Itil help desk

Help Desk Software and Customer Satisfaction
By Frank Owen

Improving Your Customer Service By Using Help Desk Software

In today’s increasingly competitive global marketplace it is more important than ever for organizations to pay attention to customer service. Good customer service starts from within, by attending to the needs of an organizations internal customers. Customer service enhancement builds loyalty and enables an organization to withstand changes whether due to external or internal turbulence. In a rapidly changing and often turbulent environment organizations can’t survive if this important element of success is overlooked. Good customer service will ensure that organizations can continue to remain competitive in a more dynamic and turbulent work environment.

One of the best ways to provide optimal customers service is to ensure that you can respond quickly and efficiently to customer inquiries and problems. Help desk software provides an organization the opportunity to do just that. Most provide comprehensive problem resolution and tracking that is usually web based and adaptable. That means you can use the help desk software to help customers anywhere in the world and adapt the software to meet the needs of your unique industry.

Help desk software is easily configured to help centralize help desk control issues, track and generate tickets, respond to requests, and provide automated communications via various outlets including through calls or via email. Many can also provide instant reporting and step-by-step solutions to resolve common customer complaint issues. If you are looking for an effective solution and method for resolving customer problems and complaints efficiently and effectively, you have to considers today’s top of the line help desk applications.

Article by Frank Owen, visit his web site on help desk software for more on help desk software.
http://www.softwareforbusiness.net/help-desk-software/

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http://EzineArticles.com/?Help-Desk-Software-and-Customer-Satisfaction&id=100658

It seems that every instance businesses modify to revilement downbound on expenses, they ever seem to pore on the Help Desk/IT department. IT Managers are rattling ofttimes asked to impact with noncurrent software, understaffing and an ever- crescendo accumulation of calls and provoked customers.

What the grouping upstair seem to block is that without comely equipment, code and effective hold staff, the backwards pearl of the consort could rattling substantially crumble.

It’s a vicious descending spiral; The IT/support budget is cut, we hit to hold our customers with noncurrent software, the hold body is reasonless and leaves, there’s not sufficiency money to lease effective grouping so novices module do, we thence substance a sensational service, the word climbs up the ladder, our budget is revilement whatever more because the hold is slummy anyway, and here we go again!

The actuality is that patch a consort is outlay thousands of dollars on computers and printers and everything added they need, they’re selection backwards on the digit division that takes tending of assuring every grouping entireness and that every employee/customer gets his/her difficulty immobile quickly.

It costs money when a aggregation stops employed and an employee stares at that grapheme concealment for half an hour. It’ll outlay modify more if no digit knows how to mend it. It’s rattling preventative for grouping to move hours on modify to intend someone to countenance at their problem. What a squander of time, money and productivity!

No concern how beatific the warranty is, at whatever point, the equipment needs exchange or sterilisation and at digit saucer - which lets grappling it happens more ofttimes then not - you requirement effective grouping to become and help. That lonely should reassert the outlay of your hold desk.

What it rattling costs

Take a instance to psychoanalyse what your consort is already outlay for the mass items - the ones that you won’t wager on whatever statement:

o Time spent figuring discover where to go for help.

o Time forfeited inactivity on-hold for a client hold officer.
o Time spent datum the creation manual.

o Time lost finished slummy practices & procedures.

o Lost fecundity of those titled absent to assist.

o Duplication of hold efforts, re-learning the aforementioned lessons over and over.

If you conceive that every these items exclusive become erst in a patch and that your body are resourceful sufficiency to encounter a resolution on their own, conceive again. The aforementioned difficulty could reoccur instance and instance again and be immobile instance and instance again by assorted grouping not lettered that it’s happened before. If your body member can’t mend his/her difficulty on his/her own, they call someone added to hold him or her. That someone added stops what they’re doing and takes an distance disagreeable to mend the difficulty but can’t. They call added one, and added one. See where I’m going?

