General computer user advise

[Manator]

Following on from the recent problem that Sidewinder had with lost data, I was wondering if anyone would be kind enough to post in this thread any advise to non computer literate people (like myself), I have had the same problem as Sidewinder and still have done no backup or boot file.

The advise can be anything from what is the best back up tools, data recovery, the best serch engines etc etc.

I have had a look at Ubuntu recently, if I did change would this give me any better results than normal windows for instance?

I do know from my time at an institution for learning, that the Linux was considered far superior to windows as an operating system, but was not very user friendly, has this changed? Anyway you get the gist.

Any links, or downloads can be placed in the usefull links, or download sections, could be a very good thread to discover how to get the best out of your PC or laptop.

 

[NozSpark]

I just deleted the thread I've just made on this as I think it'd be better to keep it all in one place

My thoughts were...

as I have a website & host space (I've loads spare ATM) I was thinking of synching my pen drive to my webspace (a secure folder),,,, so I'm after something that'll do it automatically..

does anyone know of some software that'll do this for me or if they can see a problem in what I'm thinking of????

 

[steptoe]

Im not very PC literate whatsoever, in fact I would place myself in the totally no hoper category ,

this is what I use and find it SOOOO much easier and better than windows,

remember tho, if you know windows, this is NOT windows, it is different, and, IMO better.

BTW, I recommend the 10.04 version, not the 10.10 version that is set by default.

Download | Ubuntu

also available in netbook,notebook, and server forms.

manator, I think for data recovery issues better on a one to one basis rather than a clean this will do your job thing.!

BTW, almost all back up tools and nearly all servers run on a form of UNIX (LINUX) so perhaps that says something, even HFS (mac format) is a somehow derivative from linux formatting,(canoe please correct if I am wrong)

if any more weight is required it is perhaps an interesting note that almost all Linux systems ('ext' format) can access windows formats, FAT or NTFS but the reverse cannot be said, they can even access DOS in the correct circumstances.

 

[NozSpark]

Yes if you have a MAC or Linux you can do it very nicely for free, never done it on windows although GBMPro will backup data over FTP so that should work and its very good software However most WebHosts define the storage space as being used by the website ie they regularly check the data and if it looks like data nothing to do with your webspace it may get deleted or you may get warning, this includes ***nel backups of your site and sql dumps etc, if they are there for longer than a few days they get funny about it !

I just got a reply to an e-mail I sent my web hosts

As for backup space , you can use your webspace as you wish. You are better trying to ensure it is secure from prying eyes. If possible place your backups outside of your public_html folder.

Sounds good to me, especially as they give me "unlimited data space"

 

[NozSpark]

It wasn't a dig at you Mr C, more of an update for the forum members.

My host is link web hosting

I did also ask them what their backup policy was, but they didn't answer that part of my question.

---------- Post Auto-Merged at 09:01 ---------- Previous post was made at 08:59 ----------

At the moment I pay

 

[Sidewinder]

Canoey,

Looking for the best place (read cheapest!) to get a 1010+ from?

Also what size disks have you put in yours?

I was thinking about 1TB or 2TB?

Price is galactic mind!

So will need to think about this seriously, but I will have to do something else I will need to change the way I run my business.

Still struggling with a phone, Win7 NFG, Android won't sync with my outlook data even with 3rd party apps, BB seems to have limitations with pst file structures?

Don't know what other email platform I can move to that gives me the storage systems that Outlook does.

 

[Andy™]

everything i want to backup is in a folder on the desktop called 'personal' (& another for business), with shortcuts on desktop to that relevent folder. so when it comes to backup, just copy all of that folder to external hard drive

makes things so much easier than trying to copy all various folders etc

 

[Sidewinder]

Didn't buy a phone at all, so just sent the Win 7 thing back!

Can't see that the IPhone will do what I want either.

Orange tell me that the Desire HD will, but it wont! Found out tonight. Like the Desire & Android mind! Can

 

[Andy™]

<snip>

and i want to be a billionaire, but that aint happening either

 

[NozSpark]

Sidey,

what's the specific thing that Android won't do? because AFAICT it can do all the things in your list (don't know about the handwriting input though)

 

[steptoe]

Im a bit lost Sidewinder,

and Im a bit useless too,

cos a lot of what you said doesnt make sense to me, but, I have 5 e.mail accs that I use and all get sync'd with my phone depending what one I select,

none of them are hotmail though(more MS stuff), also,

I dont have outlook(MS) I have empathy(I think it is), but it works fine for yahoo and gmail,

I can sync contacts etc, dunno about calendar etc as Ive never done it,

pop3 ,? isnt that like 1st generation email on your phone kinda stuff?

in all honesty if a win7 phone cant sync your stuff with windows what does that say? something in that company is seriously flawed somewhere,

doesnt help your situation though,

why are you so certain you wont be able to sync the Desire? bear in mind that different carriers sometimes allow/deny the phone software to do different things,

perhaps Orange do allow what you need and you have read the info relating to a different carrier....

