My Review of Roku 2 XS Streaming Player

Originally submitted at Roku

Adds an enhanced remote for playing games, plus extra connectivity options.

Roku 2 XS Streaming Player

My 3rd Roku. They keep getting better!

By Kaptain Kenbo from Bend, OR on 8/16/2011

 

5out of 5

Pros: Compact, Easy to set up, High quality picture, Video selection, Easy to use, Reliability, Great value, SD Card option, Built in Wi-Fi

Cons: Need fast internet service

Best Uses: Primary TV, Secondary TV, Bedroom, Living room

Describe Yourself: Power User, Home entertainment enthusiast, Technophile, Early adopter, Movie buff

This was my 3rd Roku box. These keep getting better and better! I love the super small size, SD card option and the new game controller. This platform is working out to be what Google TV should be!

Netflix is now connected to the new box by signing in with your netflix account instead of the old way of linking your neflix account to your Roku box with a code. This new way is easier and more convienient.

I'm also a big fan of Angry Birds and aside from a small bit of jitter in the intro, the game performs flawlessly.

The only thing I didn't like is - compared to the older versions of the Roku box - this new one seems to be able to auto-adjust the bitrate without jumping out to the buffering screen as it did with the old models. This is a nice feature, but when you are watching a show and suddenly the video goes low-res for a few minutes without warning, it seems to throw me off. At least with the older version, there was an indication that the display quality was going to be reduced when the show would be interrupted with the buffering screen and you'd see it go down from "HD" to 4 dots, or something like that.

Other than that, KUDOS to ROKU for another great product!

(legalese)

Give Me My Files!

One of the issues I have with using more than one computer is getting files transferred back and forth across all of them.  I'm not just talking about moving files across my home network, I mean from disconnected networks such as my work and home computers.

Now that so many people have smartphones - even getting files like Microsoft Word documents across your home network to your phone to your work computer is something we all would expect to be able to do.  I've been using a product for a while now called Dropbox.  It's really a powerful product that makes this whole idea so simple. 

Dropbox is a small application you install on all of your computers and smartphone.  It makes it look like there is a new folder on your computer/smartphone.  All you have to do is move files into that folder and "poof!" the files are immediately available on all of your other Dropbox enabled computers.

Here are some really cool things I was able to do with Dropbox. 

I was in a conference call meeting at home and wrote some notes on my home computer in a Microsoft Excel file.  I then saved them to my Dropbox folder.  When I got back to my office, the file was there on my work computer.  Previously I would have had to pop in a thumb drive to copy the file.

I took a photo with my Android smartphone that I wanted to use in a Craigslist ad.  So, I moved the photo into the Dropbox folder on my phone.  Then I just went to my home computer and created the Craigslist ad using the photo out of the Dropbox folder.  Previously I would have had to hook up my phone to the computer to copy the photo.

There are so many useful features - I recommend you take a look at their site.  Click here for Dropbox. You can use the software for FREE.  With a free account you get 2GB of space which is plenty for most uses.  Of course, they offer monthly plans if you need more space. It doesn't matter if you have a PC, or a Mac, iPhone, Android Phone, iPad - even Linux - there is a Dropbox application you can download.

There is even a Public folder you can use to share files with other people.  For example, you could take a bunch of photos and share that public folder with your friends and family.  But, something in the back of my paranoid mind tells me that I don't want to copy sensitive files onto even the private area of the Dropbox folder.  That's just me.

Jedi Skill for the Internet: Force Search

I get a lot of questions from people about computer "things".  Some things I know because I remember running into it in the past, but most of the time the answers come from research done online.  Way back in the day, I had a huge library of Microsoft books on which I spent way too much money.  During the course of operating my business, I would refer to these books often.  It was just a part of my investment in the biz.

The Internet had just begun to get into techy people's homes between 1992 and 1993, as it did in mine with my first Netcom dial-up account.  I was amazed to find that Microsoft had jumped on board to put all of their Knowledge Base articles there.  I began to find answers much more quickly and I didn't have to buy all those books anymore!

Back then, we didn't even have Yahoo! or Google.  You just went to a specific company's web site and did searches from there.  Then AltaVista and Yahoo! evolved and now we have had Google around for quite a few years.

