APCUG May newsletter articles:
1. Backing up your
hard drive
By Gene Barlow
User Group Relations
Copyrighted January 2002
Your computer hard drive is very important: Your hard drive
is the heart of your computer system. It contains your Windows operating
system, which is the master control program of your computer. It also contains
all of your application programs that help you do productive things with your
computer. But, most importantly, it contains all the data files that you create
using your application programs. These data files are the most valuable part of
your computer and the hardest to replace if something should happen to your
hard drive.
Yes, your hard drive will fail on you someday: Your hard
drive is a mechanical device that spins constantly and is certain to wear out. The
life of a hard drive is only 2-3 years. If you are lucky, your drive may last
you 4 or 5 years, but it could go out in just 6 months. It is not a question of
if your hard drive will fail, but it’s a question of when it will fail. All you
can do is to be ready when it does fail by having a copy of all of the files on
your hard drive saved away from your computer. Then you can replace the failed
drive with an empty new drive and put all of the files on the new hard drive.
This lets you be back up and running in a mater of
minutes instead of days or weeks rebuilding your drive. This process is called
backing up and restoring your hard drive and is the topic of this article.
What files should you backup: One of the first decisions you
must make is what files need to be backed up to adequately protect you. I
consider your data files as the most important ones to backup. Your data files
are those files that you create using your application programs. If you use
Quicken, then the data file that needs to be backed up contains all of your
financial records entered into Quicken. If you research your genealogy, then
the database of your ancestors that you've collected for years is the important
data file that must be backed up. If you correspond extensively using E-mail,
then the folders of your E-mail correspondence needs to be backed up. You
should plan on backing up your data files at least daily.
The second most important thing to backup is your entire
hard drive and all of the files on it. This includes your Windows operating
system as well as all of your application programs. By backing up the entire
hard drive, you will not have to rebuild your system from scratch, but will be
able to quickly get your system back up and running again. Some would suggest
that you really don't need to backup your operating system and application
programs because you can always reload them from the CDs they came on. While
this is mostly true, you need to consider how much time this will take you to
reinstall the operating system and all of the applications you own. Then, how
long will it take you to download all of the software patches and add-ons that
you have added to your system. Finally, how long will it take you to enter all
of the special settings that you must do to have your system work exactly as
you like it to. To this lengthy time, consider how you can recover the many
programs and files for which you do not have a CD. I think when you consider
all of these factors, you'll agree that having a
backup of your entire hard drive is a wise investment of your time. You should
plan on backing up your entire hard drive on a monthly basis.
What media is best for backup: The next question you need to
consider is what is the best media to backup your files from
your hard drive. A few years ago, tape backup systems were the most
popular backup media. The only problem with these tape systems was that they
were very slow. Backing up a 1-2GB hard drive in a couple of hours was
reasonable, but backing up today's 40GB hard drives to tape would take too
long. You would not do it often enough to be usable. The next popular backup
media to come along were the removable disk cartridge drives. These were much
faster than tape, but the cartridges tended to be expensive. For example, a
40GB hard drive would need 10-20 Jazz (2GB) cartridges to backup the entire
drive. At $100 each, you would need to invest over $2,000 in cartridges to
backup your entire drive. Writing to blank CDs promises to be one of the best
backup media today, but even the fastest drives are slow and it takes many
blank CDs to backup a large hard drive.
So, what is the best media to backup a 40GB hard drive
today? Another 40GB hard drive! Hard drives are much faster than tape and are
even faster than the disk cartridge systems. You can backup an entire 40GB hard
drive in less than an hour or so. Since it is fast, you'll tend to backup your
system more often and this means better protection for you. Hard drives are
also very inexpensive to purchase. If you watch prices carefully, you can get a
40GB hard drive for $99 or less. I would plan on having an extra hard drive for
backup purposes for each hard drive that you save data on.
What type of backup software is available: There are two
very different backup utilities on the market today -- File backup utilities
and Partition backup utilities. File backup utilities are by far the most
common. These utilities backup individual files one at a time. They can also be
used to restore individual files to your hard drive. A good feature of File
backup utilities is that they can select individual files from all parts of
your hard drive. This is great for picking and choosing your important data
files to backup. On the other hand, File backup utilities tend to be quite slow
in backing up your entire hard drive and you would need to make many extra
steps in rebuilding your hard drive partitions in case of a total failure. That
is where Partition backup utilities have the advantage. Partition backup
utilities backup entire partitions and all the files contained in them. Some of
these Partition backup utilities work at the lowest hardware level and are very
fast. Restoring a partition to an empty hard drive using a partition backup
utility will create and format partitions as it restores the partition file.
