Spam: Not just for breakfast anymore

Email has become a mainstay in today’s business and personal communications. Unfortunately, spam has become just as prevalent. Spam is defined as “unsolicited, unwanted, irrelevant, or inappropriate messages, especially commercial advertising in mass quantities,” also popularly known as junk mail. If you have an email address, chances are you have received spam for various medications, augmentations or solicitations. At least, these emails can be an annoyance. At worst, they can carry viruses, spyware and bring your computer down.

A less benign, but no less annoying source of spam is email from your friends. Chain letters promoting good luck, untold fortunes and magic carpets are all forms of spam. If you ever get an email you suspect, but are not sure if it is legitimate, try Snopes.com, a great site for debunking spam and urban legends.

Spammers are crafty and can get your email address in a variety of ways.
The first is just by using all common names, such as tom, jane, info, billing, etc. They also use programs to send emails to any address it can generate, so it might stumble upon tjones or bigskyski. If you have a website, you are much more likely to receive spam. Most people put their email address on the contact page of their websites, and spammers write programs to “crawl” the web and look for email addresses on any page and add those addreses to their database. When you register a web site addresses, you also have to list a contact email address. This email address is publicly accessable and spammers will also harvest these addreses. Check with your web designer on ways to overcome these problems.

Perhaps the first step is recognizing spam and not opening emails. Look at who sent the email. First, do you know this person? Secondly, what is the subject? If you are being offered enlargements or medications, you can safely assume that the email is spam. If it is spam, don’t open it. If you have already opened it, don’t click on any links in the email or download any attachments. Depending on what email program you use (Yahoo!
or Hotmail for example) you can identify email as spam so future messages will be blocked.

You can purchase an anti-spam program for your email. Spyware Doctor,
InBoxer or Spam Monitor all work with Microsoft Outlook. Mozilla’s free email program, Thunderbird, has a free spam protector built in, as does Apple’s email program, Mail. Most of these rely on a “Bayesian” technique to determine what email is spam and what is not. It often requires a training period, and sometimes makes mistakes, but if you spend a lot of time on email, these programs are invaluable. There are also programs that require you to prove yourself as a legitimate sender before passing along the email to it’s intended recipient.

While no program or technique will likely free you of all spam, a few simple steps can help ebb the flow of spam and hopefully reduce the time spent sorting through it all.

Digital Lifestyle Necessitates Backup Devices

More and more these days, our lifestyle is digital. Email, photos and music are all stored electronically on our computers, as well as contracts, agreements and other important documents. The computer is the backbone of many businesses, and without it, we are “shut down.”

As we begin to store more information on the computer, it becomes extremely vital to back up this information. Just imagine three years of photos lost to a computer virus. Or five years of business documents lost to a bad hard drive. I'd be devastated, wouldn't you? Whether you are a business or a home user, if you store information that you do not want to loose on the computer you need to back it up.

Fortunately, this has become both cheaper and easier to do. Just a few years ago, your options were limited, expensive and often did not hold much data. Today we have tape drives, DVDs, the Internet and external hard drives. These newer systems hold more information and often have programs that automatically back up your files.

Let's look at some common backup solutions one at a time. My favorite is the external hard drive. This simple solution is portable, affordable and they work on both Apples and PCs. Just plug it in, and your computer will recognize it in a few seconds. Drag files that you want saved onto the drive and a duplicate copy will be saved. Better yet, set up an automated backup to run at a certain time each day. That way, there is no intervention required by the user, so even if you forget to run the backup, your computer remembers for you. The better programs won't even have to back up your whole computer every day, they will detect what files have changes and just copy those. This saves time. A simple search for “external hard drives” will get you started. Of course, hard drives come in many sizes, but a basic 80 GB hard drive (fine for most consumers) will run about $100.

DVDs are another alternative. Of course, you need DVD blanks as well as a computer with a DVD burner. DVDs hold about 4.5 gigabytes of information and so should be used if you have smaller backup requirements: about 40 albums of music or 700 photos. If you are going with a DVD backup solution, remember that your DVD burner will usually only work with one kind of DVD. Some burners are “+” and some are “-“. Find you what kind you have and purchase the corresponding DVD blank.

Backing up your files online is another option. Of course, you need an Internet connection—preferably a high speed one. More and more online backup companies are springing up on the web. Online services are usually secure, offsite (great in case of a fire or other emergency), continuous (they backup the data as it changes on your computer) and automatic. Companies most often utilize online backup, but people on the go may also find them useful. Plans start at around $10/month, and get more expensive depending on the features and space required. A search for “online backup” will get you started.

Of course, you can still use a tape backup, but these are aimed at companies, not consumers. Talk to your tech guy to see if a tape backup is right for you. Often times a tape backup will also be coupled with an external backup so you can get back up and running more quickly.

Brownouts, Blackouts, and Power Surges

With the power often going on and off in Big Sky, it is important to protect your computer against various types of power interruptions. The three types: brownouts, blackout and power surges, can all damage your computer, but can be prevented with certain precautions or equipment.

A brownout is when the electricity supplied by the power company is less than normal, which can cause damage to a computer when it is not connected to a backup power supply. Brownouts can fry your computer's circuits and keep it from running properly. Most often the damage done during a brownout to your computer is irreparable. You might boot up your computer after a brownout and find that for seemingly no reason, the computer is “acting funny.”

A power surge is when the received electric power is more than normal. Of course, a blackout is when no power is received. A power surge, or spike, can also damage your computer in the same fashion as a brownout, but a blackout does not harm your computer in the same way. A blackout will only keep you from saving your files if you are in the middle of work and keep your computer from being shut down properly.

You can take simple steps to avoid damage to your computer. A good surge protector is a must, but be warned that while most cheap surge protector strips will indeed protect your computer from a power surge, they will not protect from a brownout, much less a blackout. I found one online for about $35. Just search for “Brownout Protection.”

A more comprehensive and expensive solution is to buy an uninterruptible power supply, or UPS. Most (but not all) of these devices will have power surge and brownout (also called line conditioning) protection. If the power goes down while you are working on your computer, the UPS will supply five minutes to several hours (depending on the model) of auxiliary power so you can continue to work uninterrupted. Similarly, when you experience the next brownout, you can rest assured knowing that your computer is safe. Depending on how long you want your computer to run during a blackout, plan on spending between $100 and $250. Most of us only need a few minutes to save the files we are working on and shut down the computer. Rarely does our power go down for several hours, but if it does and it is critical that you be able to use your computer, spend the extra money on a UPS with hours of backup power.

Another simple method to help protect your computer is to turn it off and unplug it when it is not in use. Many people prefer to let their computers run all day and night, regardless of use. I advise against this for several reasons, including more wear and tear on your computer, security risks, and power problems such as brownouts and power surges. Certainly this is more of a hassle with a desktop instead of a laptop, which is why I recommend purchasing a UPS. You have made an investment in purchasing a computer, so protect it. Besides, replacing damaged parts will likely end up costing you more money anyway.