A little work in the Google search window can really get you a long way.  Let's say you bought a little appliance from a store and it stops working.  Most likely, if it is a common defect, you will find that other people are complaining about it as well, if you do a Google search on the issue.  You would be able to discover so many facts about the issue:

• What causes the problem?
• Is the manufacturer offering an improvement to the item or replacing defective ones?
• Where to send for the new item.
• Etc..

Case in point: We had a certain prominent branded washing machine.  I started to notice mold gathering up around the door seal.  I know we weren't using it incorrectly and the mold was VERY difficult to remove.  I started to get angry about it, but what did I do?  I ignored the problem.  What should I have done?  I should have Googled it!  When I finally got angry about it, I did Google it and found that the manufacturer was handing out vouchers to replace those washing machines with a newer improved model!  However, by the time I finally got around to Googling the issue, I saw that the voucher offer had expired two years prior.  That STILL eats me up to this day.  I could have had a nice new washing machine.  Now that's not a small dollar item!

Here are my 3 tips on using Google for your research. 

Be specific in your search keywords.  In the example above, I used the manufacturer name, series and model number of the washer along with the keywords: "mold" and "buildup".  The more specific your keywords, the more specific your results will be, saving you lots of time in results scanning.

Try using multiple combinations of keywords if you don't get good results.  For example, if I'm having problems with no sound coming from my BAKA (fake company name) laptop speakers, I could use the following keywords:

BAKA laptop speakers not working

or

BAKA laptop speakers no sound

or

BAKA speakers low volume

Being able to think of good keyword combinations is the key to conducting good research on Google.

Learn to scan the search results quickly.  Page scanning can save you valuable time when researching search results.  This is something that takes a lot of practice and I don't really have a way to tell you how to better do it except through repetition.  Page scanning is where you can quickly look through search results and have your eyes pick out the one or two relevant hits out of the many other not-so-relevant hits.  By a relevant hit, I mean a result that actually covers the subject matter for which you are doing the search.  A bad hit is where there is no relationship to what you are looking for at all.  Many of you probably know your "go to" person for answers to various types of questions.  Chances are, they have good page scanning skills.  I have to confess something.  Sometimes I find it frustrating watching someone carry out a search who hasn't practiced page scanning.  As I look over their shoulder while they do a Google search, I see the results come up and see them painstakingly reading each and every word, and clicking on every link.  It's no wonder why they would rather pick up the phone and call someone!  The only advice I have on this is to do it often and you'll start to "feel" which links are going to be relevant and which are not.  Truly, it's kind of like learning a new Jedi skill: Force Search.

May the search be with you!

Saying Goodbye To Your PC

There comes a time when everyone has to say goodbye to their old PC.  Personally, I don't get all attached to my PC's because I know in about 2 years, out they go.  Whether you are taking the PC down to the recycler, giving it away to a charity or selling it, you might not know this, but it is very risky to just hand over your PC to someone else. "Why," you ask?

Well, in this day and age, you've probably heard of identity theft.  After a couple years of usage, our PC's gather up a lot of information about us - and that can be dangerous if the information falls into the wrong hands.  "But I've deleted all of my files," you say.  There are plenty of software tools out there that can help someone "undelete" files - even if you formatted the drive!  Also, you might not remember where you saved all of your files.  So I'm hoping you can see the reason for wanting to clean your PC before getting rid of it. 

What you really want to do is "wipe" your drive.  This is done by software that writes 1's and 0's repeatedly on your disc - effectively wiping the drive clean of all files by overwriting them with the random patterns of 1's and 0's.  Even the government and military have certain requirements for wiping a drive clean, as you can imagine.

I personally use PGP software to wipe my drives before I get rid of them, but there is far less expensive software available for this.  In fact, you can find a tool called Secure Erase here for free.  You just download the zip file and read the text file included for instructions.

If you are giving away your PC to charity or to someone else, you might want to restore the PC (see my blog post on this) after you wipe it so the person or organization to whom you are giving it will have a nice clean PC ready to use.

It's 10 O'Clock! Do You Know Where Your OS Disc Is?

When people buy a new PC, they usually take for granted that there is an operating system (or OS) on it.  You know.. Mac, Windows, Linux, Ubuntu, whatever.  And, I'm not so sure that it's a BAD thing that they take it for granted.  However, the operating system isn't "built-in" to the system.  It's just like another "part" of the system just like the the monitor or the DVD drive.