PowerQuest Corporation has an
excellent backup software package that contains both a File backup utility and
a Partition backup utility combined in one product. This product is called
Drive Image and has a list price of $69.95. The File backup utility in this
product is called DataKeeper and is designed to
backup your individual data files on a frequent basis. The Partition backup
utility in the product is called Drive Image and is designed to backup your
entire hard drive every month or so. Let's take a look at how these two
utilities can be used to backup your system.
Backing up your important Data files: As mentioned earlier,
the data files on your system are the most important files on your computer.
They are also the hardest to replace if something should happen to your hard
drive. Backing up your data files should be your first objective in
establishing a good backup plan for your system. Data files change daily and
need to be backed up on a daily basis.
Using PowerQuest's DataKeeper utility, you can select all of your important
data files from various part of your hard drive. If you have spent a little
preparation in organizing your hard drive, you may already have all of your
data files collected together in the same partition. This makes it easier to
identify and backup these important data files. DataKeeper
will let you backup all of your data files or backup only those that have
changed since the last backup. You can also compress the backup files to about
half their original size when you save them to conserve space. You can backup
an individual file up to 99 times without replacing an earlier backup copy of
that file. This gives you the ability to keep multiple backup versions of a
data file as it is being developed. If you need to see the file, as it was
several versions ago, you can do so with DataKeeper.
It will backup these files to any device having a standard drive letter, such
as a special backup partition on a hard drive or a removable cartridge drive.
If you create your data file backups on a hard drive, try to place them on
another hard drive than the one the original data files are stored on. Also,
you should copy these backup files to a blank CD every month so that you will
have some removable media that you can store away from your computer.
One of the best features of DataKeeper
is its ability to monitor the import data files that you select and to
automatically backup a file as soon as it is changes. Using this monitoring
approach, you never have to think about backing up your data files since this
is done for you automatically. It also assures that you have a backup of these
important files that is current to the last minute or so. This is a powerful
feature of DataKeeper and one that I would highly
recommend using.
Backing up your entire hard drive: The second most important
part of your backup plan is to backup your entire hard drive at least once a
month. Having this backup in place will protect you from a major failure of
your entire hard drive. Using PowerQuest's Drive
Image to backup your entire hard drive you have two approaches to select from.
Let's look at each of these approaches separately.
The first full-drive backup approach is to use Drive Image
to copy all of the partitions from your main hard drive to a backup hard drive.
Both hard drives must be installed on the same computer system to do this
approach. Using Drive Image's Disk-to-Disk Copying facility, you copy the
partitions from your main drive to the backup drive, one at a time. When Drive
Image copies a partition, it creates a new partition on the backup drive, so
the drive can be empty of partitions before you start the process. Also,
copying a partition copies not only the partition, but also all of the hidden
files, system files, and other files contained in the partition to the backup
hard drive. So, when you finish copying all of the partitions from your main
drive to the backup drive, you have an exact duplicate of your main drive that
could be used if your main drive failed.
After copying all of the partitions to your backup hard
drive, you need to disconnect the backup drive and remove it from your computer
system. You should store the drive away from your computer, so that if anything
happens to your computer, your backup drive will not be affected, too. Once a
month, you'll need to retrieve this backup hard drive and insert and connect it
back into your computer and repeat the backing up of all of your partitions, then remove it again from your computer. If something should
happen to your main hard drive, simply get your backup hard drive and replace
your main hard drive with the backup drive, setting it as a master drive, and
you should be able to immediately start your computer and have it run. To
simplify the frequent removal and replacement of your backup hard drive, you
can purchase a hard drive rack mounting system from your computer store for
about $25 that will let you remove and insert the drive without removing the
covers of your computer.
