Our Twitter Feed is Live

We are going to incorporate Twitter into our webpage.  As we come across interesting things online we will be pushing them to the @wasagacomputers account.  For those of you who might be new to twitter we can give a you a really brief description.  You have 140 characters to put together a message that you then post to twitter.com.  Some people use it to share every facet of their lives.  We feel the benefit of twitter is to pass along interesting links and things that we find online.  This could come in the form of articles, pictures or videos.  We promish we won't tell about the wonderful cornbeef sandwich we had at lunch.

Backup backup backup.....

On a monthly basis we deal with computers that have had a hard drive fail. Sometimes we get lucky and are able to retrieve some or even all of the data. Other times we have the displeasure of explaining to a customer that the drive is dead and we can't recover it. There are companies that specialize in low level data recovery but it can be a very very costly process and results might not be guarantied.

This could all be avoided by using some form of backup.

There are several methodologies to backing up.  I follow a 3-2-1 strategy It's a very simple idea and breaks down like this:

3. No file exists till it exists in triplicate, the original and two backup copies.
  - Protects against having a bad backup file.

2. The two backup copies need to be on different media for example two different external hard drives.
  - Protects against failing backup media.

1. One of the backup copies need to be off site at a different location.
  - Protects against fire, theft, act of god.

This may make it sound like I am being a little over cautious but I can't chance losing the pictures of our newborn.  I don't think I would ever live it down so why take the chance.

The only other key to backups is that they must be automated.  I don't want to have to rely on myself to do a backup every night.  I want it to just happen.  People are the weakest link when it comes to backup, we either forget and put it off till it's too late.

We sell one year licenses for product called Carbonite.  For around $5.00 a month (probably less than you spend at Tim Horton's every couple of days) you can rest assured that you backup is happening offsite and automatically.  Carbonite installs an agent on your computer that monitors for changes and automatically sends new and modified files to a datacentre that is located on the internet.  They encrypt your data to ensure your privacy.  Contact us to find out more information or to sign up.

My wife is a superstar

We will be closed until May 7th. On Thursday at 2:49 pm my wife brought our beautiful baby girl into the world. Her name is Abigail. I should have her trained to repair computers some in the next 14 years. If you need computer assistance please call. 705-429-6100 if it is not urgent I will call you back when we reopen. If it is i will be checking my messages periodically. Thanks for your understanding.

We Have a Winner

The business show was two weeks ago and we were very happy with the results.  It was nice to get into public and meet with the community.  During the show we had a draw for a Samsung ML-1630 Laser Printer.  The winning ballot was pulled last monday and the winner of the printer is Rebecca Chisholm.  Happy printing Rebecca and thanks for visiting us at our booth.

Business Show This Weekend

The annual Wasaga Beach Business Show is this Sunday.  It will take place at The Replex from 11am to 4pm.  We encourage everyone to come out and say hi.  We will have several of the computers we sell on display for you to take a look at.  We are also going to be giving away a Laser Printer valued at approx. $200, all you need to do is come to the show and fill out a ballot,  we will draw for it at the end of the show.  We are looking forward to seeing you there.