Most Mac's and Windows PC's come with a disc or discs.  Windows PC's also usually come with a Proof of License Certificate of Authenticity sticker on the PC or on the disc cover - if the discs are provided.  If someone builds your PC for you, hopefully they are on the up and up and will provide you with the proper discs.  I have a big issue with people who build custom PC's and they try to cut costs by loading operating systems multiple times from the same disc.  It's still possible to do, but not as easy anymore. It was a rampant problem back when Windows XP and earlier were being sold.

Whenever I want to help people with their PC problems, I always ask if they have the original OS disc because if the problem comes down to doing a reinstall, I'm going to need it.  The reason I'm writing this blog post is because typically my friends will say they don't have it.  Shockingly, they don't know where it is!  So here I am, making this digital statement for perpetuity - DON'T LOSE YOUR OS DISCS! 

Sometimes the disc you get from the PC manufacturer isn't a Microsoft Windows disc.  Instead it's a "recovery" or "restore" disc which is used to bring the computer back to factory state, as it was when you first turned it on.  This is just as good. 

To be fair, some manufacturers like DELL don't actually provide a physical disc anymore.  Instead, they provide a special partition (or section) on the computer's hard drive which is used to restore the computer to it's factory state.

So the point I'm trying to make here is that you should know whether your PC manufacturer provides you with discs or with a recovery partition.  In addition, you should be aware of how to do the restore. This information will usually be in your PC's documentation.

Here's a scenario I see far too often.  A person calls me and says, "I got a virus, can you help me with my computer?"  First thing I ask is if they have Antivirus software - and usually the answer is that it's expired or worse, they don't have it at all.  (See my Anti-Whatever post)  Next, I try to make some kind of determination as to whether the virus has infected the PC so badly that it cannot be fixed in a short amount of time. 

I must clarify what I mean by "a short amount of time".  One time I worked on a relative's computer for 8 hours, thinking I had the virus removed.  All along the skeptical PC technician in the back of my head was telling me just to wipe it clean and restore it.  The next day, the computer was turned back on and started to exhibit the same symptoms.  Ugh!  So what I mean by a short amount of time is less than a half hour. 

Anyway - back to the PC incident.  I should have just restored the computer and saved 8 hours of time.  I asked my relative if the discs were handy - and what do you think I'm going to say?  No.. they weren't available.  So I was up the creek, or my relative was up the creek.  So what did they do to fix their PC?  They took the PC to a person who had no problem with installing an illegal copy of Windows.  How sad.

In conclusion - this is what I say when I have to help someone who has no way to restore their PC.. How sad.

DNS and Content Filtering

If you have ever set up your Internet connection or watched your ISP technician set up your account, I'm sure you've seen or heard of your TCP/IP settings.  One of the TCP/IP settings is the DNS.  DNS stands for (D)omain (N)ame (S)ystem.  It's a neat system that helps a computer know how to get around the Internet. 

Places on the Internet, much like places we live, all have addresses.  But the addresses on the Internet are not anything like the nice names we have like http://bytesforeveryone.blogspot.com/.  They are a set of numbers separated by dots or colons.  I'm not going to go into Internet addresses, or IP addresses here.  In this blog entry, I'm focusing on DNS. 

Whatever the address is, people usually can't remember big numbers as well as unique names such as http://bytesforeveryone.blogspot.com/.  So there has to be one big "phone book" which correlates these addresses to the unique names.  That, in fact, is exactly what is going on.  There are many DNS servers all over the Internet which are designed to "look up" addresses by unique names.  The DNS servers you use in your TCP/IP settings most likely pass the lookup request to other more "authoritative" servers at strategic locations around the Internet.

So, here's how it goes.  When you type in http://bytesforeveryone.blogspot.com/ in your browser, the computer goes out and makes a "DNS request" to your DNS server to convert the name to an IP address.  Then the browser goes out to that IP address to get the web page.  One thing that always amazes me is how FAST all that takes place.

Looking at my blog title, you might be asking yourself, what does DNS or address lookups have to do with content filtering?  By content filtering, I mean the ability to filter out - or block - certain content from the web to my home. 

