This was recently discussed on my tech blog, but I felt like some of my readers that do not follow that blog could benefit from a rewrite. If you are still not backing up the data on your computer, what are you waiting for? It is NOW easier than EVER to do so without any additional hardware.

There are many ways to lose information from a computer:
A child playing the keyboard like a piano, a power surge, lightning, floods, and sometimes equipment just fails. If you regularly make backup copies of your files and keep them in a separate place, you can get some, if not all, of your information back if something happens to the originals on your computer.

There is no reason any of the above has to happen to you. Be prepared. Get Mozy!

Mozy Online Backup is the preferred choice by  Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, Christopher Null of Yahoo! Tech  and winner of the  PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award. It is the most secure, feature rich and inexpensive backup service in the world.

Consumers may choose Mozy Free or Mozy Unlimited.

Mozy Free offers 2 GB of automatic, secure online backup for free.
Mozy Unlimited offers unlimited, secure, reliable online backup for $4.95 a month.
Both services allow consumers to perform an unlimited number of restores via the web or Windows Explorer.

Oh don’t worry MAC users. Just because I say “Windows Explorer” doesn’t meant there is not a version for you too.
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Mozy Online Backup Features:
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• Open/locked file support
• 448-bit Blowfish encryption
• 128-bit SSL encryption
• Automatic or scheduled backups
• New and changed file detection
• Block level incremental backups
• Bandwidth throttling
• File versioning
• Public or private key encryption

There is a matrix comparing Mozy’s features to its competitors is available at www.mozy.com check it out.

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Mozy Online Backup Pricing
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• Mozy Free - 2 GB of secure, automatic online backup for free
• Mozy Unlimited – unlimited, secure, automatic online backup for $4.95 a month or $54.45 a year.

Seriously if you are not backing up your data in some fashion by now, you are begging *Murphy to come show you how bad you need it.

* Murphy = Murphy’s law, if anything can go wrong….it will

I recently installed the Tom Tom navigation application on the Iphone and thought that the Anti-Glare would make it easier to see in the day time.

I picked up a set of two for around $16 and that was the best money I have ever spent. To this day the one that I put on my phone is still as pristine as that day I applied it. My wife who is using the other one feels the same way. It is in and out of her purse all day long and there is not a mark on it. Fingers rub across the screen with ease, no dragging on the glass. I love it!

Now if only I could get compensated by Apple for expressing my feelings for a wonderful product in my blogs.

Check them out here

Power Support Anti-Glare Film Set for iPhone

Made me think about the Iphone.

I have been meaning to inform the masses through my blog about all the wonderful things that it can do.

Let me start by saying that I wanted one before they were available, yet I still held out until the first gen bugs were out of the way and gps was available. See I am a big fan of GPS and when they put it in their second gen Iphone, well I just had to have one.

I have not regretted it one bit. Best phone I have ever had!

I used to dream of an all in one compact phone and the Iphone is about 95% the phone I always wanted.

Let me tell you all the things that I wanted a cellphone to be/do and then I will come back to the IT DOES EVERTHING part.

First I wanted a cell phone that was small and compact but not too compact. One that I could easily keep clean. I wanted it to have WiFi, GPS, be able to play music on it, watch video, and easily get on the internet. Well the Iphone and many other phones these days can do this. The Iphone just does it better.

But wait…there’s more….
I also wanted a phone that had a camera,  weather reports, video recorder,  fancy email,  radar detector,  police scanner,  and remote control for the tv.

Can the Iphonedo this? YES IT DOES EVERYTHING.

Ok the radar detector is not exactly like the ones we are normally thinking of that detect the policeman 2 miles down the road. Instead its an app called aSmart HUD +SpeedCams and you can use it to detect speed cameras along your route. It will give you warnings in advance.  It visualizies your, current speed, average speed, time, heading, altitude, weather forecast for nearest 48 hours the with 3-hour time interval, maximum reached speed (during the current trip or all your trips), maximum altitude and maximum distance to the starting point of your trip. Tapping the “HUD” icon mirrors all the text, so if you position the iPhone horizontally under your car’s windscreen you can see perfectly readable half-transparent reflection of the picture displayed. Of course this works best when not in complete sun.

I wasnt kidding about the police scanner. This is super easy to acheive on the iphone with Wunder Radio.

Ok for the things I wanted/needed….here is what I use.

