Why Backup?
This week we will look at a mixed bag of topics, starting with Telstra. I received an interesting email from one of our readers suggesting that Telstra first and foremost had an obligation to their shareholders to maximise their yearly profits. Yes, this is true to an extent. But, you have to ask at what point or what price do these profits involve shedding their corporate integrity / Australian morality or actual customer responsibility?
If their corporate compass is pointing rock fast toward company profits, then it is up to our legislators (Government) to make sure that they are adequately supplying the goods and services that we pay for. Also if their corporate operations in this country are contributing to a situation that is jeopardising the financial security of many ordinary Australians, it is also way past time that our government steps in to adjust their corporate compass for them.
Moving onto more easily fixable problems. The retiring of Windows 7 this coming Tuesday (yes – 3 days away), has come around quicker than you can blink. We have been flat out this week with upgrades and replacements which have run at about 50/50 each way. We are hearing from many customers that some IT shops are telling them that their old Windows 7 PC cannot be upgraded. Some of these shops have then sold them a replacement PC that is less powerful than the original old PC!
Moving from Windows 7 to Windows 10 could not be easier with zero license upgrade costs and a great opportunity to move from a mechanical HDD to a solid-state drive (SSD). The desktops and laptops that we have upgraded from Win7 and mechanical HDD’s to Win10 with SSD’s have all run around 10 times quicker than previous. It sounds unbelievable but boot times have come down from several minutes to just 20 seconds and corresponding improvements across the board have been realised.
If you are still using a PC or laptop with Windows 7 then at least get it booked in with us so that time does not escape you. Alternatively you may find that the next 6 months goes by like another blink of the eye landing you in the situation of losing data or having your bank account drained because your PC became vulnerable to hacking and other cyber-attacks.
Lastly this week we need to touch on data backup systems again as I am still striking home users and businesses that do not have a suitable backup system. Many people rush out and purchase a huge external portable hard drive, because it has the word ‘backup’ on the packaging only to get home and find that the setup and implementation of the system is way outside of their scope of expertise.
The above is a common situation as I have not found a single piece of backup software that ships with these devices that is of any real use yet. For the last 18 years, we have been offering our own ‘intelligent’ one click backup software that works with any of these external drives – which also takes around 10 to 15 seconds to run. This software costs $140 but is as quick and convenient as described and even keeps files that you have deleted from your PC in case you need them back.
If you are running a business then the above backup system is the bare minimum and there are now more comprehensive & useful backup systems than ever before – especially considering the option of using your NBN connection to pipe data to a cloud service or even our own locally stored Kerr cloud which now sits at nearly half a Petabyte of capacity.
Future Byte Me topics can be emailed to [email protected] and Bruce is contactable at Kerr Solutions, 205 Musgrave Street or on 49 222 400.
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