Well, I wanted to find an inexpensive way to filter Internet content to my home.  There are so many software solutions out there for this - and I can hear you all telling me which ones you might be using - if any.  Another piece of software to load and which to subscribe didn't make me happy and I wanted a way to do this at my main Internet connection point inexpensively.  Things were looking dismal as I was not able to find anything inexpensive.  I found all sorts of expensive firewall-type devices and services.  All of which didn't seem to suit my needs as I'm always looking for solutions that home users can afford or can set up. 

Here's what I did.  I found that there is a company called OpenDNS who has their own DNS servers which you can use for free.  If you sign up for a free account with them, you can actually use their servers to filter content!  In order to get the content filtering, you must sign up for the free account.  They have a pay version as well, but that's not necessary for home networks.  Here's the link for home users: http://www.opendns.com/solutions/household/

At the time of this writing OpenDNS has 2 DNS servers:  208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.  Once you set up your OpenDNS account, you simply put these 2 DNS servers in your network router.  When you do this, the router will feed these DNS server addresses to all of your home PC's, unless you have a smarty pants who knows how to bypass the settings distributed by the router.

Once you set up your OpenDNS account, you can configure what types of content you want to filter.  I have found it to be very good at what it does and it's pretty good for the price.

Until next time.

External Drive Talk

External hard drives are a very useful tool in your arsenal of PC peripherals.  They are useful for hosting your backup files (See Backup, Backup, BACKUP!) and when your main PC drive is starting to run out of space.  Certain types of external drives can be used for central storage of your music and/or family photos.

There are two types of external drive connections.  One type is via USB, SATA or Firewire, where basically the drive is connected directly to your PC, while the other type is via ethernet or wireless connection to your internal home network. 

If you connect a USB drive to your computer, you can expect theoretical speeds at 12Mbps with USB 1.1 and 480Mbps with USB 2.0.  Firewire is rated 786 Mbps (Firewire 800) theoretical.  SATA can get you much higher data speeds, which can go higher than 1.5Gbps.  Again, all these are theoretical rates, actual rates are affected by many factors - even temperature!  But again, these types of connections are just direct to your computer alone.

If you read my previous blog Kilo, Mega or Giga Speed, you'll get an idea about Internet connection speed.  Internet connection speed is typically slower than local network speed.  Most of today's PC's have Gigabit speed ethernet cards built-in, and therefore you can assume connection speeds at 1Gbps theoretical.  What you get actually is affected by the same factors affecting Internet connection speed. 

Connecting an external drive to your local network is very useful because you can share music files, photos, and other files with all the other computers on your network.  Contrasting that with a directly connected external drive you get sole use of the drive.  Each type of drive connection has it's place. 

At the request of a relative, I want to focus a little on a network connected external drive.  No matter which type you get, you want to remember the old addage, "A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link".  Or, by changing the words a little bit, "Your network speed is only as fast as the slowest device."  Lets say you have a Gigabit speed network card built in to your PC, and you went out and bought a discounted network external drive that has only a 100Mbps network connection.  You've effectively slowed down your network by connecting a slower device.  Many consumer grade wireless routers do not have Gigabit ethernet connectors simply because at the time of this writing, you can't get wireless speeds to go that fast, nor can you get (home) Internet speeds that fast.  So there isn't a need to put Gigabit speed ethernet ports on the wireless router.  So if you use your wireless router as the main point of connection between your PC and the external drive, and the wireless router has 100Mbps ethernet ports, then you are limiting the speed which you can write and read your data from the drive. 

Here's what I do.  I use what is called a Gigabit network switch.  You can purchase multiple port Gigabit switches which you can use to connect all your internal network devices.  Forgive the cheesy illustration, but this is basically how I have my network. 

Connect the Gigabit switch to all of your internal devices and then to the router/firewall.  Be aware, that if you are going to try to access files from the network attached external drive over a wireless connection, you have to think about the old addage I wrote about above.  At the time of this writing, gigabit speeds over (home) wireless devices has not yet been attained, so your wireless connection will be the "weakest link" when you are trying to copy files to or from the external drive.  Just to give you an idea, wireless connections can range from 11Mbps to above 54Mbps depending on what type of wireless protocol is being used by your wireless router and wireless network card in your PC.

With this information, I hope you are able to build your own little digital home empire! 