The second full-drive backup approach is to use Drive Image
to cross backup one hard drive to another. With this approach, you install and
leave both hard drives in your computer all the time. For this approach to
work, you'll need to setup a large backup partition at the end of each of the
two hard drives. PowerQuest's PartitionMagic
utility is the best way to create these backup partitions on your hard drives.
Once the two drives are in place with a large backup partition on each of them,
you can use Drive Image to create condensed image files of entire partitions
and store them on the backup partition of the other hard drive.
To make this a little easier to understand, let's look at a
simple example. You have two hard drives and the following partitions on each
of the two hard drives:
Drive 1:
C:
partition (Contains your Operating System)
D:
partition (A backup partition)
Drive 2:
E:
partition (Contains your Application Programs)
F:
partition (Contains your Data Files)
G:
partition (A backup partition)
Using Drive Image, create an image files
of your entire C: partition and all of its contents on your G: backup
partition. Then, using Drive Image, create an image file of your E: and F:
partitions on your D: backup partition. These image files represent the entire
partition and all of their active content. These image files can be condensed
by 40-50% to save room on your backup partition. Notice that we save the images
from one hard drive to the other hard drive's backup partition and visa-versa.
Hence, we call this the cross backup approach.
Once a month, you'd repeat this cross backup approach from
one drive to the other until you fill up the backup partition. Then you'd
delete the oldest image file to make room for the new image file to be stored
in your backup partition. If either of your hard drives should fail on you, all
you have to do is to remove the failed drive and place an empty new drive in
its place. Then using Drive Image, you find the latest condensed image of the
partitions on the failed drive on the other drive’s backup partition and
restore that image to recreate the partitions and all of their content on the
empty drive. This lets you be back up and running your computer in a matter of
minutes instead of days or weeks rebuilding your system. If the drive that
failed was your first drive containing your operating system,
that is no problem. You can boot Drive Image from a DOS diskette and
quickly rebuild your operating system partitions from the second drive's backup
partition.
What if both hard drives fail together: While it is rare, it
is possible for both of your hard drives to fail at the same time, thus leaving
you without either of your backup partitions to use to rebuild the other hard
drive. For example, your computer could be burned in a fire or taken by a thief.
In these cases, you'd loose not only your main drive, but your backup images as
well. So, you need to make some special provisions to guard against these
situations. I'd recommend that every 3 months, after you have backed up your
partitions using the cross backup approach, you use Drive Image's ImageExplorer to split your condensed image file into
multiple segments that will fit on blank CDs. Drive Image will burn these image
segments on multiple CDs for you or you can use the CD burning utility that came
with your CD-R/RW drive. While this may take a while to do, it will give you an
inexpensive removable backup of your entire hard drive that you can store away
from your computer. I would repeat this process of creating backup CDs of your
entire hard drive every 3 months or so.
Summary: If you follow the suggestions in this article, then
you will have a comprehensive backup plan that will protect both your important
data files as well as your entire hard drive. You must make sure that you
follow the time intervals suggested so that your backups are current enough to
be usable. PowerQuest's Drive Image product, a second
hard drive, and a CD-R/RW drive are all the software and hardware you need to
run this backup plan. A second hard drive and a CD-R/RW drive can both be
purchased for about $100 each. Faster models are available for only a few dollar more. User group members can purchase Drive Image at
the user group price of $35 by accessing a secure web order form at
www.ugr.com/order/. You will need to enter the name of your user group and the
special code UGNL02. I wish you success in setting up your backup plan.
Gene Barlow
User Group Relations
Voice: 801-796-7370
There is no restriction against any non-profit group using the article as long as it is kept in context, with proper credit given to the author. This article is brought to you by the Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an International organization. Please let Gene know if you use his article.
2. Why I am
Against the Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act
By Dennis Courtney
President, Capital PC User Group -
The Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act (IFBDA), popularly known as the Tauzin-Dingell Bill, narrowly passed the House of Representatives last month and is now headed for the Senate. It faces more of a challenge in the Senate but its defeat is by no means assured. After you read this article I hope that you will join me by adding your voice to the chorus calling for the defeat of this bad piece of legislation.