 

[NozSpark]

I have 5 e-mail accounts on my phone,, all of them set up as IMAP (push mail) - 3 from my host, a Yahoo account and a Gmail account!

I'm pretty sure that I could sync with outlook (might have to get a paid for app) "Documents to go" with the add on "Road Sync" will alloy you to sync with Microsoft Exchange server

features include...

syncs with sub folders

HTML e-mail w/flags

Tasks & Calendar w/widgets

Meeting accept/decline

Contacts w/photos

Global Address list

Attachments

HTH

 

[Sidewinder]

Andy,

Trouble is I almost have all this now almost, just that the phone co. can't support the handset any more!!!

The new handsets have less of these facilities.

I will need to change the way I work, significantly, which I don't cherish.

I am trying to make things more efficient not less!

That way I can do more in less time, by delegation!

If it had not been for 2 other network problems and then the disk crash I would have been fine with the data, and my other thread would not have been posted.

I have a solution that will give me this in my grasp, all bar the phone handset, except for the one I have now. See comment above wrt network.

Canoe suggested on my other thread that I use an M$ feature for backing up my pst files, I was & am, thing is it backs up to local disk, this then has to be manually copied across and the GF/F/S backup manually created.

I was in the process of sorting this out, I had installed 2 raid 0 drives, one had failed and recently been replaced, I had a router issue that I had to sort, then the disk failed.

This meant that the raids at the time were not functioning.

I need to sort out a backup package that backs up certain files regularly, it looks like Canoe has that sorted for me! (?)

As it turns out I only lost one Word doc, the rest were safe even though the backup regime was not good at the time.

It was the Outlook data that was the issue.

There were backups it was just that they were on the same physical disk & partition at the time.

Having looked into it when rebuilding the data, I had actually lost just a couple of recent backups of Outlook data, so it would have been the last few days/weeks of info that would have gone, not all.

The annoying part is that all this was easily do able with the last generation of smart phones and it worked well for me, now I am being pushed to upgrade by the network, and they can't provide a solution!

One of the issues is that Amazon, Google, M$, et al want you to stop relying on your own storage and rely on theirs, aka dropbox, photobucket etc. This currently is free for small amounts of data, at the moment, once we all downsize to tiny HDD coz we all have our data up in the cloud for anyone to hack into, then the charges will ramp up, they will also be able to access all of our private data unless we are canny, which your average Joe is not!

:_| X( bad day explode

---------- Post Auto-Merged at 22:36 ---------- Previous post was made at 22:27 ----------

Noz,

No Exchange server at this point in time.

I have a list from syncdriod.net, and none of the apps cut the mustard!

This site is dedicated to outlok / android sync.

Documents to go is not on that site though, I'll look into it.

There are a couple of apps that almost do it!

There are also a couple that will do most of it but you then need to add other apps to finish this off, and they don't use the native Android contacts & calender apps!

 

[Sidewinder]

Steps,

pop3/smtp are the original email standards, these are any you have an @ symbol in an email address.

IMAP is an internet based front end for pop3/smtp really.

Problem I have is that I have around 1Gb of emails that I go back through regularly, I can currently have these on my phone and can search through the folder structure to get directly to the customer/suppier in seconds as they are all filed in a directory / sub directory tree structure type thing.

One of the reasons I am on here most evenings is that I am normally working and come here for a respite.

I am trying to find a way of easing the burden as it were!

 

[steptoe]

sometimes its nice to be thickas****

 

[Sidewinder]

Steps, how wrong you are you ain't thick as mate by a long way!!!!

 

[steptoe]

I struggle to use a PC never mind all that stuff you have just said,

I got lost about half way down................................

 

[Sidewinder]

Noz,

Road sync does no tick two of the boxes I use now / want, it is on sycndroid.net

 

[Manator]

I have just picked up a virus, it looks like a scvhost.exe one, I can start in safe mode but can not for the hell of me find the problem. If i boot normal I just get the dreaded blue screen. I have tried a restore with no luck, and have also tried the cmd route to regedit, still no luck. I use AVG free edition which under safe mode just does a line edit and does not appear to remove the threat. Its a trojan from some bad download I suspect. Any help would be appreciated

 

[Andy™]

could try this forum