Security 101
It's been a long time since I wrote an article about ordinary computer precautions, but a couple of things recently came to my attention that reminded me that it's never a mistake to take care of your precious data.
First, my sister let me know her computer had crashed irrecoverably, and thus all her email addresses and so on were lost. (She was using Outlook as her email client.)
While I use Gmail for most of my work, which means my contact data is stored offline, that did serve as a reminder that backing up data is something we all should continue to do. The fact is, at some point, hard drives do fail. And while I do think that the future of data storage - well, most data storage - is in "the cloud," there is still some data that you're going to want to back up.
Personally, I have three, yep, three off-board hard drives to which I back up my most important data: music, photos, contacts, and writing/resume material. This is the stuff that it would be incredibly difficult to reproduce, if not impossible. Music, photos and written material speak for themselves. Most email clients will accept .csv format files for contact data - that includes online email. For example, if you want to back up your Gmail data:
Then there is the issue of passwords. Another friend has been battling passwords for as long as I can remember, and he's recently given me his suggestion du jour. I have tried all manner of combinations, but there are two recommendations I would offer:
The first comes from a very experienced geek friend. He suggests creating a formula, and then sticking to that formula no matter what application you're signing onto. For example, it might be your mom's birthday, followed by your dad's middle initial and ending with the first three letters of the application you're signing onto. Even if you didn't change it up with the trailing data from the instant application, it's still not a a bad idea to have a formula that would be impossible (or nearly so) for anyone to stumble onto. In other words, don't use your birthday, or your dog's name.
The other option is to use a reliable third party password storage system, like Lastpass. Free features include password storage of all your various passwords (though I wouldn't use it for anything to do with money, like Paypal or a bank account); synchronization across browsers; automatic form filling; and storage of other important notes and information (like, say, your locker combination). For $1/month, Lastpass can also be used on your smartphone, thumb and flashdrives.
My final absolute requirement for anybody these days is a hardware firewall. While I still think it's a good idea to use virus protection and malware protection software (though I have mixed feelings about which ones these days), a simple router with a hardware firewall will do the trick. Windows now comes with a serviceable software firewall, and AVG is still available as a free virus protection package, but nothing quite compares to the security of a hardware firewall.
First, my sister let me know her computer had crashed irrecoverably, and thus all her email addresses and so on were lost. (She was using Outlook as her email client.)
While I use Gmail for most of my work, which means my contact data is stored offline, that did serve as a reminder that backing up data is something we all should continue to do. The fact is, at some point, hard drives do fail. And while I do think that the future of data storage - well, most data storage - is in "the cloud," there is still some data that you're going to want to back up.
Personally, I have three, yep, three off-board hard drives to which I back up my most important data: music, photos, contacts, and writing/resume material. This is the stuff that it would be incredibly difficult to reproduce, if not impossible. Music, photos and written material speak for themselves. Most email clients will accept .csv format files for contact data - that includes online email. For example, if you want to back up your Gmail data:
- Sign in to Gmail.
- Click Contacts along the side of any Gmail page.
- From the More actions drop-down menu, select Export....
- Choose whether to export all contacts or only one group.
- Select the format in which you'd like to export your contacts' information. Please note, some of these formats can lose some contact information.
- To transfer contacts between Google accounts, use the Google CSV format. This is the recommended way to back up your Google Contacts.
- To transfer contacts to Outlook, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, or various other apps, use the Outlook CSV format.
- To transfer contacts to Apple Address Book, use the vCard format.
- Click Export.
- Choose Save to Disk then click OK.
- Select a location to save your file, and click OK.
Then there is the issue of passwords. Another friend has been battling passwords for as long as I can remember, and he's recently given me his suggestion du jour. I have tried all manner of combinations, but there are two recommendations I would offer:
The first comes from a very experienced geek friend. He suggests creating a formula, and then sticking to that formula no matter what application you're signing onto. For example, it might be your mom's birthday, followed by your dad's middle initial and ending with the first three letters of the application you're signing onto. Even if you didn't change it up with the trailing data from the instant application, it's still not a a bad idea to have a formula that would be impossible (or nearly so) for anyone to stumble onto. In other words, don't use your birthday, or your dog's name.
The other option is to use a reliable third party password storage system, like Lastpass. Free features include password storage of all your various passwords (though I wouldn't use it for anything to do with money, like Paypal or a bank account); synchronization across browsers; automatic form filling; and storage of other important notes and information (like, say, your locker combination). For $1/month, Lastpass can also be used on your smartphone, thumb and flashdrives.
My final absolute requirement for anybody these days is a hardware firewall. While I still think it's a good idea to use virus protection and malware protection software (though I have mixed feelings about which ones these days), a simple router with a hardware firewall will do the trick. Windows now comes with a serviceable software firewall, and AVG is still available as a free virus protection package, but nothing quite compares to the security of a hardware firewall.
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