A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
IFBDA supporters claim that the bill is intended to free the Baby Bells from the burden of regulation so that they can bring broadband access to their customers. The trouble is it frees the Baby Bells from all current regulation and prohibits the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and various states from ever regulating broadband. Specifically, it frees the Baby Bells from the requirement that they resell access to their service lines to other broadband providers and prohibits anyone from regulating them. This means that they can freeze out other broadband providers, charge you whatever they wish without any service level requirements while both the state and federal governments will be prohibited from doing anything about it! Instead of making broadband access competitive, IFBDA is very clearly anti-competitive.
The bill states that “the imposition of regulations by the Federal Communications Commission and the States has impeded the rapid delivery of high speed internet access services and Internet backbone services to the public, thereby reducing consumer choice and welfare.” Giving the Bells carte blanch to avoid competition and charge any price without ensuring a minimum quality of service does nothing to increase consumer choice or welfare.
Unfulfilled Promises
Have you ever wondered what all those different taxes
listed on your phone bill are for? At
least some of them were supposedly earmarked to help build a nationwide
fiber-optic system. Over half of
The New Jersey Ratepayer Advocate wrote about NJ Bell Atlantic “...low income and residential customers have paid for fiber-optic lines every month but have not yet benefited. Bell Atlantic-New Jersey has over-earned, under spent and inequitably deployed advanced telecommunications technology to business customers, while largely neglecting schools and libraries, low income and residential rate payers and consumers in Urban Enterprise Zones as well as urban and rural areas”.
Follow the Money
Why would the House pass a bill so obviously pro-business and anti-consumer? One has to wonder when looking at the money spread around by the Bells in support of Tauzin-Dingell. According to the non-partisan campaign contribution reporting site www.opensecrets.org the Bells gave over $19.4 million dollars from 1999 to 2001 in PAC, soft money and individual contributions. Opponents of Tauzin-Dingell gave just over $8 million. Supporters of Tauzin-Dingell received more than 7 times as much money from the Bells than they did from the anti-Tauzin-Dingell groups. More than 180 House members got 10 times more money from the Bells - and they voted to approve the Bill by a 5:1 margin. Those who got equal amounts of money from both sides voted 2:1 against the Bill. Some 16 members of the House received no money from either side - they voted 13-3 against the Bill. The strong correlation between money and votes in the House make the defeat of the legislation in the Senate an uncertain conclusion. The Bells have ‘deep pockets’ and have shown that they are willing to invest in making sure that they have their Congressman’s ear on this matter.
What Can You Do About It?
First you should educate yourself regarding the
issue. This article is a good first step
but there is plenty of information on the subject to be found on the Internet
or through your local consumer watchdog organizations (the public utility
commissions in 30 states, including
Second, contact both of your state’s Senators and tell them what you think about Tauzin-Dingell. Although we don’t know yet what the bill will be called when it reaches the Senate, they’ll know what you mean. Many Senators will accept Email directly or through the Senate website at http://www.senate.gov. Whatever you think about this legislation, let your Senator know. If it passes in the Senate you can be assured it will be signed into law and you will be living with the consequences for a long time to come.
Dennis Courtney is the President of the Capital PC User
Group in
There is no restriction against any non-profit group using the article as long as it is kept in context, with proper credit given to the author. This article is brought to you by the Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an International organization.
3. The Mac Corner
By Kurt Jefferson email: lextown@iglou.com
About Mac support
Want a Mac site that's chock full of goodies? Try the
About.com Mac support page:
http://macsupport.about.com/mlibrary.htm
What I especially like about this page are the numerous
links in the left-hand rail. You'll find links for G3 and G4 processors, iMac,
iBook and PowerBook support, upgrading old Macs,
installing memory and maintenance tips. As you know, half the battle of finding
what you want
on the web is, finding it. This
site helps you find the Mac stuff fast. What don't I like? The
pop-up ad that dropped behind my browser on the day when I visited this page.
That's a pain.
April 15 looms
Still working on those taxes? Visit the I.R.S. online:
http://www.irs.gov/
You'll find links for help, downloadable tax forms, a place
to e-file your taxes, and more. Some studies show that tax help sites are some
of the fastest-growing places on the web.
Here's one of my favorite tax sites:
http://www.tax.org/
This page is filled with links that not only inform, but
teach.
