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

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 absolutely love Skype and here is why…

Think about this for a second. The unfortunate part about checking our mailboxes is BILLS!

So I get a water bill and a light bill and (used to be) a phone bill.
What happens if I don’t use any water for the month? Water bill shows $0.00.
What happens if I don’t use any electricity for the month? Last I checked $0.00

What happens if I don’t use the phone for an entire month? That’s right, I still get charged like $60.00 or so for fees and the privilege of having a land line phone. At the very least you might be able to get it down to $26.00. This is ridiculous!

It all started when I was at Wal-Mart one day and noticed that they had a super clearance of electronic items. One of them happened to be a USB Skype phone and I thought to myself that for $2.00 I really couldn’t go wrong and should try it out.

Actually to be honest I have always been a lover of prank calling and thought this would be fun. I must admit that was my First thought. My second thought was more along the lines of business.

At that time I was beginning to start an online computer help website after just being laid off from work, and it would involve people calling me with computer problems and I would remote into their computer and help them.

I started to realize that since I didn’t have a house phone, that I would be using my cell phone for business and this would really eat up my minutes. I had an unlimited data plan but only 450 nationwide minutes per month and to this was already costing me $120 a month.

Now I could have purchased another plan to give me unlimited calling for another $50 a month, but this would be just added expense on a per month basis and cell phone service at my home is not the best.

I was thinking that Skype may be the answer to this.

One Saturday I decided to plug in the USB Skype phone and go to the Skype website and download the software onto my computer. It came with 100 free minutes and once I was all setup I decided to call my Dad and see how it sounded before committing to anything more. After all I only had $2.00 in this so far.

I connected with him over the phone and the conversation was flawless. I couldn’t believe my ears. It was crystal clear despite what others on the internet were saying about Skype’s voice quality. I figure this has got to be my solution to a business phone, so I began to look over their packages.

I ended up getting a Skype Out for a year for $23.00.

That would allow me to call anywhere in the USA and Canada anytime, unlimited calling.

Then I needed a number for people to call me, so I bought a number that was local to me since I plan on most of my customers being near. The number was $24.00 a year for unlimited calling.

This brings my total for the year to $47.00 for unlimited calling inbound and outbound with a number for me to give out so people can call me. Not bad at all.

Now I know what you are thinking… do I have to be tied to the computer all the time?

Well for me and with the purpose in mind, I will be in front of the computer all the time, but you don’t have to be.

There are lots of things you can use.

There is a Belkin Wi-Fi phone (Part # F1PP000GN-SK) http://www.belkin.com/skype/howitworks/ that you can use with your wireless network to go about through your home or take with you on the road and use in hotels, work office, airports, or wherever there is a wireless connection.

There is also a desktop internet phone for Skype (Part # F1PP010EN-SK) http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=404607 for those that do not have a computer, but do have an internet connection or simply just want the phone located somewhere in the home and not have it tied to the computer.

I ended up getting a skype headset and a cordless telephone, a cheap one, one of those v-tech cheap ones.

I also got this Zoom Phone Adapter for Skype – Model 5900 http://www.zoom.com/products/voip_products.html#skype_products

You can get more hard ware here

Buy Skype hardware now

I can now use my headset or the cordless handset and walk about the house and even into the yard.

There are a ton of things you can do with Skype!

Cheap calls
Call phones and cell phones anywhere at low rates.
Skype to Skype calls are 100% free.
Online number

Friends call you from a regular phone and reach you on Skype – anywhere.
You can pick a number that’s local to your area.
I know people that have parents that live in another state. Their parents do not have a computer so a Skype to Skype call is out of the question. Instead my friend gets a number that’s local to his parents so when the parents call, the number is local to them.

SMS
Send text messages directly from Skype.
Voicemail
Never miss a call.
Call forwarding
Get your calls on your cell phone when you’re offline.

There is an option where you can set it to send the call to your cell phone or any phone really after a certain time limit, like 15 seconds for example.

Pay as you go, Pay monthly, or do like I did and just pay for it by the year.
You get it at a discounted price of you do so.

You can find out more about skype here.

3 months for the price of 2 on all 3 or 12 month calling subscriptions from Skype.

Dont forget you can use it for you business too!
Skype for Business