Kilo, Mega or Giga Speed

If there is one thing that seems to baffle people about their connection to the Internet, it's the mysterious concept of connection speed.   Your ISP sold you a connection to the Internet at a certain speed.  Maybe you didn't really care what the speed was when you bought your Internet connection, or maybe you did.  I live in a city that has a technically advanced ISP who sells a whopping 60Mbps option.  Unfortunately, they also limit or "cap" the amount of Internet data I use.  Whether you still have a modem with your screeching 56Kbps connection or you have cable at great speeds like my provider sells, at some time or another the question of actual speed seems to come to the surface.

Connection speed is generally measured in bps or (b)its (p)er (s)econd.  So when you see Kbps, that means Kilobits per second or thousand bits per second.  And if you see Mpbs, that means Megabits per second or million bits per second.  Gbps means Gigabits per second or billion bits per second.  At the time of this writing, I have not yet seen Tbps or Terabits per second which is trillion bits per second.

Lets create a hypothetical ISP customer named - eh.. Ken Shnayal.  Mr. Shnayal calls up his ISP and gets a blazing 10Mbps connection.  They come out and install the service by connecting directly to his primary computer and verifying that it meets standards.  Yay!  Mr. Shnayal is so happy.  He starts to try out his new found connection by going to Netflix and watching his favorite old movies.  All is going well.

Mr. Shnayal decides that he wants to join the wireless world and buys a fancy-dancy wireless router.  Wow!  Wireless freedom!  He finds out that he can hardwire connections to the back of the wireless router as well as enjoy wireless connections.  Suddenly Mr. Shnayal sees all sorts of opportunities to connect all kinds of devices wirelessly as well as via ethernet (using a wire).  During all of his excitement, he starts to notice that things aren't going as fast as they used to.  The Netflix movies are pausing and buffering and some sites seem to be really slow when loading.  So, Ken decides to go on a fact-finding mission.  He finds a 10 MB Adobe PDF online from his community college web site and clicks on it to see how long it takes to download.  It should take a second right?  But the file takes almost 12 seconds!  WHAT???  Mr. Shnayal calls his ISP demanding some kind of fix.  So, the Internet cable guy comes out and moves the Internet connection directly back to the original computer on which it was installed and retries the same test with the 10MB PDF with Ken watching over his shoulder.  The file downloads in 9 seconds and the repair guy says, "Ok!  We are done here."  Mr. Shnayal is confused, so the Internet cable guy explains.  "There is a difference between 10 Megabits and 10 Megabytes.  A bit is the most basic piece of information used by a computer.  A bit can either be 0 or 1.  Whereas a byte is made up of eight bits."  (The reason for this will be the subject of a future blog entry).  So the connection that Mr. Shnayal bought is rated as 10 megabits per second, but it can also be considered a 1.2 mega bytes per second connection.  So when you divide the 10MB file by 1.2, you come up with  8.33 seconds.  So the file should have transfered in 8.33 seconds in an ideal world.  9 seconds would actually be a reasonable rate of transfer.  So what happened when he saw it go up to 12 seconds?  Most likely the problem came from having the data go through his fancy-dancy wireless router.

So we come to the whole point I'm trying to make.   The Internet is made up of all kinds of devices all over the world from manufacturers all over China - er - the world.  In my experience, you will see degradation in your Internet connection originating from consumer grade networking components.  Once I bought a wireless router from a popular manufacturer as it was claiming all sorts of features that I wanted.  I brought it home and noticed an instant performance decrease.  I called my ISP and wanted to blame them because I had just spent all this money on this new fancy-dancy wireless router and how could that be at fault?  Well, it turned out that it wasn't the wireless router, but the compatibility of the wireless network card in my laptop and the wireless router.  Sure enough, the purchase of a new wireless card proved to be the answer.  In reality 12 seconds difference from the theoretical 8.33 seconds it should have taken is not that bad.

There are many other external factors to Internet connection speed as well.  Things like the load on a site or load on a certain network "path" can cause a slowdown situation as well, sometimes only momentary.

Here's what I do.  I use the site http://www.speedtest.net/  This is a really cool graphical site that can identify where you are on a map and provides you with nearby testing locations from which you can obtain speed statistics.  Sometimes your ISP has their own speed test site about which you will only discover if you call them about it.

Bottom line - if you are a stickler for the speed, you need to do some research and pick good networking components.  Be ready to pay a little more now and again for higher performance, and coming up with good compatibility combinations.

Happy speed testing!

Make, Model and Year?