Weather – Accuweather (app) or Safari http://i.wund.com/
Camera –  Built in Camera
Video – Cycorder (app)
GPS with Turn by Turn – TomTom for Iphone (app)
Trail hiking/biking/running tracking – RunKeeper  (app)
Police Scanner – Wunder Radio (app)
Online newspaper – USAToday (app)
Music – Built in Ipod
Online Music streaming – Slacker Radio (app)
Movies – Built in Ipod
Email – Built in mail client (Exchange and Gmail)
Calender – Built in Calender synced with Exchange
Remote for TV – WiFi remote (controls my media center pc/tv (app)
Remote for Itunes – Remote (controls music library on media center pc (app) )
Stream whats on my media center to my phone – Orb Live (app)
Stream live tv to iphone – Orb Live (app)

So basically I always wanted a phone that could play music, play back video, take pictures and video, get on the internet, use wifi whenever possible, has built in gps for navigation/other, a radar detector, a police scanner,  and stream live tv to it….. the iPhone… IT DOES EVERYTHING.

(disclaimer: while I didnt mention that it can not open a beer or remove that rusty nut on a bolt, I’m sure there is an app for that. There are tons of apps that make the iphone the ultimate swiss army tool, just gotta look for em)

That was back in the good ole days.
These days its much harder for me to run.  I get winded very easily. That’s why here lately I have decided to try my best to get back into better shape.

I have been doing so by bike riding, getting on the treadmill, and my favorite has become trail hiking/walking/running.

I get bored easily on treadmills or the track so fitness trails, biking, and hiking seem to be the solution to that.

With the help of my co-worker Justin, we decided that we would try to use Tuesdays and Thursdays to do some sort of cardio exercise. I may be running, walking, hiking the Lost Bluff trail, nature trail, or biking.
Anyone of you that read this blog, know me and live in my area, feel free to hit me up through email or whatever if you would like to join in. The more the merrier.

Whats making all of this exercising even better is some of the apps that I have been using on the iphone.

So far I have used some really great apps like MotionX GPS, Trailguru, and Runkeeper.

MotionX-GPS was great but it loses gps signal if you fall below 3mph. I think this is terrible for a PAID FOR app as I sometimes only walk 2mph and I would like for it to log my walks. For bike riding it may be ideal, but I have yet to use it for that yet.

Trailguru is an awesome free app for the iphone. I like it alot, it has never lost signal even if I were to crawl. It makes really nice posts to the web as well as the ability to embed into your webpage as I have done here before. Right now however at the time of this writing, their website is down and I can not post my logs to their site.

Runkeeper was the very first app I ever put on my phone relating to walking/running and I have just now got back to using it. Mainly because the Trailguru website was down. I am glad I relaunched the use of this fabulous free program.

Today Justin and I did the regular 1 mile nature trail near the tennis courts at Grenada Lake. We ran it mostly and walked it in spots. We did it twice playing with the app runkeeper.

Below are the results using runkeeper. I think so far out of all 3 apps, I like it the best.
First time through.

Second time through.

I learned a few things yesterday doing this.

While using trailguru, if you press the iphone’s lock key to blank out the screen, you turn gps off.
Also if you get a phonecall or reply to a text message, during your trek, it will stop the timer and mapping so you will have to start it again after the phone call or text. You will not lose already mapped data, you will just have to press start again on the app to pick up where it was paused.

I know now that the app has its own lock button that I can use instead of the iphones lock button. This prevents the GPS and app from going to sleep and losing trail data.

I posted the map below to show you that during screen locks and phonecalls it really messed up the mapping of my hike. It did however do as I expected and put the pictures on the map.
You will have to click on the plus sign and zoom in on the trail to see the pics. YOu will notice the broken trail lines where the gps got deactivated.

I want to do this will MotionX gps next and give it another shot. The reason I am liking trailguru (free app) over MotionX Gps (pay app) right now is that it doesnt lose GPS signal like Motion X does.

I never really knew until now.

It seems that President Obama did not want to part with his crackberry, err umm I mean Blackberry cellular device after his inauguration. As it turns out, he will be able to keep it, but it will be limited to personal use matters only.

For all non personal and business related calls, he will have to use the NSA approved Sectera Edge

There is only one thing that concerns me about this phone other than the size of it. IT RUNS WINDOWS MOBILE !!! How secure can this thing really be?

Video

Ok so to rehash. I sold all of my carputer stuff on eBay and took the money and used eBay once again to purchase the Tom Tom Go 730.
I managed to get it brand new on eBay for $150 less than in stores.

I actually use it to navigate with and hands free calling as well as an mp3 player. I have it playing some of my mp3 collection through the audio out cable into my car stereo.