Every duty has a experienced mortal that learnt a portion code covering or is course disposed to technology. That mortal is ofttimes titled to hold discover in the status mentioned above. And every instance this mortal stops what they’re doing to go and help, they kibosh existence arable at their job. Even worse, if this employee happens to be a high-paid specialist, then the consort is throwing absent dollars discover the pane when they could state a cheaper and drilled inventiveness to hit support.

Worse still, in whatever instances, when your hold desk division is so brief staffed that your customers are by-passing the authorised hold grouping and asking the doc for help, the consort is ease losing money!

How to Calculate The Costs of Your Help Desk

Start with the obvious: The salaries, outlay of upbringing your hold staff, machine element and software, phones, copiers, duty expanse etc. The accountants should be healthy to wage every of this, and verify you how your consort for such assets is engagement depreciation. Include in the code collection the outlay for the help-desk mechanisation tools (help desk system). If you don’t hit a hold desk code that keeps road of the size of your calls, the take of solicitation of the calls, what identify of problems are logged and how daylong it takes to hold the problems, then you requirement to earnestly study such a purchase.

This is the most economical artefact to road what your division is doing, how it spends its budget and what resources requirement to be thoughtful when the incoming budget comes around. This code staleness hit the knowledge to create psychotherapy reports on, the take of solicitation of the calls, what identify of problems are logged and how daylong it takes to hold the problems. If you inform this essential aggregation to the accountants you’ll exhibit them what your division does and ground it needs a large accumulate of the budget!

Final Note

Basically, when it comes instance to watch if you requirement a hold department, conceive of how you couldn’t give not to. Computers module crash, grouping module requirement hold on assorted code programs, and your employees/customers module requirement someone to hold them with their problems. Having right drilled hold body makes a bounteous disagreement when we conceive of a company’s productivity. Without them, so such instance and money would be wasted.

Paul adventurer is the trainer of Auratech Software, a consort that specialises in Help Desk Software to hold businesses with their client support. If you would same to feature more articles on rising your hold or would same to analyse discover Auratech’s arrange of Help Desk Software, gratify visit: http://www.helpdesk-support.com/better-support.htm

[tags]help desk software, customer support, good customer service, desk help software, great support[/tags]

How To Backup Your Hard Drive
By Otis F. Cooper

We all know that we should back up our system as soon as possible. But if you re like most of us, you will get to it tomorrow. The problem is that tomorrow rarely ever comes until you experience a serious computer failure and then it’s too late.

Taking the time to backup your data or entire hard drive is not as painstaking as it may seem. And the rewards of doing so will be great should your system experience a crash.

WINDOWS AND OTHER BACKUP SOFTWARE

If you have Windows XP you will need to install the new Windows backup utility from the Windows XP cdrom. Just place the WinXP cdrom in your cdrom drive and locate the line D:VALEADDMSFTNTBACKUP.

Here you see the first letter as D but if your optical drive has a different drive letter, exchange the D with your drive s letter. To install the utility, click on the file named NTBackup.msi.

The backup utility will be installed to the system tools group. Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and Backup. There is a neat wizard that will walk you through the backup process.

WinXP s backup utility will backup your entire hard drive and will make a recovery disk to boot.

One neat third party backup software you can try is NewTech InfoSystems at http://www.ntius.com where you can download their trial version and put it to use for 30 days. And if it’s your cup of tea, the full version will run you about $79.95

INCREMENTAL OR DIFFERENTIAL BACKUPS

You should back up your entire hard drive when you perform your first backup. After that it is best to perform an Incremental backup. This type of backup only allows you to backup files that have changed since your last performed backup.

Differential Backups copy changed files that have been added since you last did your entire backup. This type of backup is more detailed than incremental backups and is easier to restore.

BACKUP STORAGE DEVICES

You can backup your files on cdroms and have the files compressed to save both space and backup time. WinXP will compress folders, subfolders, and files during backup.

