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Bits and Bytes - September, 1997 By Jayne Johnston of Byte Solutons Ramblings: Years ago when I first began in PC application development and training I formulated some observations about dealing with computers and living to tell about it. Through my colleagues this became known far and wide as "JJs 3 Rules of Computers". Fifteen years later and I can still say they are the best basic advice I can give anyone having to work on or deal with computers. For your edification, here they are: 1. Keep your sense of humor. You'll need it 2. Read the screen 3. Back it up. These are based on: 1. Observation and experience have taught me that computers and Murphy are intimately acquainted. Laughing keeps things from overwhelming you. Keeps the blood pressure down too. Whatever it is may be a major irritant and inconvenience but will not put your eternal soul in jeopardy. Since it's not that critical, laugh and relieve that stress. (Yes, I do follow my own advice. I had this column completed and ready to submit, when it "disappeared" from the file at 2 a.m. on my self imposed deadline. After a momentary shriek, I quoted "Rule 1" to myself, knew I could write it again but reminded my self not to use that newly installed HTML editor again that was hungry enough to consume all but the top 3-4 lines of my file. All those judicious file/save commands must have been just feeding the hungry, little electronic monster.) 2. Usually there's an amazing amount of information on a screen. All kinds of menus, toolbars and even Help selections. It's best to just remove your finger from the panic button, close our eyes briefly, breath deeply. Now relax those tense muscles as you exhale. Open your eyes and carefully observe the screen. Many times you'll now see the answer right in front of your nose or be able to access the help function successfully. Of course there are exceptions. For these, see Rule #1. 3. Make backups of your data files. It's not a question of "if" a hard drive will crash, it's when. Drives are much more dependable that they used to be but don't get over confident. Make it a routine to backup those data files on a schedule. Choose one that makes the most sense for you. If it's a critical file make a backup immediately. Remember Murphy. Today's operating systems are much larger than in "the good old days". If you've got a very good backup facility that's quick and large enough then by all means back the entire system up periodically. For my own system, I back data files and rely of reloading everything else from CDs. On The Weh: A site of interest for those of us in the SOHO arena is a site on the ZDNet at Home Home Office - .The track products and sources of info specifically for us. In the side bar is an icon labeled "On the Fridge" From here you can subscribe to a weekly newsletter that keeps you updated on what's fresh on this site for SOHO and some jumps to some ZDNetT forums of interest. You can exchange ideas with your peers, ask questions or one is just a Whine board. Check this one out and you'll see immediately you're not alone. Murphy is a real busy guy. Survival Camp: Backing up data is a piece of cake if you've organized your system with this in mind. That's why I practice and preach the following: 1. Make one directory to hold all your data. If you're a Microsoft® Office user, starting with Microsoft® Office 95 and continuing with Microsoft® Office 97, a default data directory "My Documents" is set up and that's the default data directory for all the component software pieces. 2. Make directories/folders within this "major holding tank" to organize your data files either by product file type or projects or both if that's' what's needed. Your work style determines this. Backup can be to a removable cartridge type drive - i.e. tape drive, Zip drive, LS- 120 drive, etc.; floppy drive (providing you don't have any individual file or compressed file larger than 1.4M) or even an online backup service. For floppy disks, it's as simple as: 1. highlight your data directory, 2. Right click your mouse 3. Select Send To from the Quick Menu 4. Select 3 « floppy (A: ) 5. Feed the computer blank floppies every time it prompts you till all files are backed up. The removable cartridges usually have backup software with them that can be custom configured to meet your needs. I have a Zip drive whose backup software let's me specify pretty much everything. I can control the directory, files, filetype, frequency of backup, etc. I just have to be sure my backup disk is in the drive when I have the thing scheduled to run. Marvelous as computers are, I haven't gotten the thing into mind reading as yet. That little feature could save me a lot of typos. Until next time, happy and safe computing. All rights reserved,© Byte Solutions, 1997. If you've questions or comments, drop me a line at Byte Solutions . ZDNet is trademark of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
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