As my old boss at my first computer repair job used to say, “Backup early, backup often.”

About 140,000 hard drives crash every week in the US, and over 2 million laptops are stolen every year. Given that we are now storing so much of our lives on computers (family photos, home videos, students’ homework, family tree/genealogy, tax and bank records, etc), having a reliable backup is more important now than ever.

Luckily for us, it is also now cheaper than ever too. For about the cost of one extra large mocha at Starbucks, you can buy a month’s worth of automatic, secure, unlimited, online backup storage.

Or, if you would prefer to store your backup at home instead of online, you can buy an external hard drive/backup software combo for just a little more than the price of one tank of gas. That’s the cheapest “insurance” you are going to find anywhere!

But let’s take a quick look at why you might want to have an online backup instead of (or in addition to) an external hard drive backup.

I have a client who recently had the internal hard drive in their computer and AND their external backup drive fail within a short time of each other.  If both hard drives had died at the same time, they would have lost all of their company files (including Quickbooks),  photos, and their entire music library. So they now use Carbonite as an online backup in addition to their local backup. Other really good reasons to consider an online backup solution include theft, fire, or human error (accidentally deleting a really important file without realizing it).

Carbonite is a very easy to use. After the initial install, Carbonite never requires anything more. It just works in the background, constantly searching your computer for any new files that need to be backed up.You don’t have to remember to plug in an external hard drive. You don’t have to click any buttons to start the backup. Carbonite just does it for you automatically!

Call me today at 808-640-6662 to set up an appointment.

Two scenarios I frequently see in my business are clients who either can never remember their passwords (and often expect me to) or they use the same password for every site so it is easy for them to remember. Both of these scenarios are a BAD idea! I definitely do not recommend counting on me to remember all your passwords (sometimes I wish I was Superman). On the flip side, I strongly warn against using the exact same password (or even a slight variation of it) for all of your online accounts, especially accounts that contain financial information. It’s a good idea as well to change your passwords on online credit card and bank accounts more frequently to keep your accounts from being compromised.

So if you need to use stronger, more varied passwords that you should change frequently, how are you supposed to keep track of all this? Those little post-its eventually get lost behind your desk (I know this because it used to happen to me too!). I have found an amazing solution to keeping track of those pesky passwords that my wife and I use for all of our business and personal online accounts: 1Password.

1Password is the program I recommend for keeping track of all of your usernames and passwords online. The program is compatible with both Mac and Windows (although it was originally developed for the Mac). It stores your passwords, and allows you to fill them in on a website with a simple click of a button. It has saved us so much time, not to mention the headache of forgetting a password, and having to go through the process of resetting a password or setting up a completely new account. The program is even available for the iPhone, iPad and Android!

If you are interested in learning more about 1Password you can click here for more information, or feel free to call me at 640-6662 and I’m happy to install it for you and teach you how to use the program. Seriously, we love it here at the Mobile Computer Doctor!