How To Keep Everything Protected

Information technology is rapidly evolving as more and more companies use computers to store important data. Although computers are usually quite reliable, one can't be too careful about stuff that matters. One simple human error can cause the loss of all the important information. Theft or simple loss of equipment can cause a great deal of damage to a firm. To prevent this from happening, companies often use tape back-up to be sure that in case of an emergency they will have a reliable backup from which to recover the data.

But is tape back-up indeed good enough for protecting your valuable data? Sure, it's a time tested method. Nowadays, however, specialists recommend more modern offsite backup services.

What are offsite backup services and how do they work? It's very simple: you just need an Internet connection – the greater the bandwidth the more data you can store – and your offsite backup service will encrypt your data and transmit it to a safe offline location to be stored. It will take some time at first because you'll have to backup all your info, but the next time a change is made in one of the files, the offsite backup service will only encrypt and send the part that has been changed and not the whole file. And that's a great advantage because it will require far less time and bandwidth. Also, all the backups are made at night, when computers are not used so this will not interfere in any way with your work. You won't even know it's there.

What's the difference between tape back-up and an offsite back-up service and why do specialists recommend the latter?

• First, tape back-up costs more and needs a person dedicated to it. But what happens when that person fails in his job or makes a mistake? Human error may occur any moment, and several companies are known to have had serious problems because of failures happening when they didn't have access to their information. An offsite backup will never require this because it is done automatically.

• Secondly, tape backups are stored in the same building or buildings as the computers. The offsite backup services store the data on several servers far from the place the firm is situated. In fact, that is why they are called 'offsite' in the first place! In case of a fire, storm, or any other natural disaster or human error, this becomes very important.

• Thirdly, offsite backup services provide more protection than any other backup method, using encryption, security keys, passwords and secure-sockets every time the data is transmitted. Often, all this is done at the military grade security level of 128-bit encryption keys.

Dial-up connections can be suitable for small firms or those that need no more than about 500 MB of data backed up. The greater the bandwidth, the larger the amount of data the offsite backup service can protect for you.

The fees for offsite backup are normally per month per computer, but often companies can get better deals on discounts, fixed fees, or customized plans from many offsite backup services.

How Safe Is Your Computer - You Be The Judge

Is your computer safe from a virus? You might say yes, but do you know that for sure. If you do not have anti virus protection installed you are leaving yourself susceptible to a computer virus. Trust me you do not want a virus on your computer. Depending on the virus it could cause some real damage to every aspect of your computer. A really harmful virus could completely disable your computer, causing the need for a new hard drive or even motherboard.

Your computer can become infected with a virus in a variety of different ways. Such as via email, downloads, or even hackers. Just visiting a certain website could give you a virus, if they have downloads that are unseen by the eyes. The only way to protect yourself from a potential harmful and costly computer virus is to install anti virus protection. This protection comes in the form of antivirus software.

This is the only way to protect your computer from being infected with a virus. What is great about some of this protection is that, thanks to the internet, you can find free antivirus software. Of course, not all anti virus scans are free, but great majorities of them are.

You may think that free antivirus software has only one function, to find and rid your computer of viruses. While this is one of their functions, in most cases it is not the only one. Many of the latest antivirus software come with many other features that can help protect your computer while you are using it. For example, not only will some find and eliminate the viruses already on your computer, but it will also monitor your computer from that point on blocking any viruses that are coming in. Most will scan your downloads and email to ensure your computer remains safe and virus-free.

Most of the free antivirus software also scans and eliminates instances of annoying adware and spyware. Both of these work to slow your computer down and make your time on the computer a whole lot less enjoyable with unwanted popups and advertisements. Your best defense from a virus is good, solid, and reputable antivirus software.

You can find software and anti virus scans all over the internet. It is wise to choose your anti virus protection based on recommendations from other users, ease of use, price, as well as reputation. By doing so you will protect yourself from a computer virus and enjoy safety and peace of mind during your internet travels.