Frequently I am asked the question: "What kind of computer should I get?"  When I hear that question, sometimes I feel like I'm being asked a trick question.  "Uh.. I don't know.. the cheapest?"  This question gives me the impression that people think about computers like cars.  Kind of like: "What kind of car should I get?"

I get what people mean when they ask me that question.  So here I am writing a blog entry that hopefully can help with it.  When someone asks me what kind of computer they should get, the first thing I ask is, "How much money are you looking to spend."  How much you want to spend can really help filter out the "other" kinds of computers you should not get.  Once you know your range of tolerance for dipping into your finances, you can start to ask about the style - laptop or desktop.  For the same computer internals, you can typically get a desktop computer for less than a laptop.  Here's something about choosing a laptop.  Some people get the idea that they want a laptop.  They buy the laptop, and put it on a desk in their home and surprisingly never move the laptop!  So why get a laptop?  Anywayssss....

Basically, there are 6 components to a computer that really matter, in my opinion.  These are:

• CPU type and speed
• RAM (memory)
• Hard Drive
• Video Card
• Monitor
• Operating System

If you buy a computer, I always recommend that you get the best of each of these important items that you can for the money you want to spend. 

At the risk of not having to update this blog entry every 3 months, I'll try to keep the terminology to a minimum when describing how you shop for these items.

CPU's are the main "brains" of your computer.  I liken it to the engine in your car.  No engine, no go.  No CPU, no doing computer-type stuff.  CPU's are known by their manufacturer (Intel or AMD), family (Core 2 Duo, i7, Optera, etc..), and finally speed (usually in Gigahertz or GHz). 

RAM is the memory from which your computer runs programs.  Let's just keep it simple and say get as much RAM as you can.  Usually RAM is measured in units of Gigabytes or GB.

The hard drive of your computer is where you store things.  Programs, pictures, music, documents, etc.  Hard drives are measured in terms of Gigabytes (GB) or Terabytes (TB).  A Terabyte is one thousand Gigabytes.  So.. again, get as big of a hard drive that you can.

The video card is the electronic component connected to, or built in to the motherboard.  I really hate to say this, but if you are going to be playing games, you will want to spend a little extra on the video card.  If you are going to be playing games, you probably already know this.  If you are going to be doing things like email, browsing the web and such, you will be fine with whatever video card comes with the computer.

The monitor is another personal preference.  I like BIG monitors with high resolution.  Resolution is measured by pixels.  Basically a screen dot.  The laptop from which I'm typing this blog has a resolution of 1920 x 1200.   This means that my monitor can show 1920 dots horizontally and 1200 dots vertically.  The higher the resolution the better, and more expensive.  Be aware that you will want to match the maximum resolution of the output of your video card with the maximum resolution of your monitor.

Lastly, the operating system is to be selected.   However, when you are pricing computers, you really won't have that many options when it comes to this.  Package deal computers are going to come with what the manufacturer loads.  What I really mean here is whether you want a Windows PC or a Mac.  I'm not going to really get into this because there are a million other sites you can go to for this argument.  You make up your own mind. 

All in all, I've found that people usually want to buy the cheapest thing they can find.  And that's just fine!  Computers get "old" very quickly because of technology advancements, so when you go to buy your next new computer, you won't feel so bad that you bought a cheap one last time.

If you really want to get geeky, you've got some patience and a few extra bucks, maybe you'd want to build a computer yourself?  No?  Yes?

Anti-Whatever It Is

As PC owners (in contrast to Mac owners), we have the distinction of having to protect ourselves from bad software which is out to get us.  Now, before I get all kinds of angry emails making it sound like I hate Macs or Mac owners, I have to clarify this - I am not a Mac hater.  I happen to love Macs.  In any case, back to our subject matter.  Even before the days of the Internet, we've been dealing with viruses on our PC's.  I remember the first virus I ever saw was after I unknowingly bought some "discount" software in Hong Kong while I was in the Navy.  I remember the utter shock I experienced when I typed in "dir" at my command line and up popped:

Your computer is stoned.

Viruses have gotten a little more evil since those days.  But, did you know that it is possible to never run across a virus at any time in your computer life?  It's true!  However, this comes at the expense of a few behavioral practices.  I'm going to list some things to do - or not do - which will help you avoid ever seeing a virus. 

