Some of you, no matter how much I beg, plead and urge, refuse to backup your critical data. I get it – it’s a hassle and really, nothing’s going to happen. Someone else will lose all of their pictures and documents, but not you.

Well, I have a solution for all you procrastinators out there. Http://www.dropbox.com

Sign up for a DropBox account. You get 2GB of storage for free. A folder is placed on your computer for you to keep your data in. The data is then sync’d with their online servers so you can get to that data from anywhere. In addition to being a backup solution, it also gives you mobility and the ability to share data with people without sending huge email files!

DropBox works on Mac or PC. DropBox uses state of the art security. DropBox has redundant servers. Dropbox is cool. Start using it today! (No, they aren’t paying me.)

This is a guest piece by Lara, my wife.
Enjoy!
Bill

I visit my 150+ friends on Facebook on average 1-2 times a week. I’ve had the same email address and password for a few years now, and recently learned that I was hacked probably because I was complacent.

Last week I came home to find six Facebook messages in my email. Two of them, from two long-ago friends, told me my account had been hacked. Another email was sent to my personal account from a from a friend that lives close by, asking me to remove whatever I had posted from her wall because she didn’t want embarrassing/funny videos of her on her mostly spiritual wall.

Mystified by these emails, I logged onto Facebook to see that indeed, my account had been hacked and a link had been posted on almost all of my friends’ walls to a “Funny Video” that apparently had embarrassing content. My long-ago acquaintances knew that I wasn’t sitting around posting videos and told me to change my password.

Within the next 48 hours at least six of my friends’ accounts were also hacked. Messages varied from the one on my account to things like “Check out Miley Cyrus’ sex video” to “I love my Apple iPad, you can get one for free too!” In all cases I contacted the person and told them to change their password.

It’s a good idea to change your password to social media sites every 3-5 weeks to keep your personal information… personal. And if you have a hard time remembering all the passwords, create an Excel spreadsheet to help you track logins, passwords and the last time it was changed. Changing passwords is like cleaning the moldy science experiments out of the refrigerator! Keep things up-to-date and you won’t get sick.

Sometimes you have to read the fine print, or in this case, the normal print. Companies like the Domain Registry of America send out “Domain Name Expiration Notice” letters to people like you and me that own domains.

I get these every year because I only ever renew one year at a time. They contain phrases like, “You must renew your domain name” and “Failure to renew your domain name by the expiration date may result in a loss of your online identity.”

They also say quite clearly that if you choose to renew through them you will be switching your registrar. A registrar is simply a company that registers domain names. If you own a domain name, you have a registrar. Common registrars are network solutions, godaddy.com, regsiter.com, etc.

In my case, if I renewed my domain name through Domain Registry of America, it would cost me about three times as much is it does through GoDaddy.

I feel like these companies prey upon people with little understanding of the domain name process and probably make a nice bundle of cash switching people over and invariably just add the the user’s confusion.

Talk to your IT person before renewing your domain name. You may just save yourself a lot of hassle and money.

Backups make us feel all warm and fuzzy. They’re great. Whether on-site, off-site or just on a jump drive, if we have a backup we feel like we can sleep better at night.
HA
Restoring and recovery are the thing. The actual ability to recover our files and systems is what should make us feel at ease.
For Instance.
I am currently trying to restore a Lenovo tablet to factory defaults. Nothing special, just a factory reset. The “ThinkVantage” crap is killing me. I’ve tried simply running it from the blue button, but it asks for a password to a domain that doesn’t exist, in addition to not recognizing the proper Windows password. Can’t restore.
I’ve tried using the recovery CD’s labled 1 of 6, 2 of 6, etc. After I put in disc 6, it finishes and asks for disc 7. Can’t restore.
I’ve tried giving up on the tablet software and just installing Windows from an OEM CD that I have. Windows can’t find the hard drive because it doesn’t have the proper SATA drivers and the machine doesn’t have a floppy drive, so the drives are almost impossible to load from the F6.
Now I’m trying to burn recovery CD’s from another tablet the client has hoping that these will work. If they don’t I’ll have to call Lenovo. I’m almost positive the machine is out of warranty and they will tell me the recovery disk is $39.99 and they can’t ship it overnight. Almost positive.

Oy.

Whatever your situation, make sure you can backup AND recover your files. Have a backup plan in the event that doesn’t work. Think it through. You’ll thank yourself.

Inspired by LeBron James, my buddy Peter agreed to interview me about the question everyone in America has been waiting for. Will Bill choose the iPhone 4 and AT&T or make the jump to Verizon and get the HTC Incredible? Here is a transcript of the interview.

Peter: Bill, this has been a long process for you. What was it like?
Bill: Well Peter, I won’t lie to you; its been arduous. My family, the media, camera crews day and night – its been a nightmare.

Peter: What is motivating you to look at different options after two solid years with iPhone and AT&T? Is it a question of loyalty?
Bill: In part, yes. AT&T has continually refused to take sufficient responsibility for the number of dropped calls I have to deal with and as a paying customer, it seems like if you are in a contract with them, you give up all your rights.

Peter: That said, why is there even a decision to be made? Why not just take your talents elsewhere?
Bill: The phone is the thing. iPhone is the best device from syncing, to apps to functionality. I really don’t believe there is a better smartphone on the market.

