Tier3 Hosting and Consulting LLC

I have heard many stories over the years from people who “thought” they had backups of their data, only to experience a data loss and discover that their backups were useless.  Do you know if your data backup is a true backup?

There are many reasons why a backup might not work:  the original data was corrupted, the media is no longer readable, or the data is obsolete.  There are some simple steps to verifying that your backups will work for you in your time of need.

Verify your data is not corrupt

Often, people set their computers to have automated backups and do not realize that they have inadvertently deleted or moved a file or have a system that is infected with malware.   Once your system has become infected the integrity of your data is at risk.  You should have a good scanner installed on your system and periodically run thorough checks to confirm that your files are intact.  If you think your system is infected here is a brochure: Tier3 Malware Brochure, to assist you with removing the malware.

Once you have completed a backup you should review your logs to verify that no errors occurred during the process.  If you have automated backups, you should create a reminder to check the logs periodically.  There are many types of backups settings and the ability to recover a deleted file may be a short-term setting.

Not all backup types are the same

While backing up your data is paramount, the way you backup your data is also vital to data recovery.  The best solution is to have multiple backups on varying media in multiple locations.  To accomplish this you will want to consider media types.  Many companies use tape backups, which require a person to actually physically go to the data server to manually rotate tapes.   Consumers have copied data to CD’s/DVD’s because they are extremely portable, but the longevity of this media is still in question.  Many portable devices are considered disposable and while you might have a copy of your data on a thumb drive, this may not be a true backup of the files you need.  Secure online backups have become popular in recent years because it is a true backup located off-site, requiring only the internet for access.

When choosing backup solutions you should consider the ability to access your backup.  Are you in an area that might be evacuated?  If so, remembering to take your backup device and power cords might be difficult.  It is a good idea to “share backup” services with another field office, or even another family member who lives in another region.  Make a backup of your data, verify that it is valid and then mail a copy.  You may not have immediate access but if your data does not change often, for example, archives of family photos, you will have the data secured.  An excellent addition to “shared backup” services is secure online backups accessed anywhere from the internet.  You will have access, or another field office or family member, to easily bring your data online from anywhere.

Check to make sure your file types are supported

Imagine that you have your entire family collection of videos on BETA or VHS tapes.  While having the data is important, half the battle is having access to that data.  You may save your box of BETA tapes from a house fire only to discover that your ancient BETA recorder has been lost.  The same goes for electronic data.  Many popular file formats are already beginning to see changes.  For example, Microsoft recently made changes to the file extensions used in its popular Office Suite software.  You may have noticed your .doc is now a .docx and so on.  Music types have also seen changes in recent years.

It’s a good idea to periodically review your backup data sources to make sure those files are still accessible.  If you notice that your file types are becoming obsolete there are many options available to assist with conversions.  Never destroy the original version, who knows, BETA might become popular again one day.

[originally reviewed October 2009]

For more information:

Tier3 offers secure online backup solutions, for more information visit our Tier3 Backup website.

A great new article, dated December 2010, discussing many of the same topics can be found at CNET:  Future-proof your data archive

Over the next few weeks I will be re-posting articles that I have previously sent out to customers and friends in hopes to refresh your memory and update our archives.  If you have a particular subject you would like me to address, please let me know.  Feel free to ask questions, make comments and suggestions.  As always, thank you for your support.

I’ve had several questions this week regarding the installation of Windows 7 Service Pack 1.  (NOTE:  BEFORE YOU INSTALL SP1 you should make a full backup of your system and create a restore point in case you need to roll back this change.)  If you have been keeping up with your regular updates, you may not notice too much of a change with the installation of Service Pack 1.  HOWEVER, there are some known issues with Remote Server Admin tools and VMWare Workstation that you should be aware of prior to installing SP1 on your system.  If you do NOT have RSAT installed, you will not be able to install it, however, if it is already installed, there are no issues and it’ll work fine.   If you run VMWare Workstation, it *MIGHT* be in your best interest to wait a bit.  While there are some workarounds there is no immediate need to install SP1 if you have been keeping up with the regular updates.  Better to be conservative and keep your environment intact.

Recently an update to Outlook 2007 caused some issues with archiving and send/receive which was previously posted here: http://www.tier3consulting.com/2011/01/28/problems-with-outlook-archive-and-search/

Microsoft released an update to their update that addresses these issues. If you installed the original version, you need to follow the instructions here:   http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2485531 Otherwise, you should be able to update your Outlook 2007 without experiencing the issues from the original update.

There are some new changes to FB that might require you to check your settings.  It’s always a good idea to do so every now and then regardless… but please make a point this time… and check your kids’ settings. Make sure, you understand each one and if you do not… do some research, or ASK!

The first is a security setting where the default is NOT using security:
While on Facebook, look at your URL address; if you see http: instead of https: then you don’t have a secure session. Go to Account|Account Settings|Account Security and click the setting to “Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible” Keep in mind that just because it says https: doesn’t mean that it’s invulnerable, there are still ways to “beat the system” so to speak but why not make it harder. It’s never wise to transmit passwords via http:… some sites will have you login via https: and switch to http:, often if all your are doing is looking around, this is not an issue but NEVER type in your personal/credit card info unless you have confirmed you are in fact using an https: connection with a proper SSL certificate in place.

The next FB change is about your status posts.  I created an EVENT on our Tier3 FB page, this is a a repost of that event, please feel free to use the event of this post to share the news with your FB community:

FACEBOOK CHANGES

***NOTE EDITED DUE TO LOTS OF QUESTIONS*** YES FEEL FREE TO SHARE THIS EVENT LINK (i.e. INVITE YOUR FRIENDS) WITH OTHERS, THE INVITE LIST IS HIDDEN

Have you noticed that you are only seeing updates in your newsfeed from the same people lately? Have you also noticed that when you post things like status messages, photos and links, the same circle of people are commenting and every……one else seems to be ignoring you…?

Don’t worry, everyone still loves you and nobody has intentionally blocked you. The problem is that a large chunk of your friend/fan list can’t se…e anything you post and here’s why:

The “New Facebook” has a newsfeed setting that by default is automatically set to show ONLY posts from people who you’ve recently interacted with or interacted the most with (which would be limited to the couple of weeks just before people started switching to the new profile). So in other words, for both business and personal pages, unless your friends/fans commented on one of your posts within those few weeks or vice versa – you are now invisible to them and they are invisible to you!!

HERE’S THE FIX:

NOTE: FB has added a drop-down arrow NEXT to your “MOST RECENT” link at the top of your HOME page (next to Top News), however, not everyone has this feature yet. Click on the drop down, “edit options”, check the setting to “All of Your Friends and Pages”

OR

Scroll down to the bottom of the newsfeed on the homepage and click on “Edit Options”, click on “Show Posts From” and change the setting to “All Of Your Friends and Pages” Note: This is the fix for personal pages but I am unsure of whether or not the business pages are set up the same way.

Simply posting an update about it won’t do any good because lots of your friends/fans already can’t see your posts by default. You’ll either have to send out a message to everyone on your list (which I’m not even sure business pages can do and is a rather tedious method) or post an event explaining the situation like this one and invite your entire fan base and/or friend list. ***NOTE EDITED DUE TO LOTS OF QUESTIONS*** YES FEEL FREE TO SHARE THIS EVENT LINK (i.e. INVITE YOUR FRIENDS) WITH OTHERS, THE INVITE LIST IS HIDDEN

Thanks to Christi for the tip regarding this new change!
(all this info compiled from several sources)

Thank you to everyone who has “liked” us on Facebook allowing us to get it going. Please bear with us while we get our logo and pages all straightened out. We’ll keep you posted.