It has a battery so you can take it with you to another vehicle if you choose to do so. While its in my car I use the supplied 12v adapter and its tucked away nicely. This way when the power is turned off, you get 10 secs to choose whether you want it to stay on or turn off with the car. I always let it go off with the car and it resumes where it was when I start the car again.

As I said earlier its a great mp3 player and easy to navigate through the music to select tunes to play.

It connects to my iphone with bluetooth as soon as I get in the car after the initial pairing. This also has my address book in sync with it which is really nice.
There is a listing of phones that is supports on TOM TOM’s website. Some phones allow the device to use the phones data connection to get out onto the internet and retrieve weather updates. There is also the capability with some phones to have it read text messages and emails aloud to you and you can respond with voice right back.

There really is too much to list so I tried to find a video that does the job pretty good.

Its a great phone with built in GPS, its 3G capable too.

I have a 2gig Micro SD card in it and it also comes with CD Rom, 2 AC chargers, 1 Car Charger, and 1 data cable.

Check it out here on Ebay

Yes I now have a shiny new iPhone and I love it.
I was against getting one when they first came out, because it lacked so many things I thought a cellphone should have.
Some of these things were:

No copy and paste
No video recording
No voice/memo recording
No Multimedia Message Sending
No Removeable battery
No 3G Connectivity
No GPS
No Voice Dialing
No MP3 as a ring tone
No Over The Air Downloads
No integration with MS Exchange
No Office support for Word and Excel docs
There are probably some things that I am forgetting but you get the idea.

At the time when it came out I had the Nokia 6682 and it did most of those things, so I just scoffed at the $700 price tag for a 4gig iPhone that dint do as much as my current phone did.

It is also worth saying that it’s always best to not buy anything in its first year production.
You should let the manufacturers work the kinks and bugs out of new products before you buy them.

After the second generation iPhone came out, some new things were added.
Better battery life
GPS (really good I might add)
3G Connectivity
Exchange Support
Office Support
Over the Air downloads (FW2.2)

There is still no Voice Dialing, Video Recording, or MMS but really these are features I find myself not using much at all anyways.
As my contract was coming to an end I was thinking about getting an iPhone but they were still high in price so I got the BlackJack II red.

I liked this phone with its Windows Mobile. It was easy to hack and make it do just about anything, but it was still Windows and there were times when it absolutly drove me mad. It would get slow at times and there were lots of errors to where I would have to remove the battery completely to recover from it.

I kept telling myself that my next phone would be an iPhone when my contract expires.
They are now $199 when you re-up your contract. Unfortunately for me, its a long time before that happens and I was really wanting to get one asap since I new several people that had one and after I messed with it some I really grew to liking it more and more. If I were to buy one out of contract it would cost $399…ouch.

A stroke of luck just happened to come my way. I had for the longest time a 1975 Vintage Fender Telecaster Bass that’s been with me for about 20 years. It was beat up and in need of some TLC from someone that like to restore these things. It had been in once closet after another, to under beds, to being in the city storage for over 2 years.

We decided to try and cut some costs around the home and that storage facility was one of them. We had a large garage sell and I had a few items left over that I didn’t want to include in the garage sell. One of them being the bass guitar.

I took pictures of it and contacted Morrison Brothers Music in Jackson, MS to see if they bought old guitars and they did. They just wanted to see some pictures so I emailed “Clint” some and never heard back from him. After about five days I called and talked to someone else. I sent the pictures to this new person and Clint one more time. The newer person I talked to responded, but Clint did not. I waited 2 more weeks and decided it was time to post it on eBay.

I talked to a good freind on the matter and he said that its possible that I may could get between $400 and $700 for it.

I started the auction at $700, thinking that wow if I sell this I will get me an iPhone easily.

I scheduled it to post around Wednesday and finish on Sunday. Stats have shown this is best for optimal selling and it had worked for me in the past many times over. I did this on a Friday early in the afternoon. Later that evening I decided to go ahead and list it and let it run for 10 days becuase I didnt think I would get many hits on it since it was in such bad shape. I figured it needed the most time I could get for it to be on eBay.

I listed it and not 20 minutes later I got an email from a buyer asking me if I would change it to buy now and sell it 3x what I had listed it for.

It didn’t take me long to think about this. I took it and had the money in my paypal not long after. I shipped it immediately the next morning and he was very happy with it.

I was now able to get my iPhone and also get one for my wife! She is a phone power user so she really needed one and has loved hers thus far.

