Category: Our Blog

Back up those Flash drives and SD cards!

There’s a convergence of technology happening now.  It all has to do with mobile phones, cameras, flash drives, Xbox, internet, etc.

One item that has come to our attention is the reliance on SD cards and flash drives to store important photos or other docs and info.  One thought: Don’t keep these important pictures and videos and docs on just this one form of media.

Why?  Accidentally drop an SD card or flash drive on the ground?  It could be gone forever.  Or you’ll spend a couple grand getting them back.

Follow the Computer Wrangler credo that if your data is not in three places, it’s not secure.  Transfer camera pics to computer as soon as possible. Have an online backup of that. Then and only then, can you rest easy.

Happy Computing!1

 

Open Office – the Alternative for Microsoft Office!

Suffering a bit of sticker shock at the cost of Microsoft Office?  No worries.  There’s a fully functional, all the bells and whistles alternative out there that you probably don’t know about.

It’s called Open Office. And it is FREE.

It has word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, graphics, database etc. etc. and it’s been around for two decades.  It’s completely modern and, yes, it is free!  And it’s the one thing I can think of that defies the old adage that nothing in life is free.

Sound too good to be true?  It’s not.  The only reason you haven’t heard of it is that it doesn’t have a massive marketing and advertising campaign behind it like Microsoft Office does.  It’s used by many companies, many of our own government agencies, and about a bazillion companies abroad.  They get their money from advertising and sponsors.

You can get it at http://www.openoffice.org/ .

Did I mention it’s free?

Happy computing!

 

Dropbox!

You now have your own personal server in the cloud.

 Dropbox.com is a “space” on the internet where you can save files, get files, share files, photos, videos anything you want.

 And the first 2 GB – are FREE!  And you can recieve 500 MB additional per referral.

Your files will sync automatically to all your computers, mobile phones and tablets.  And get this: Your computer blows up or your mobile phone goes through the washing machine?  Your files are still safe.

Even if you’re not connected to the internet, you still have access to your files.  How cool is that?

It’s definitely worth checking out.

Happy computing!