Peter: What was the determining factor in making the decision?
Bill: Ultimately, it came down to rollover minutes.

Peter: Well, before I ask you the big question, I have one more; who butchered your hair?
Bill: I cannot say, as it is a legal matter. Suffice as to say that I won’t be going back. Unless I have a coupon.

Peter: OK, I’ve stalled long enough. What is your decision? What phone are you going to choose for the next two years?
Bill: I’m going to keep giving my money to Apple and AT&T.

Peter: There you have it America. We have a winner. Even though AT&T continues to give its users the shaft, they’ll stay in business because Apple refuses to give up their exclusivity contract.

Microsoft has released the latest version of its Office software. Office 2010 seems to have improved upon some of the features from 2007. Take a look here:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/cool-things-you-can-do-with-office-2010-VA101842280.aspx

You may need the latest version of Silverlight to view the video.

Like many others, I am still getting used to Office 2007 and probably will not be an early adopter of 2010. Because this is my business, however, I will be seeing it on a client’s computer sooner than later. It looks like they have kept the “ribbon” navigation, which I am not a huge fan of. Improvements include more ways to share and collaborate and improved graphics and movie integration. What do you think? Do we need another new version of office so soon?

Based on this NY Times article, there have been over 600,000 orders for the new iPhone on the first day it was offered.
Go read that again.
That is a lot of phones. They have pushed back the delivery date into mid-July instead of June 24 as previously planned. Apple always claims that whatever they put out will “change everything.” In this case, I think they are sort of right. If you haven’t yet watched the video for the new phone, here it is:
iPhone 4

For me, the new OS upgrades including multitasking, single email inbox and organization of apps are what sell it. Also, the hope that the apps I use for work will run a bit better and faster. From a geek perspective, the face time feature looks incredible. I wish it ran over mobile broadband and that there was an application that would allow you to connect with users other than iPhone users on a WiFi hotspot.

Either way, while I am still mulling over my choices, the new phone may just keep me with AT&T – two year commitment and all.

Hate is a strong word. Maybe I am overstating it. Listen to this and tell me if I’m crazy.

I have been using QB Pro 2007 for the last four years. It does what I need. I never run updates as I don’t use the Payroll function. If I were to have a problem with the software, I’d run them manually.
I have known for a while that at some point, the one feature that makes my bookkeeping simple would be taken away unless I upgrade. I send my invoices via email through QuickBooks.
Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I got the message that I would have to upgrade if I wanted to continue using this feature. My option would be to print my invoices to PDF files and manually attach them to a new email in Outlook. Extra steps. I felt it was worth it to upgrade to keep my workflow streamlined.

Guess What?

QuickBooks 2010 attaches the invoices you want to send via email to a new message in outlook, you then have to click Send again.

Upgrading saved me one small step, the attaching part. That’s it.

ARGHHHHHH!

I save all my appointment data in my calendar. It seems to work the best for me. I can update what I just did after each appointment and at the end of the week, pull up my calendar and send invoices based on the appointments. Lately, however, after the switch to Apple, I have had to do a bit of double entry as my invoicing is now on a separate system from my calendar.

The Answer? Google Calendar. That way, all my appointment info is on a web-based calendar which can be accessed from anywhere. I bought a $6 app for my iPhone that holds cached copies of the calendar and syncs it all day long. Now I can look at my calendar on my phone, my laptop and any internet connected desktop. I have also linked my calendar to my website. Google gives you the code to embed the calendar. Now, my clients can see when I am busy and schedule accordingly.

I have been using this system for a couple of weeks and it is working fine. Go take a look at my calendar before scheduling your next appointment.

If you read the tea leaves and ANY tech blog or website, it seems that Apple will probably announce and release some version of a tablet this year. My question is; Why?

While a 10″ iPhone/MacBook SOUNDS cool, who would use it other than gadget freaks? We’re talking about a device that could run iPhone Apps, surf the web, have a touch sensitive screen and could be a replacement for the Kindle or your portable DVD player.
Ok, it sounds like I’m talking myself into it.

First, they already have the MacBook Air; basically a very powerful netbook. If the Air isn’t ultra-portable, I don’t know what is. And yet, you still need to carry it in a bag. The beauty of the iPhone is that it fits in your pocket. The iSlate or whatever they decide to call it will need a bag of some sort, be it your purse or man bag. Even with the newest Pine Trail processor from Intel, the device won’t be much of a business tool, will it?

One of the biggest markets for tablet based PC’s is the medical profession where EMR and EHR systems integrate with tablets to allow medical providers to markup charts and bubble sheets as they work with a patient. All of the Practice Management, EMR and EHR programs I am familiar with require Windows to run. Unless this new tablet from Apple allows you to run Boot Camp, it won’t get much penetration into that market, and even if it did allow you to run Windows on a partition, the software providers probably wouldn’t support it. Add to that the fact that you would lose the functionality that you presumably bought the gadget for and it seems a pointless exercise.

The form factor itself is not without precedent. Remember the Microsoft Origami? There was so much talk at the time about it changing the mobile computing world and it failed miserably.

It looks to me like it will be a device for gadget hounds and folks with too much money. I’m probably wrong. At least all the die hard Apple geeks will buy it and that will probably make it successful enough to keep around for a few years.

Your Thoughts?