And I am no different.

I would like to share with you five downloadable programs that are free, or have free versions. 

I use these programs all the time.

Sure, sometimes with the free versions you have to endure a few pop-up advertisements, but hey, we’re talking free here, right?

Now, I use them on a PC.  Only the first one listed, Jing, is also avail for  Mac.

I would like to take credit for finding these, but alas, all five of these programs were referred to me by folks within my network – (all much smarter at IT than I.)  I credit each below accordingly.

Here goes:

Jing (PC & Mac):  http://www.jingproject.com/  Leslye PJ Reaves www.reflectiondigital.com told me about this.  It allows you to crop and save any portion of your computer screen as an image file.  Excellent when you want to insert computer screen images into a presentation like PowerPoint.  I REALLY REALLY like this one.

Pdf995 (PC): http://www.pdf995.com/  This allows you to save a Word doc as a .pdf.  Man, is this useful!  Andy Hemmendinger of GVI www.g-v-i.com turned me on to this one years ago.  (Fyi, Andy has updated me that recent versions of Word do now actually allow you to save out to .pdf – so this program might be obsolete for you in that case.  But there are some other features of Pdf995 that you still might find useful even so.)

CCleaner (PC): http://www.ccleaner.com/  Video Labs’ IT guru, Randy Thomas www.VideoLabs.net , told me about this one.  It is a great “cleaning the pipes” program.  It goes through and determines what files are “clogging up the works” in your computer, and it suggests which ones can be deleted without harming your computer’s function.  

This is particularly handy if your computer seems to be running a bit slow.  Granted, that could be caused by other reasons, but I find this program can really be of benefit in most instances.  

Malwarebytes (PC): http://www.malwarebytes.org  Randy also told me about this one.  This is a further check to use after you do your regular anti-spyware scan.  (So it doesn’t compete with your first-line protection software.)  I know firsthand just how valuable it can be.  Yep, I recently got a “trojan.”   After I thought I had deleted it with my normal security scanning program, I ran this program.  Sure enough, there were more hidden files that it found.

HijackThis (PC): http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis/ Bryan Hurley datilus@gmail.comrecommends this one as a final check after you have deleted malware.  You can run this program and create a report.  As the homepage advises, you should be an expert before acting on the resulting report, but having the report avail to e-mail to your IT expert (or an online community of expert advisors - see site) is a great benefit.  It allows them to confirm that all is clear.  I know.  Bryan had me do that when I engaged him to assist us remotely after I realized one of our family computers was infected.  By looking at the report, he was able to “bless” our work.  Whew, that was a relief.

Bryan made another good point.  He cautioned that whenever looking at ”free” software, be sure to check whether the usage is restricted to only personal non-work use.  As our clients know, we here at Video Labs observe closely all licensing parameters.

I welcome your comments below.  And be sure to peruse the many great multimedia and IT articles written by Leslye and Bryan on this site:  http://tinyurl.com/d6wtrg

And I invite you to follow me on Twitter www.Twitter.com/DRMediaSolution for more media news and info and exclusive short-term, deep discounts on Video Labs’ media replication and related multimedia services.

David Ryan dryan@videolabs.net    301-217-0000 x104

Not necessarily.

Data backup is one of the most important things a person should do in relation to their computer, but it is one of the most often overlooked things as well. One should always have important data in at least two locations at all times. This means it should be in a primary location where you usually access it, as well as a secondary backup location. The primary location can be on your computer’s main hard drive, or it can be an external drive. No matter where the primary location, you should back up the data to a secondary location. The secondary location can be another local hard drive, internal or external, or it could even be online.

The reason that keeping your data on an external hard drive is not safe from crashes is that it is still only stored in one location. An external hard drive can fail just as easily as an internal hard drive, regardless of usage, age or any other factors. Hard drives can fail at any moment for any or seemingly no reason. An external drive is no more protected from failure than an internal drive. Usually both the primary and backup drives don’t fail at the same time so backing up locally works most of the time.

Windows Vista includes data backup functionality built in. Norton 360 offers another level of local backup if desired. Time Machine for Mac OS X Leopard offers data backup to external drives as well. Most external hard drives come with at least a trial version of data backup software.

If you are worried about a natural disaster, robbery, or some other catastrophic failure that could render your primary and secondary data stores useless, you may want to consider an online data backup option. Online data backup is included in a yearly subscription to Norton 360 on the PC. It is also part of the recently introduced MobileMe, from Apple, available for both PC and Mac.  www.Mozy.com and www.rsync.net are two other popular online backup services.  Mozy is easy to use on both PC and Mac, while rsync offers more advanced features for those that need them.

There are generally two ways that your data can be backed up. First it can just be copied to another location, where is can be accessed normally like you would any other file. The second maintains your data in a proprietary data format that keeps track of new files, changes to existing files, as well as deletions. The second format often backs up quicker and can be more thorough when versions of files are needed, not just the latest one. Some programs offer both ways of backing up, others only offer one. The first seems most user-friendly. To use the second one effectively, make sure to use reputable backup software that will be available in the future. If your system fails, you may need to reinstall the backup software to retrieve your data if it was backed up using the second method. Online data backup systems generally backup using the second method but present your data as if it were backed up using the first method. The customer doesn’t see the back end storage method.

When backing up data, make sure to restore from the backup once in a while to make sure it is actually working. By doing this, you know that everything is working like it should.

If you don’t backup and the worst happens, there are data recovery services that can get back all but the worst cases of lost data. This service does not come cheap, running from just a couple hundred dollars to several thousand.