You can purchase compression software that will do the same, saving you cdrom storage space. The compressed files are automatically uncompressed once they are restored onto your hard drive.

You can also use a second hard drive as your backup storage device. We use two backup hard drives to be certain Ultimate PC Repair is up and running 24/7.

You can either purchase an internal hard drive and install it to your ide cable, or you may want to purchase an external hard drive that connects to your Universal Serial Bus or USB Port.

The advantage of the external drives is that they have very large amounts of storage space, transfer data fast, and can be moved from your computer to any other computer.

We use the Western Digital 170 Gigabyte External Hard Drive and we simply bounce it around to either one of our four computers with the greatest of ease.

USING ONLINE BACKUP SERVICES

You may also consider online services for backing up your data. If you lose all your backup data, say due to a natural disaster such as a flood, your online data is right there waiting for you.

Another advantage of online backups is that you can access, upload, or download your data from any location. It is best to use high speed internet access if you re considering online data storage.

One such online backup service is Istorage located at http://www.iomega.com/istorage and charges from $2.49 a month for 50MBs to $17.95 a month for a big 1,000MBs of storage.

Or you can check out FilesAnywhere located at the url http://www.filesanywhere.com

Still another online service to try is CapSure located at http://www.capsure.com

Backup your system now in one way or another if you have not done so. If you have critical data that you simply cannot do without, take the time to invest in a backup device or one of the many online backup services.

Stop and perform those backups as soon as possible. You will be thankful you did should something go wrong with your computer. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.

About The Author

Otis F. Cooper is the author of the award winning PC Super Pack, the Computer Training By Video course. For hundreds more free PC repair tips, sign up for his bi-monthly newsletter and learn the PC free at http://www.ultimatepcrepair.com

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http://EzineArticles.com/?How-To-Backup-Your-Hard-Drive&id=32068

Creating a Backup Plan
By Stephen Bucaro

Your company s data may be its most important asset. Imagine a large corporation with millions of dollars of account receivable and account payable data stored on their network. A fire causes massive data loss. How much work would be required to re-create the lost data? Without backups, the company may not survive the disaster.

Choosing a backup media is important, but in this article I ll focus on creating a plan for the type and frequency of backups. Let s assume you will use some type of tape backup media.

If your company has only a small amount of data, you may be able to perform a full backup every night. You would need two tapes which you would alternate in case the most recent full backup turns out defective. At least you have a previous one to go back to. You would store the tapes in a secure off-site location to avoid being destroyed in the same disaster that might destroy the original data.

When you perform a full backup, each file that gets baked up has the “archive” attribute in its file properties set to zero.

The archive attribute is a flag stored for each file that has been created or modified. It indicates that the file needs to be archived. Backup programs can reduce the size of backups by saving only files which have been modified since the previous backup. When the file is saved in a full or incremental backup, the archive bit is set to one.

In Windows, you can view the archive attribute for any file by right-clicking the file in Windows Explorer and selecting “Properties” in the popup menu. In the “Properties” dialog box, click on the “Advanced…” button.

If your company has a large amount of data, it would be too time consuming to perform a full backup every night. Instead, you would perform a full backup only on Friday nights, and perform a “differential” backup on other weekday night. This backup plan would require six tapes.

- A differential backup saves all files that have been created or modified since the last FULL backup.

- Restoring with differential backups is easy. You need just use two tapes. First restore the last full backup. Then restore the last differential backup.

A differential backup doesn t reset the archive attribute. The next time you perform a differential backup, it will again save all the files that have changed since the last full backup. So each night, the differential backup will get progressively larger until the next you perfrom a full backup.

If your company has a great amount of data that changes every day, it would be too time consuming to perform a differential backup every night. Instead, you might perform a full backup on Friday nights, and an “incremental” backup on other weekday night.

- An incremental backup saves only the files that have changed since the last full or incremental backup.

