about the latest new features ...
Bottom line: Carbonite is the fastest, easiest, most reasonably priced backup system you'll find.
Carbonite is exactly the kind of backup system I would design if I was smart enough to design a backup system. I'm not, but David Friend and company are. For less than $5 per month, you can safeguard your photos, music, financial records, and anything else on your computer. I could say that you're crazy if you don't sign up, but that would be mean and judgmental. Still, you're crazy if you don't sign up.
For more information, visit the Carbonite website.
Hidden Dangers in Skype
I recently installed Skype to use for conducting recorded interviews. The quality isn't necessarily better or worse than a standard telephone—the frequency response is better, but the echo is worse. I hadn't spent much time setting up Skype and several days later I found a hidden danger that Skype installs by default.
I was working on a report for TechByter Worldwide when the message at the left popped up. I use Vista and my first though was that this was a Vista protective warning. Then I looked a bit closer. Skype's chat function had displayed the message and the link shown certainly wasn't to Microsoft.
What made the message slightly more believable was that earlier that morning a website I visited in error tried to plant a drive-by virus. AVG antivirus spotted it and killed it before anything bad could happen. But then, a few hours later, here was a message telling me that my computer was infected.
It would have been easy to take the bait, but I didn't.
Think Before Clicking, then Don't Click
The message clearly had been formatted in a way to look like something Microsoft would send, right down to the list of affected applications. But Microsoft doesn't do something like this. The longer I looked at the message, the clearer it was that it was entirely bogus. It wants me to visit OnlineMon.info.
Let's see how honest OnlineMon.info is. I grabbed my Mac Powerbook and visited the site because OS X is unlikely to be affected by anything the operator wants to do.
The image at the left shows OnlineMon.info "scanning" my "Windows" file system, but the careful observer will notice that I'm using the Opera browser on a Mac running OS X 10.5.
I'm fairly certain that there's no Windows file system on this machine.
Having finished the scan (it took about 1 minute, which is far too short to be real, even if it had a Windows file system to scan. Of course it found infected files and offered to fix the problem.
At best, the "fix" (had I been on a Windows machine) would have installed applications I don't want and I might not be able to remove without paying.
When I cancelled out of the process, the site warned me that my computer wouldn't be clean unless I continued.
This is not an experiment Windows users should try!
Time to Fix Sykpe
I saw this message in the first place because of the illogical and unsafe way Skype is configured by default.
On the left are Skype's default privacy settings, which should be called publicity settings. On the right, the settings are correct.
By default, Skype starts when the computer starts and advertises your presence on the Internet. I've decided to allow Skype to start with the computer, but I don't want my presence to be advertised.
If you want to be interrupted, bothered, and pestered, allowing calls from anyone is fine. If you'd prefer not to be interrupted, bothered, and pestered, changing this setting to allow calls only from people you know is wise. You can also change other session settings to mark yourself "busy" or make yourself invisible.
OnlineMon.info exploited the default Skype setting that allows chats from anyone. This borders on criminal stupidity, which I know isn't a criminal charge. But it should be. Turn this off! It should be off by default.
The final setting to change on what I now call the "insecurity panel" by default allows your status to be shown publicly.
Stupid Spam of the Week
At least the writer of the spam used "lose" (as in the present tense of "lose, lost, lost") and not "loose" (as in the opposite of "tight") when writing this spam. I really don't understand how people confuse "loose" (not tight) and "lose" (missing) but spammers aren't the brightest bulbs in the package. Congratulations to this one for mastering the simple difference between "lose" and "loose". This spam suggested that I probably didn't want to lose my girlfriend. (Does my wife know about this girlfriend?) and offered a LICENSED drugstore. Would you do business with this company?
Even so, it's not written the way a native English speaker would put it: You do not want to lose your girlfried? is at best a clumsy attempt at a rhetorical question that should have been an exclamation: You don't want to lose your girlfriend! There's also the overly formal "you do not" where a native English speaker would use "don't". So many clues reveal this as bogus within the first 3 seconds. Why read further?
Here's the HTML version of the message. This "drugstore" works "all over the world" with clients from several continents because "Now you must not drug store at your region." In fact, I have never once "drug stored". In fact, I didn't even know that was a verb. It isn't a verb, of course, and this is another clear indication that the message was not written by a native speaker of English.
It's comforting to know that there are "special prices for you guaranteed", but I still think that I'll use my own local pharmacy. (Reason for some think I that wrote this spam Yoda did.)
Here's the same spam in its plain text version. Now I can see the link that was obscured in the HTML version. This "LICENSED" drugstore has a Geocities.com website address. Hmmm.
Would you trust a "drugstore" that must rely on a free website host? I certainly wouldn't.
Nerdly News
Blu-ray Won the War, Now Loses Battles
With the economy approaching, near, or in a recession, sales of Blu-ray players and discs are off. HD DVD is gone and Blu-ray has the market to itself, but Screen Digest media analyst Richard Cooper says it'll be slow going for a while. "A while" would be at least until the end of this year. Once the format war ended, sales of Blu-ray players nose-dived and now sales still haven't managed to climb back to January levels.
Cooper says Play Station 3 sales will have an effect on the market because the game console can be used as a Blu-ray player. That could help sales in the US, but not so much in Europe where PS3 sales have been low. Both Blu-ray players and discs are relatively expensive, but adoption will probably edge up as more people bring HD televisions into their homes.
Cooper says that Blu-ray won't account for more than one third of disc sales until after 2011 in the US. And if you look at European sales of Blu-ray discs, they're barely a blip.
In some things, I'm an early adopter. When it comes to television, I tend to wait until the price comes down. Things might be different if I spent more time watching television.
The C in CNet Appears to Stand for CBS
The old media continue to gobble up the new media in an effort to stay alive. CBS says it will spend $1.8 billion to buy CNet Networks, which owns CNet (well, d'oh!), business site BNet, GameSpot, TV.com, and the food site CHOW. In case you hadn't noticed, CBS also acquired the music website Last.fm and financial parody site Wallstrip. Oh—and celebrity gossip site DotSpotter. That last one probably has Edward R. Murrow spinning at about 78rpm.
CBS is buying eyeballs and CNet has a lot of them. The purchase price was about 18 times earnings before depreciation and other noncash expenses. CBS says it will leave the sites alone to do what they've been doing, but there's a good chance that some CBS News content will find its way to these sites. This will make Murrow spin even faster.
The acquisition will triple CBS’s Internet revenue, according to analysts. In some ways, CBS is seen as a white knight who will save CNet from investors who had been trying to take control of CNet's board of directors because they were unhappy with the company's recent performance.
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