Archive for April, 2010

Sooner or later disaster strikes, it is inevitable. If you work on computers, at some point you will lose data. The best way to get around this is to have backups. I’m a bit more paranoid about certain things ( like my pictures) that I can not replace. Those aforementioned things are backed up in 3 places, and one of the places also has redundancy built in. Recovery of data off of drives in not cheap, we are talking $1000 just to start. The prices can easily double.

So how do I get started backing up my stuff? Here are 3 programs that I recommend.

Bonkey
JaBackup
NasBackup

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Security is always a huge concern in the IT community.  We make huge efforts to maintain firewalls, encryption via SSL, VPNs, encrypted wifi signals, program and operating system updates but the biggest security vulnerability time and time again are the passwords that people choose.

There is an article that I recently came across written from the perspective someone trying to break into a secure system.  The top 10 most used passwords list reads like a list of lazy choices from people that just don’t want to think about security:

1. Your partner, child, or pet’s name, possibly followed by a 0 or 1 (because they’re always making you use a number, aren’t they?)
2. The last 4 digits of your social security number.
3. 123 or 1234 or 123456.
4. “password”
5. Your city, or college, football team name.
6. Date of birth – yours, your partner’s or your child’s.
7. “god”
8. “letmein”
9. “money”
10. “love”

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