An incremental backup checks the archive attribute to determine if the file has changed and needs to be backed up. Then it resets the archive attribute. An incremental backup stays small because it includes only files that have changed since the last full or incremental backup.

- Restoring with incremental backups is more time consuming. First, restore the last full backup. Then restore all the incremental backups made since the full backup, in the order they were made. The only reason to use an incremental backup scheme is if differential backups become too large, requiring more than one tape.

Many company networks continue to opperate on Saturday and even Sunday. In this case, you would need to add the required additional tapes to the plan.

If during the day your company creates a large volume of data, or a small amount of data that is too critical to wait for the standard night time backup, you can perform a copy backup. To do this, you just copy the selected files to a backup media.

Copyright(C) 2004 Bucaro TecHelp.

Permission is granted for the below article to forward, reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website, offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as long as no changes are made and the byline, copyright, and the resource box below is included.

About The Author

Stephen Bucaro

To learn how to maintain your computer and use it more effectively to design a Web site and make money on the Web visit bucarotechelp.com. To subscribe to Bucaro TecHelp Newsletter visit http://bucarotechelp.com/search/000800.asp.

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http://EzineArticles.com/?Creating-a-Backup-Plan&id=32244

Data Backup, The Why How When for Business or Home
By Greg Martyn

1. What you should be doing about data backup and why?
2. Fine electro-mechanical devices to backup.
3. Meant to do it!
4. Once Bitten.
5. Backup, a mistaken or confused name.
6. What do you need to do today to start a backup plan or backup program?
7. Let’s get organised.
8. Things to save or to backup.
9. Our recommended Backup System.
10. Near worst case scenario. When you most need a backup to restore from.
11. Our own system. How we backup our data.
12. Remember, Backup, start today.

1. Why do a data backup?
What you should be doing and why?
Computers always go perfectly. Right? What would you do without your PC? Computers can and do fail usually at the worst possible time. They may get stolen, trashed or crash. Most of us deal with the problems as and when they occur.
There are times though, when a little bit of planning and forethought pays big dividends.

2. Fine electro-mechanical devices.
The hard drive in your computer has both electronic and mechanical components that work with very fine tolerances where the head literally flies a fraction of a millimeter above the disks fast spinning surface. Measurements a fraction of a human hair thickness are not unusual. So bumping or dropping them or having PC power problems causes the components to literally crash and may result in irreparable damage.

3. Meant to do it!
Most business people and many home users are aware of the need to Backup (or copy, in easy terms) their information to another place for safe keeping. After failures they often say ‘I meant to do it but never made the time.’

4. Once Bitten.
Every day before they walk out of the office they’ll religiously run or at least start the backup going. In the morning they’ll check and make sure all went Ok with the Backup and look at any errors reported.

5. Backup, a mistaken or confused name!
Simply put, Data Backup is the ability to recreate or restore the system you had working before the PC failure or loss.
It may be called Copy, Save, Burn, Write. Unfortunately the word Backup is often used different ways. And means different things in different places!
Bookkeeping software typically prompts you to backup your data (the company accounts and ledgers, in other words). But the backup is usually on the PC not another disk or computer. So if that computer goes missing, then the company bookkeeping info is gone too.
You need to do this type of data Backup for bookkeeping and company client lists.
But there’s more to do. Make a note where it goes to so you can Backup or copy it to another disk, CD, ZIP or Flash device you can take home.

6. What do you need to do today?
Simple. Work out what you use your computers for that you simply couldn’t do without if it wasn’t there tomorrow.
Would your business or personal relationships STOP without the ability to re-create the computer info you’re using?
Please. Take a minute to read the full story below.

7. Let’s get organised.
You’ll need: -
any equipment and software to make the backup
a plan to follow to do it regularly
to backup what you should
to store it somewhere safe
to write down the backups done
reminders to do it next time
most of all the patience to wait and do it whenever it’s due.
Lastly, it should be tested that you can recover from disaster if it ever occurs.