I just love this device. I am really glad I waited awhile before getting one.

The GPS on it rocks! Its fast to get a lock. With my blackjack II you would have to get a lock before traveling at speeds of 60mph or so, but the iphone does it regardless of speed.

I love the wifi. I am practically around wifi all the time so this is really nice.

I have yet to do it, but it also has tv out on it so I can plug it up to a TV and watch one the movies I have on it, or share photos.

This is something that the ipod video could do from the get go and the first gen iphone never did. I don’t understand why they didn’t do that with the first gen but they have since corrected that and I am glad.

It also syncs really well with my Tom Tom GO 730 for hands free talking while in the car. I just leave my bluetooth on all the time and it connects as soon as I get into the car.

Its integration with Microsoft Exchange Server is great. When my wife and I left the store, we went to eat chinese, and while we were eating, I connected to exchange work server and pulled in all my contacts and emails in a snap. Gmail was even easier.

Also since the new 2.2 upgrade via itunes, the battery life has tripled it seems!

I am really amazed at the easy of use of this device. I could go on and on but I think I will save some of my thoughts for another post.

Check out this cellphone time line of mine.

Question. When I connected to my wireless network, it said it wasn’t secure. Why?

Answer. If you connect to a wireless network that isnt protected with a passkey, then its possible for others to intercept your data.
The chances of this happening arent high, but its best to avoid the problem entirely by using wireless encryption.
Windows Vista supports two types, WEP and WPA.
WEP is older and less secure, while APA is more robust.
Check the manual for your wireless router for how to set them up.

Answer. The icon changes depending on whether you have an active internet connection or not. If your connection is working, it shows a small world globe graphic on the bottom right of the two monitor screens in the icon. If the internet connection isn’t working, it just shows the monitor screens. Click on the icon to see which network you are currently connected to; you can click the “Connect to another network” link to search for another network and connect to it. Should you suddenly lose your connection to the internet, you can quickly find out whats wrong by right-clicking the icon and selecting “Diagnose and repair.”

Question. My old windows xp pc only appears at the bottom of the network map, how do I get it to show in the right place?

Answer. While every windows vista pc should show up correctly in the network map, Windows XP doesn’t have the correct software, so windows xp computers pushed to the bottom of the window. Its easy to update them, though. Al you need to do is go to download.microsoft.com and search for LLTD Responder. Its a very small file so it will be a quick download. Once you have it, double click on it to install it and your Windows XP PC should now appear in the network map.

Question. Why is windows vista taking so long to start up?

Answer. Windows Vistas Aero Glass feature may be too demanding for your pc. Right click your desktop and choose personalize. Then click Window Color and Appearance and choose Windows Vista Basic from the list to speed things up.

Question. Why Cant I import my backed up files?

Answer. This can happened if you’ve transferred your files from DVD and they are set to read only. Select the files, right click on them, and choose properties, then make sure the read only attribute is not checked. Click apply and OK and all should be right as rain.

Question. My software doesn’t install-why?

Answer. If you put an install disc in the drive and nothing happens, right click on it in my computer and choose explore. Right click on the installer itself and choose Run As Administrator. Note: the installer may be called setup pr the name of the program

Question. What do I do if my software installs, but still doesn’t work?

Answer. Go to control panel, then programs, use an older program with this version of windows and pick the program you want to run from the list that appears. Follow the steps to fool it into thinking its running in an older version of windows.

Question. So what do I do if my software installs but still doesn’t run?

Answer. You can manually set compatibility options by right clicking on the program, choosing properties, then compatibility and setting them. Windows XP SP2 should work, and you can check boxes for other options required.

Question. My software isnt working properly. What should I do?

Answer. Make sure that you are running the latest version. Many programs need to have updates installed to work in windows Vista, and some wont work at all. Check their respective official websites for details.

Question. How can I get my really old games to work in Windows Vista?

Answer. If you’ve got any really old software that require DOS, then it wont work in Windows Vista. Instead you need to get DOSbox from http://dosbox.sourceforge.net in order to run them.

Question. Why is my PC running soo slow now?

Answer. If your computer only has a small amount of RAM, then its going to struggle when it somes to running Windows Vista, If you cant add any more, plug in a USB2 ReadyBoost compatible memory stick and choose “Speed up my computer” from the menu that appears.

Question. How can I get my extra hardware to work?

Answer. Not all hardware devices and components will immediately work with windows vista. Look for a Windows Vista compatible driver at the manufacturers websites, or try installing a Windows XP driver instead.

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