1.  Get virus protection software.  Now, I know you're thinking that I said it is possible for a person to not ever run across a virus, so why am I suggesting getting virus protection software?  It's simple, it's the same reason why you lock your car when you go into the store.  You might not see criminals hanging around in their "criminal clothes" in the parking lot, but you just want to make sure.  It's the same with this.
2.  Don't open any email attachments - period.  HUH??  Don't open any email attachments?  How is that possible.  Remember, I'm giving you steps on how not to ever run into a virus.
3.  Don't ever go to a web site looking for free copies of copyrighted media.  By this I mean free copies of software like Microsoft Office or Adobe CS, or movies or music. I know of so many people who took on a virus because they heard of a way to download free movies, only to find out that their computer had a virus.  I can't stress this item enough.  In fact, every time I have helped someone out after they had contracted a virus, it was because of this single cause.
4.  If you are a parent, don't let your teenage kids use your computer.  I'm only joking.  Sort of.

Have you ever wondered what a virus is?  It's not software that "went bad".  Instead, it's software that some otherwise really talented person wrote to purposefully install itself on your computer and do bad things.  I'm a person who is always looking for someone's angle on why they do things, and for the life of me, the only reason I can think of for a person to create viruses is to support their own narcissistic goals.  I really have a low opinion of people that make viruses.  The reason for this opinion is because I think about all of the good these people could do if they focused their efforts on productive endeavors. 

Here's what I do.  I have used many other anti-virus software packages throughout the years and I've really grown to trust and recommend Trend Micro's anti-virus products.  I use them on my own personal computers and on my company's servers as well.  Most anti-virus software will cost you an annual subscription fee, but it's money well spent.

Can Someone Guess Your Password?

For those who know me, there is one computer related subject on which I don't hold back my views.  That subject is related to personal computer security: your passwords.  In this day and age, people have usernames and passwords to somewhere between 10 and 25 web sites.  Some of us, have many many more.  What I'm about to write should make you think twice about how you come up with passwords for any future accounts you might create. 

Let me ask you a question..  Is there a web site that, if someone were to know your username and password to it, would be detrimental to your financial well-being if that person were to get in and "do damage".  I think everyone who reads blog would answer yes.  So far, you're thinking, "What does this have to do with computers?"  Be patient.  I'll get to it.

So, we all agree that there are some sites that we really need to secure with a good password.  So you've probably thought of a good password for the site I just asked you about, right?  A good password is one longer than 6 characters (the longer the better), and doesn't include any real words.  And for goodness sake, don't use any part of your name or your kids names, or your pets names.  Another criteria for a good password is to have numbers and letters as well.  Oh, and a combination of upper-case and lower-case letters would be even better.  Some sites allow what they call "special characters" which are characters like exclamation points, question marks, etc.  If you can, throw those in the mix too. 

Getting on with my point...  In contrast, there are a lot of sites which you might think aren't as important, or don't have anything really worth the password.  So you might have made a so-so password for this kind of site, am I right?  Oh.. Wait.  Don't tell me.  Please don't tell me you have the SAME password for both of those sites. 

Why does it matter?  Well, here's why it would matter.  A "lesser" site might lead you to a cavalier way of thinking about the password for that "lesser" site.  Even though the password is the same as the highly secure site, you think of it as a different password categorically, even to the point of where you might write that password down on a piece of paper and stick it to your monitor, or where you might type that password in an email to someone, or maybe in a conversation with someone you might actually TELL someone your password.  See where I am going with this? 

You might be thinking, "So what?"  They have the password to that ONE site.  So what?  Human behavior tells us that people are generally lazy and there is a very high possibility that if you have someone's password for one site, you just might have the password for every other site that person visits.  Now there's a problem!

Let me tell you what I do.  I use software that helps me keep passwords for all of my web site accounts.  The reason for this is because I can't possibly remember all of those strange passwords I have created for those accounts.  I have this software on my smartphone and on my computer.  This software is also backed up so it won't get lost.  You have quite a few choices in the software you can use on the market.  I happen to use eWallet by Illiumsoft.  I find it very useful and have been happy with using it on all of my smartphones from the Palm days to my present Android Droid X. 

An important feature you must have in the software you use is that it must be password secured itself.  Basically, I only have to remember one password.  And what if someone gets my phone, can't they get into all of my passwords?  That's a valid question.  Another important feature of this software is that the data must be secured on your hard drive with encryption.  Meaning that if I'm not logged in to the software, and someone got my phone, it would be "very difficult" to get at the passwords.  Notice I say, "very difficult" and not "impossible". 