8. Things to save.
Information to Backup should include Documents Spreadsheets
Bookkeeping &amp Transaction data Address Books Lists Emails Personal information, Photos Downloaded Programs and Licenses Favorites
Special things Internet &amp Email settings Regulatory matters.
Many of these items are irreplaceable, so they should be safeguarded.

9. Our recommended backup system.
Two copies, one at your place and one at a friends place.
Small Backup, things that change frequently, done daily.
Big Backup, total Backup of your PC because the info is organised in a disorganized sort of way, spread over the hard drive in hard to find places, done weekly or monthly.
More than one PC?
If you have more than one PC you may need to re-think and re-organise where information is stored in the computers.
A central point for all company data is easier to manage and Backup than data in all the odd places on the computer. You may investigate ’synchronizing’ data so it’s naturally on more than one PC.

10. Near worst case scenario.
If the Hard drive fails the information may be recoverable.
But it’s a very expensive job by the professionals.
Occasionally one of our customers has needed to retrieve data from a dead hard drive. We recommend a particular company who has always managed to recover the data, but there’s a lot of lost time and un-necessary expense especially when compared to the simple smart solution where you take all the necessary precautions and do the backup first.

We hope you never see one of these errors:-
an MYOB fatal error 1199 as one of our customers did recently. It translates to the data file causing this error is definitely unusable and irrepairable. It can only be fixed by restoring your data from your most recent backup. (Do you have a recent Backup?)
or HAL.DLL is missing or corrupt. It translated (in this case) to the Windows folder has disappeared. Anything at all that was stored in the windows folder is GONE. Windows needs to be re-installed from the original media (CD), Updated and Settings restored from a recent backup.
Occasionally we (you or I) will start working on a document or data file and have a little accident. Accidents happen to us all occasionally. The simplest way is often to simply restore from the most recent backup, or waste a lot of productive time just getting things back to the way before we commenced, and made the accident.
Just imagine what the worst case would be!

11. Our own system. How we backup.
Pixel ITT has these systems in place.
Daily, MYOB, when closing company data the data integrity is checked and Zipped up on the C Drive. It takes about 3 minutes.

Monday, 9am, Customer database and documents, Zipped into one file on C Drive. Takes 5 to 10 minutes at the start of day.

Monday to Friday, 9.50pm, Automatic Backup using XXCopy Pro of My Documents Folder which includes, MYOB, Customer data, Documents, saved to a redundant (older) PC as a file server, 5 minutes unattended. Older PC must be turned on and available on the office network.

Monday to Friday, 10pm, Automatic Unattended Backup of daily data important to business, MYOB, Customer data, Documents, Security info saved to CD, 3 to 5 minutes usually unattended.

Every 2nd Saturday, 2 secondary PC’s, Full incremental backup, to CD on main PC. Takes 10 to 20 minutes attended.

Every 4th Saturday, Main PC, Full incremental backup to CD on main PC, takes 60 to 120 minutes attended.

What’s missing in our backup system?
Off-site backup copy could be more recent but has the main ingredients of our business in a workable version.
Backup test has been performed to restore secondary PC’s only. The main PC will be done when time permits or it becomes necessary.

12. Remember, Backup, start today.
We tell our customers, whether they re small business clients or home computer users at every chance we get, to backup, somehow, but backup regardless. We ve all got cd burners and cd writing software these days, but still most clients do not have a recent data backup or use the backup software that came with their computer. If the worst disaster happens, we re called in to clean up the situation and regretfully tell the customer if they didn t backup before the computer was stolen or broken there s really nothing we can do to ease their pain whether it s business critical data or data like home pictures and email address contact lists.

So BACKUP, Backup, backup just do a BACKUP.

