Friendly reminder - some Preventive Maintenance

[Stephen Beckham]

Well, folks as another year ends I find myself cleaning out the hard drive of old files. This year I have a Terrabit Network Drive, so instead of just dumping old stuff, I'm moving it over to the network drive.

I'd encourage everyone to search out those big files that can be dumped. But not only that - trash the old emails of junk we get from suppliers. Once that's done compress your email folders to save space.

Use your disk clean up to get rid of other old trash and then whether you think you need it or not, use your defrag system to get your drive back in order - Corel and Windows alike really beat up the drive with backup files, temp files and then just huge files we use when dealing with high DPI images... I had over 3000 fragmented files from this last year.... (defrag last of course)

Anyway - just thought I'd mention it to some that might not otherwise perform this annual (and sometime bi-annual) task that takes a day or so to do correctly. It can save you some operational time and possibilities of Corel crashes.

If you're not computer savvy and want some help, ask - but don't just let someone do it for you learn from them to do it - it's something you'll need to do quite often...



One last note - I won't recommend it so much, but tell you that I have done it. I turned off the Windows Autoupdates. It seems to screw around with Corel every time I run one... If you're security conscience - leave it on - if you keep having Corel problems that pop up every two to three weeks without explanations - shut em down...

Steve

[Doug Griffith]

I recommend backing up any important files to an external drive or removable media prior to defragging. You never know what may happen. But, then again, we all backup on a regular basis so...

Cheers,
Doug

[Angus Hines]

This year I have a Terrabit Network Drive, so instead of just dumping old stuff, I'm moving it over to the network drive.



So how would I set something like this up? Can I use it for all 3 computers I'm running?

I really need better file management my stuff is all over the place.

[Mike Null]

Steve

Good reminder. I just bought a 500 G external HD which will serve to back up all three of my PC's though I will leave it connected to my primary for daily auto back up.

I'm also considering online storage.

Angus----saw your post too late. In my case I'm going to manually back up my extra PC's once a month or as I deem necessary. Best Buy tells me that the external HD (Seagate) will back up files automatically.

[Scott Shepherd]

We use Carbonite.com as our main backup system. It'll backup everything on your hard drive (doesn't do removable drives last time I checked) and it's $50 a year. Not $50 a month, $50 a year for unlimited backups. It saved my behind, as I deleted a user profile and it wiped out every single job file I had. 3 minutes later, all restored and back in place.

There are some others like Carbonite, but it's the only one I have experience with and it's been well worth the money and works automatically. All my files are backed up throughout the day, every day, all the time. So no physical action I have to take to make it happen. Create a new file, it knows it, and within minutes, it's backed up.

[Stephen Beckham]

So how would I set something like this up? Can I use it for all 3 computers I'm running?

Angus,

I got a WorldBook that works through 10BaseT internet connection so it hooks right into my router. Once it boots, it becomes an 'available' drive that you can map to any other computer on the network.

You will have issues with Microsoft - for instance, trying to access my Access DB for billing records, it will not allow editing across the network - I know there's a way around it - but that's beyond my skill level, so I keep that file on my laptop and back up occasionally.

The software for backing up automatically that came with it really wasn't for me. I had to log in every time I wanted to access my hard drive for security reasons - no way around it. So I'm using it as a dumb drive that has lots of space.

Another issue you'll have is if a second person tries to access a file while it's in use - you'll get the can't access error (hopefully - imagine two different edits saved to the same file - which one takes?).

Anyway - I'm working my way up to a work horse workstation to get off of this laptop and I'm building the network drive up first before trying to swap computers... It should make for a easier transition. I know there will be some issues to work through, but hooking it to the network with software loaded - I should almost immediately be able to start hitting the different printers, the laser and the wireless fax/scanner through the same router.

One of the hardest things I've come across is file structure. How many levels? What catagories? File Naming schemes... So far, I've simplified it to Counties, Military, Religious, Vendors and a couple others as my root directories. Then sub directory from there.

On the file names - I don't just name them anymore - I keyword file names to make them easier to search, I'll include a customer's name then item Part# then other related words or template related words with spaces in between. I have some file names that are nine words with spaces - searches find the one I need everytime... They look funny - but serve memory better...

Chow....

[John Frazee]

I bought a few programs from PCPitstop.com that cleans up my computers. One is called "erase". I run it a few times a month and it flushes all the muck. I am no wiz on computers but somewhere in your system it saves a file of everything you've done and all the websites and cookies. You can set this program to run on auto every so often to flush all these extra files and it shows the stats of the room it saves. Also I use "optimize" from PCPitstop. It gets rid of broken files, makes changes in the registry and I guess whatever else your system needs. As for storage, I use an external hard drive. I think most ISP's offer so much free storage online but have never used it. It's a thought though worth checking into.

[Jackie McGowan]

Hi I use mosy for online back up. It's similar to carbonite. I used to spend hours backing up to cd's... no more :)

[Rudy Ress]

Another vote for Carbonite. If you use the link from Kim Komando (komando.com) [ http://www.komando.com/tips/index.aspx?id=5741 ] and use the 15 day free trial, you can get a discount on the yearly cost. IIRC $89 for two years.

[Frank Corker]

Thanks Steve, I decided to do my maintenance on my machine today and for the first time in a long while I checked the air supply for the air assist. Virtually nil. The compressor is outside of the building in a small purpose built box, I checked the filter and it was clogged up to the hilt! No wonder there was nothing coming out of the nozzle by the laser. I gave it a good clean and a soak in alcohol which has now cleared the blockage, but had it not been for your post nagging on at me, I might not have checked it again for a long while.

[Dave Johnson29]

I bought a few programs from PCPitstop.com that cleans up my computers. One is called "erase". I run it a few times a month and it flushes all the muck.

There is an excellent free program called CCleaner available from www.ccleaner.com

[R. A. Mitchell]

Offsite backup is a very good idea. I use Mozy.

One thing to be aware of, though. Mozy makes it extremely easy to back up a system. It happens in the background every day, and you don't have to think about it. It even helps when you accidentally overwrite files.

I can't speak for Carbonite, but Mozy's restore process can be very difficult. Getting a single file is pretty easy, but restoring an entire system can be painful. When you have gigs of data, downloading those files can be problematic. About a year ago I had to do a major restore because of a hard drive failure and I went ahead and ordered my entire backup from Mozy on DVDs. It cost me about $100, but I now have a complete archive of everything on DVD in a safe spot.

Something to think about.

[Bill Cunningham]

I Also bought a 500gig portable drive..When I bought my last computer 5 years ago, it had a 40G drive, and I though Gad.. I'll NEVER be in a position where 'thats' filled..ha... My new machine has a 500G drive, so it looks like I'm gonna be in the market for TB portable next year, just to be on the safe side.. I also use a program called RegSeeker to clean up the registry every so often.. The registry can fill up with crap pretty quick, and is one of the major slowdown bottlenecks.. Pays to sweep it out once in a while .. RegSeeker is free, google it, and it works great! It also does a bunch of other useful stuf...