However you decide to backup your data, you should do so as soon as possible and as thoroughly as possible. Baby pictures, wedding videos, vacation memories as well as financial information, school and work documents could disappear at any moment. It is your responsibility to backup your data in a way that you understand and can commit to.

I welcome your feedback below.

Bryan can be reached at datilus@gmail.com

Questions about Flash?  Read Leslye James article: http://tinyurl.com/68ahbm

Need DVD, CD or videotape duplication?  Contact David Ryan dryan@videolabs.net

A message like this can be one of the most worrisome things in the PC world.

The first thing you want to do is not make any rush actions.  Often a virus or spyware infection will not be very severe, but misrepresent itself, telling you that your machine is infected with all kinds of problem.  The infection itself represents itself as a cure and asks you to purchase software to remove the bogus infection.  So don’t immediately take the recommendations of any popups on your system if you don’t know where they came from,  and definitely don’t purchase any unknown software that promises to fix your problems.

Second thing is to determine the magnitude of the infection.  Are you constantly getting popups as soon as you turn on the machine, or just when you browse the web?  Is the system suddenly extremely sluggish and non-responsive?  If the system is running quite differently than you remember, then the system may have a severe infection.  If you are only getting one or two indications of infection, the system may not be affected as badly.

Third, decide on a course of action.  If there is only a light infection of the system, you may be able to clean the problem yourself.  Update any antivirus software you have installed and run a complete system scan.  Make sure you have the absolute latest version of the software, both the software itself, as well as the definitions, as they are different. There is a plethora of free and for-purchase software that can be used to clean your system.  Multiple forums and guides exist online that can walk you through cleaning an infected machine.  If the system is quite infected or you cannot remove it through normal means, you may want to call a professional to clean the system for you.  Depending on the severity of the infection, what exact infection is involved, system specifications and other factors, cleaning can take one to eight hours.  Talk to your removal professional about costs up front, see if a flat rate can be obtained, or get an estimate before beginning any work.

If the infection is too severe, or the cost of removal too high, there is usually another option.  Most systems come with some way of restoring the system back to original factory settings.  Doing this will, in most, if not all cases, completely remove the infection. A backup of any data should be done before wiping the system, and antivirus and antispyware software should be installed before restoring any data.  Also, all software, printers, configurations will have to be reinstalled once the system is operational, which can add cost and time to the final repair.

Once you have a clean system you want to keep it clean.  Get reputable antivirus AND antispyware software.  You can get software that does both, or one for each. Update the software on a regular basis, and make sure to update to the latest version on a yearly basis.  Run regular scans to keep the system clean and safe.  Choose the most thorough options to do the most in-depth scans possible.  Be wary of software that you download from the Internet, and scan anything before installing.  Keeping a system clean is much easier than cleaning an infected one, and it costs a lot less too.

A note about OS X and Macintosh. There have been viruses for Macintosh, but most of these were for the operating systems before OS X (OS 10).  While there have been proof of concepts and demonstrations of viruses for OS X, there have not been any real widespread infections.  This doesn’t mean there won’t be viruses in the future, but in general, one can say that the Mac doesn’t get viruses.  You may still want to get antivirus software if you exchange files with PC users on a regular basis.  You can still pass on infected files to PC users.  The infected files will not affect the Mac, but you may be blamed when the recipient gets a virus from an already infected file that you send them.

I welcome your feedback below.

Bryan can be reached at datilus@gmail.com

Hardware failure. The parts inside of your system move, moving parts wear, and parts wear out. This however may not be as big a fear as it has been in years past, many will tell you not to worry about it. Hard drives, fans, etc have all improved and last much longer than before. The operating system, OS X or Windows, will often be set to power down moving parts when they are not in use, check your settings to make sure this is happening. Be sure to keep the computer clean inside and out. Systems that fail that are left on all the time often fail due to heat from inadequate ventilation or dust buildup. Dirty power can also cause system failure and lost data. Getting an uninterruptible power supply, or UPS, will help protect the sensitive hardware from blackouts and brownouts, that over time, can cause random problems to creep up by slowly destroying your hardware.

Safety. Your computer may seem very smart, offering to help you write a letter or warning you that you may have a virus, but the computer is only as smart as you make it. Antivirus, antispyware, and firewall software is all there to help protect your computer. Sometimes things get through this protection and you want to be there when it happens. Just as you would not leave children home alone unsupervised, you don’t want to leave your computer turned on and connected to the Internet without supervision. If you have a direct connection to the Internet you may want to turn off the machine or the Internet connection when you are not using it to better protect it from Internet threats.

Energy. Go green. We are hearing this more and more. A typical computer power supply is between 250 and 500 watts. It won’t use all this power all the time, but the power usage is significant even when surfing the web or editing a document. By turning off the system every night instead of leaving it on, you can save not insignificant amounts of power and of course money.

These are just the surface of the question. You can set your system to go to sleep mode or hibernation when you are not using it. You can change various power saving settings in both OS X and Windows to help save power and keep your computer safe. In the end the decision is up to you, but there is one final thing to remember. Be consistent. Over time, connections inside the system may go bad, but not cause immediate problems. A computer that is left on continually for two years, keeping the connections together with heat and electrical contact constantly, may not turn back on after two weeks of being turned off. A system that is powered down every day may not respond well to being left on for two weeks straight either. Make a decision and stick with it.

I welcome your feedback below.

Bryan can be reached at datilus@gmail.com