Greg Martyn is a partner in Pixel ITT providing computer service and support in the St George and Sutherland area south of Sydney Australia.
Pixel ITT also supply software for backup, internet security, antivirus and firewall in Australia.
Greg Martyn has been in a technicial role since 1967, and until 2000 worked for OTC and Telstra. Pixel ITT use and recommend the software we sell including EMCDantz Retrospect Pro which is our main backup tool. Trial software and more info is available through http://www.pixelitt.com.au.

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http://EzineArticles.com/?Data-Backup,-The-Why-How-When-for-Business-or-Home&id=129598

The Need for a Backup Strategy
By Aleksey Rubin

So you&amprsquove decided to backup your data but what is the next step? You must have a backup strategy irrespective of whether you are a home user or a business user. The depth of the strategy is the only variant between these two types of users.

As time goes by people and businesses are facing massive and ever-increasing amounts of data that are difficult to manage and that remain unprotected. In this light, the need for a backup strategy becomes critical. Let me just take email as an example: the 12/2004 issue of Smart Computing reports that 88% of adult PC users send and receive emails. The International Data Corporation reports that 16.8 trillion emails were transmitted in 2004 with this figure climbing to 19.7 trillion this year. According to Smart Computing, American businesses send about 9 billion emails a day. On average, home-users transmit around 435kb in email attachments every day. One other research firm estimates that typical corporations with 5000 employees accumulate 4 terabytes of emails every year. The size of my Outlook PST file for 2004 at work rested at 1.4Gb at home it was 650Mb! And finally, Dataquest estimates that the total number of hard disk drives shipped in 2002 rests at 212.5m units representing around 8.5m terabytes of storage space.

Home-user data includes documents, audio and video files, scanned images, and digital photos. Businesses have marketing collateral developed and stored electronically, customer information stacked in databases, financial records posted in accounting packages, budgets and business plans recorded on network storage devices. As this list grows, the need for a backup strategy becomes even more obvious!

We usually advise customers to look at 5 key elements of any backup strategy:

1. Invest in good Backup Software: Read the reviews, visit the websites and look out for features and assurances that the product you are buying is reliable, fast and easy to use. Spend time reading the websites of the various suppliers. Some products cost no more than $40 but your data costs much more. Losing your data because the software you have bought is not effective means that you have thrown away an extra $40!

2. Plan Your Backups: Most software packages on the market have schedulers. Use these schedulers. It doesn&amprsquot take much time to set up a timetable for backups. Depending on how many times you use your PC you can schedule your periodical backups: at work, I backup every day at 9 a.m.. At home, I backup once a week.

3. Check the Integrity of your Restore: Even though you have backed up, what guarantee do you have that your data can be restored when disaster hits? The best way to ensure full &ampldquorestorability&amprdquo of your data is to buy a backup product that has bit-level verification (like WinBackup 2.0). Such a feature makes sure that while the product is performing your backup it checks all the data down to the level of bits and bytes. In essence, the software first back up the data and then automatically performs a test restore to make sure that every single bit has been copied.

4. Check the Integrity of your Backup Medium: You can have the best software in the world and back your data every hour, however, if you do not have a good medium to store your archives, you are doomed. The second best way to ensure the restorability of your data is to choose good mediums and to do regular test restores from them.

5. Check your hard drives regularly and make sure you have good anti-spyware and anti-virus software. There is no harm in checking hard drives for errors and bad sectors as these drives do fail over time.

Data Recovery and Backup Software

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http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Need-for-a-Backup-Strategy&id=312104

Downloadable Backup Software
By Eddie Tobey

Backup software ranges from simple programs that help you copy files to a floppy or CD to complex software packages that backup thousands of networked computers. There are backup software programs that can be downloaded directly from the Internet.

Downloadable backup programs enable you to store your data in a variety of storing devices such as tapes, CDs, DVDs, and hard drives. Downloadable backup software programs can be used in different types of computers such as personal computers, local network computers, and large professional computer networks.