Then there's H & R Block's Tax Cut software:
http://www.taxcut.com/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/applications/taxcut/
And of course, Intuit (makers of TurboTax for Mac) has its
tax page filled with goodies:
http://www.quicken.com/taxes
Here's where you can find the Kentucky Revenue Cabinet's
page for downloadable tax forms, news, tax laws and more.
http://revenue.state.ky.us/
Good reviews
The folks over at c|net sure like
the current crop of Apples. I checked out their reviews of the newest iBook, PowerBook and iMac. The iBook made the Editor's Choice list. c|net says that laptop continues to be a great
consumer notebook. The PowerBook G4 also is named Editor's Choice. c|net says it has
"heart-pumping performance."
And the new iMac is so new that
only a preliminary review by Mac
user Gene Steinberg was available when I wrote this. But 92 percent of the
folks who took the time to review the new iMac (with
the base that resembles a volleyball cut in half) gave it thumbs up. From early
sales, it appears the new iMac will outsell the
original.
I'm a member of Central Kentucky Computer Society (CKCS) in
There is no restriction against any non-profit group using the
article as long as it is kept in
context, with proper credit given
to the author. This article is brought
to you by the Editorial
Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User
Groups (APCUG), an International
organization to which this user
group belongs.
4. Trimming and Cutting for Dummies Like
Me
By Bruce Switalla, Coastal Area
Users Group (CAUG)
Since it will be a while before I learn how to get my
graphic printouts to line up correctly on pre-perforated paper, I decided to
simply save money on mistakes and take matters into my own hands. So, for the Feb. graphics SIG, I briefly
demonstrated how I make business cards, greeting cards, and photo prints
without the perforated paper that I can't always figure out how to line up.
For now, I use Epson Matte Heavyweight paper (52-lb) for
everything. It makes a thin but
acceptable bus. card, and it doesn’t stick to glass
photo frames. As shown at the meeting,
it yields rich, dark colors too. For
business card software, I use Print Artist and can get it to print TWELVE cards
per 8˝ x11 sheet with hairline crop marks that get
split in two and don’t show. The pre-perforated bus. card sheets
I’ve seen yield only ten and thus leave wasted paper.
For
bus. cards, greeting cards, and photos
alike, I use the following equipment. I
place an 11x15 Good Cook Flexible Cutting Board (about $2.95) from H-E-B’s
cooking utensils section down on my table surface. Yes, it gets cut marks in it, but that’s what
its for! I heard
at the meeting that a fabric store has more costly cutting mats that “heal”
after you cut into them thus preventing the knife from following a previous
groove. To cut, I use an Exacto knife (from Hobby Lobby) and keep it covered with
its plastic cap when not in use. For the
projects without crop marks like photos, I use 2 sharp pencil marks to
determine where to cut. I place the
knife on the mark first, then slide a cork-backed metal ruler (available cheap
at Office Depot) against the knife at my first point. Then, holding the ruler down with my finger
out of the way of the cut, I place the knife-point in the other pencil mark,
pivoting the ruler this time against the knife.
I consistently keep the knife straight up while watching my
fingers. I cut 2 or 3 times just past
where I need to, so the side cuts will come apart when finished. I got a beautiful 5x7 mahogany-colored wood
frame from Dollar General for $2. And
8X10s are 3 and $4. By the way, if you
go with glossy paper, you cannot let it touch the glass, so you will need to
place a spacer, like a mat, around the photo (a job for the pro’s).
Advanced Advice
If you can control how large your photo prints out, you may
opt for 4˝x6˝ or so with white borders that you leave when you cut to 5x7, since
a 5x7 wood frame will cover a quarter inch on all sides, and ink is
expensive. Measure the frame’s inside dimensions for white border (cutting
purposes) and from the front of the frame measure for printing purposes but be
sure no white will show after framing.
Better to think this all out and practice on Crayola-colored
notebook paper than mess up a print. “Measure twice…”
One thing I didn’t cover at the meeting was folding greeting
cards. I place two pencil marks down the
center of where I need to fold Then I put the ruler edge over the marks and use a pizza
cutter roller to crease neatly the fold I need.
Care is needed to avoid rolling away from the ruler’s edge. The resulting fold looks professional!
E-mail Address:
bswit@usa.net
There is no restriction against any non-profit group using the
article as long as it is kept in context, with proper credit given to the
author. This article is brought to you
by the Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups
(APCUG), an International organization. Please let Bruce know if you use his
article.