I must apologize for not blogging about a computer-ish subject today, but I think it's a foundational subject on which I can build on my future blabberings.

Backup, Backup and BACKUP

If there is one compelling reason for me to create this blog, it's to try to convince people to back up their computers.  I've discovered that most people regard backing up as an unnecessary endeavor.  Those same people usually end up telling me, "There's nothing on my computer that I really need."  And I don't want to push the issue, but if you are one of those people, please allow me to at least give you something to think about.

Obvious Items for Backup
Everyone always thinks about the "big" items which we all agree would be a great loss if they were to be lost.  Things like:

• Finance records
• Important documents
• Family photos
• Work files
• E-Mail

These items are usually what people worry about in the back of their minds when someone like me talks about backing up their computer.

Not-So-Obvious Items for Backup
Your computer has been programmed to try to remember your favorite things.  Examples of these are:

• Your desktop
• Your Internet favorites
• Settings of all the programs on your computer.  Most people can get by if these were lost

These not-so-obvious items are usually not critical, but if you were to have to recover from a loss of data, seeing an unfamiliar desktop and having to train all of your programs all over again can be a big pain.  So even if you can't think of any of the obvious items above for encouraging you to think about backing up, maybe these not-so-obvious items might compel you.

What is Backing Up?
Sadly, there are a good deal of people who think backing up is something hard or impossible for them to do.  But, what is backing up really?  It's the same thing you do with your real files.  I was in the military and one of the most important documents from my military service is what is known as the DD214.  This document records what you did, what awards you earned and under what circumstances you were discharged from the military.  So, it's very important, and basically, I have about 10 paper copies of this document.  In comparison, a computer backup is just a copy of your files.  How you get that copy and when you do it is obviously just as important.  If you lost your financial data, and the most recent copy you had was from 6 months ago, then, in my opinion, it would be just as bad as if you hadn't made a copy at all.  So, backing up could be something as simple as copying your files to a thumb drive or CD or DVD.

What to Back Up?
Well, above I mentioned some of the items you'd want to back up.  But another situation I have found is that there is another group of people who don't know where to find the files on their computer in order to back them up.

Backup Software To The Rescue
This is where backup software comes in.  Most backup software already knows where you keep your files - like in My Documents, and other locations.  And most backup software is easy to use.  A click of a button and its off and running.  Or it'll ask you what time it can run at night when you're not using your computer.  I'm not going to go on and on with all the different software available for backing up.  I don't have the time, nor am I interested in doing a side-by-side comparison.

What I Do (For What it's Worth)
I'd like to tell you what I do to back up my computer, and you can form your own opinions on the matter.  I use software called Carbonite.  I really like this software because it runs on auto-pilot and runs in the background, or in other words, it operates without me knowing about it.  Whenever it hits a file that it hasn't backed up, it encrypts the file and sends it to a secure location on the Internet.  I don't have to worry about copying to CD or a thumb drive.  As good as it is, however, Carbonite cannot really restore my computer to it's former glory if my hard drive were to fail for whatever reason.  I would still have to make the appropriate hardware repairs, install Windows again and then restore my files from Carbonite.  And that process would be rather slow.  But at least nothing would be lost! 

A further method I use is to do a frequent backup of my hard drive using Windows Backup, which is a part of Windows 7.  This backup method asks me to copy it to some sort of external hard drive.  My preferred drive is a Firewire-connected external hard drive.  I always choose to make a full copy of my computer with this method.  And, conveniently, if I had to restore from that method, it's a matter of booting my computer with my Windows 7 DVD and then choosing the restore option.  After Windows writes the files back on my repaired hardware from the backup on that external backup drive - "Voila!" I reboot and it's like nothing ever happened.  I know this from experience, because it has happened to me more than once.

Get Into the Habit
Backing up isn't such a mysterious thing.  It's just a habit that needs to be developed.  Trust me, you may think there isn't anything you need on your computer, but there is always that "Oh NO!" moment when you remember that you kept all of your passwords on some notepad text file that is now gone because you thought you didn't need to do a backup.   Speaking of passwords - that's the subject of my next blog entry.  Stay tuned.

Anyone want to share a backup horror story? Or rather a lack-of-backup story?