Downloadable backup software may be freeware or payware programs. Freeware programs are usually suitable only for free software such as GNU and Linux. Before you download a backup software program, make sure that it is suitable for the operating system you use in your computer. Most downloadable backup software packages run in operating systems such as Windows 98/Me/NT4/2000/XP/2003. Downloadable backup software can be full backup software, differential backup software, or incremental backup software. Full backup software is used for the full restoring of a crashed hard drive. Differential backup software packages restore selected files. Incremental backup software helps you restore data present on specified date and time.

Most downloadable backup software companies provide online information on their products and prices. Some allow comparisons of their products and prices with others. Most downloadable backup software programs have shareware versions, which are free trail versions of the original software.

Downloadable backup software can be hard drive backup software, online backup software, or utility backup software. The downloading procedure is generally easy and can be done by following the instructions. You can keep a copy of the downloaded software program on a CD or DVD for future use.

Backup Software provides detailed information on Backup Software, CD ROM Backup Software, Free Backup Software, Computer Backup Software and more. Backup Software is affiliated with Network Status Monitoring Software.

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http://EzineArticles.com/?Downloadable-Backup-Software&id=302277

You Need to Backup
By Robert Hanania

It doesn’t matter if you paid $500.00 or $2000.00 to purchase a new computer for your home or business you will defiantly want to have some kind of insurance and backing up your computer is the best form of protection there is.

When anyone buys a computer today they are most likely to be using windows, the most widely accepted operating system on the market. Windows comes with a software utility called backup that lets the user copy all their files and other data onto various media. It is recommended to backup your computer once a week, but if a lot of data is added within a couple of days or so you may consider so daily. First and foremost a backup should include your system settings and important files, and then you can pick and choose to copy e-mail, favorites, pictures, ect. Or make a full backup to cover everything.

There are problems with backups of the human sort. It pains me to say some people (even professionals) are lazy or inconsistent when it comes to backups. They either forget or simply don’t bother until it’s too late because the backup was not updated to include their current data this oversight can ruin a business! Some people will also neglect to have in place having any sort of labeling system for past and current backups with dates, times or other crucial information. If you are backing up onto magnetic tapes like floppy disks (these are not practical anymore because they only hold about 1.5mb of data), you should keep them away from anything that can produce a magnate field like motors, phones and power supplies also keep them away from excessive heat, cold and moisture.

The media used depends on factors like cost, time, type, and connivance of use. The most common type of media backup used is CD-R and CD-RW the first one is cheap but you will use a lot of them for a full backup because they hold only 650 MB of data and you will not be able to hold video files. The second is more expensive and has the same limitations (as CD-R’s), but has the ability to be written on again and again (Re- Writeable).

Another way to go is by using a DVD-R or DVD-RW disks that can hold around 5 GB (GigaBites) of data an can hold digital video files as well. (That’s my personal favorite).

Zip drives are also a preferred storage device that can hold 750 MB and also external hard drives that up to 150 GB. There are other types of data storage media, these are just a few.

What it boils down to is everyone should use there backups correctly, use the best media for your present needs, but also try to anticipate what you might need in the future.

About the Author

Robert Hanania is the owner and operator of Data And File Recovery Dot Com If you would like to contact him, please visit his Website

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http://EzineArticles.com/?You-Need-to-Backup&id=115279

Backup Your Data On Your Computer Or Lose It Forever
By Gregg Hall

Computers, though they are meant to make our lives generally easier, depending on the perception, usually are much like a double-edged sword. Any person, who has used a computer for a while, will have an understanding on just how safe their date is. More the fact, that safe date simply does not exist, when it comes to computers. It really does not matter what type of work you are doing you have experienced computer failure likely numerous times. Occasionally, as is expected, we will experience disruptions within the work we are doing on the computer rather we are laying out a business plan, writing a book, or simply surfing the internet.

Each piece of data you store upon your computer is in danger of a variety of threats. Because of this, regular computer users have integrated recovery of data directly into our knowledge of computers. While it is possible to recover data, it does not mean it is always a necessity. There are rules all computer users should know and apply the following will help in preventing the need to use data recovery.

You should practice regular backups of:

Games you have Saved

Your System Settings

My Documents Folder

My Music Folder

My Pictures Folder

Drivers

Applications that you do not have copies of

It is important to back up the above because doing so will help you prevent the need to use data recovery. When backing up these items you should use secondary method of storage such as tapes, disks, floppies, or zip drives, this allows you to ensure hard disk recovery.

Once you have performed the backup, you will want to keep the backup medium stored in a location away from your computer where it will be protected from contamination, heat, and dust, all of which may destroy the data contained on the storage medium. This helps in prevent data recovery from becoming necessary.

Data recovery is still possible, if you accidentally delete a much-needed file. However, before running out to buy the data recovery software, you will want to look into your recycle bin. The recycle bin is the holding folder before permanent deletion. If you have accidentally deleted an important file, first look there and data recovery could be as easy and just restoring the file. However, once it has been emptied, recovering in this manner is not longer available.

If you have ever suffered a crash you know how crucial it is to back up your computer, I have and I know the damage that can be done. Take the time to back up your computer before it is too late.

Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Florida. Find more about data backup and Hard Disk Data Recovery at http://www.datarecoveryfast.com

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Backup Software
By Eddie Tobey

Creating a backup for the data in a computer or any electronic storage device is very important. Most equipment, including personal computers, have a good chance of “crashing,” which is the failure of the hard disk on which the data is stored. When a hard disk crashes, all the data is inevitably lost.

This possible loss is the main reason for creating backups of the data that we have and that we are likely to use sometime in the future. The frequency of backup creation depends on the usage level of the system, the kinds of files stored, the frequency of changes made to the data, and the importance of the data. Some people store a lot of files on their computers and keep adding new ones continuously. Such people need a daily or even an hourly backup.

There are different kinds of backups: full backup (creates backup for every file and folder in the system) incremental backup (only the changes are copied) unattended backup (the backup can be programmed to take place at a certain time without the active participation of the user) archive or disk image (option to create backup for just files or the whole disk) differential backup (creates backup for only changed files and newer versions of the files) and snapshot backup.

Backups can be made into a whole lot of different devices: compact disks, DVDs, floppy disks, tapes, printouts, removable hard disks, online servers, and so on. Backups can also be made into fixed media like another part of the hard disk or to another computer on the same network. Each of these has different capacities, security limits, conveniences, and risks. It is advisable to back up into more than one media for reducing risk.

The main criteria to be considered while purchasing a backup software program are the ease of operation, ability to backup without continuous monitoring, ability to handle different backup formats like hard disks and CDs, ability to restore with minimum errors, easy accessibility to backup files, ability to have different compression levels for different kinds of files, ability to backup over FTP, USB drives and networks, and ability to verify whether the files have been saved well.

There are several kinds of backup software available today. Some of the best programs include the Genie Backup Manager, NTI BackupNow!, Novastor NovaBackup, Handy Backup, Double Image, ABC Backup, Absolute Backup, Active Backup Expert, Advanced Backup, AKG Backup, Argentum Software, Avail Solutions, BackRex Backup, Backup Buddy, Data Sheriff, Disk2disk and several others. There are also free downloadable backup software programs such as TaskZip, EZBack-it-up, SyncBack, IceMirror, Version, Freebyte, Back4Win, MOB, My Own Backup, Workgroup, Simply Safe, and many more. Most of these software packages come with many other advanced functions such as password protection, restoring damaged backups, filtering of files and storing them accordingly, compression capabilities and several others. Backup software can be downloaded for free from the Internet. Some advanced software programs have to be purchased.

Backup Software provides detailed information on Backup Software, CD ROM Backup Software, Free Backup Software, Computer Backup Software and more. Backup Software is affiliated with Network Status Monitoring Software.

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