Fortunate Contest

I have been seduced by the idea of mobile broadband. A few friends who do freelance work have signed up recently and they love showing off about where they are working from at any given time. Pubs, restaurants, coffee houses, in a car overlooking a stormy sea.

So they win. It was get myself mobile broadband or get new friends. It was a close call mind you! So the next question is, which mobile Internet provider to I go with? Turns out there are loads, all big names and all offering a multitude of options. Not making my life easy.

In my searching I came across a comparison site, Broadband Genie (click here to check it out) that looks like it makes life easy for me. But I have never used comparison sites before and want to know, are they any good?

Initial research shows they have all the good offers ‘under one roof’ as it were, I certainly can’t see anything that might interest me missed out. But then I am no expert at things like this either. So what do you think? The deals look good there, worth going through or should I try shop around a bit more?

Our computers have become almost indispensable ministry tools. What would you do if the worst happened and you had to function without your computers? Would your ministry survive?

This article is the first in a 3-part series on how to protect your ministry from serious computer-related loss. This time we’re going to focus on protecting your critical data with effective backups. In the next two installments, we’ll cover the basics of network security and finally what you should know about software license compliance.

Ineffective data backups really do have the potential to hurt your ministry. Here are some frightening statistics:

31% of PC users have lost all of their files due to events beyond their control.

60% of companies that lose their data will shut down within 6 months of the disaster.

Armed with the right knowledge, you can protect yourself and avoid becoming another statistic.

Back Up Your Data!

Most people would agree that computer data is one of their most valuable organizational assets. What would you do if all your donor and accounting files were suddenly gone forever because a hard drive on your server crashed? This could also happen through disgruntled employees, accidental deletion, corruption in one of your software programs or even because of an attack from an outside hacker. The first line of defense in protecting your ministry data is to perform regular backups.

What exactly is a backup? It’s when you make a copy of your important data and keep it in a safe place, so you can restore that data if it ever becomes necessary later. The most common method of backing up data is to use a tape drive and backup tapes. I’ll have some important recommendations for you later in this article, but the critical thing to understand is that you MUST do something…any kind of data backup is better than none at all. If you ignore your data, it just might go away!

Back to the Future

Remember the 1985 movie “Back to the Future”? Just like the character in that film used a sports car to travel back in time, you can take your ministry back in time, too. Instead of keeping just one backup copy of your data, you should set up a system that keeps copies of your data for set time intervals (every day, every week, every month, every quarter, every year, etc.). Use a different tape or disk for each backup you make and then label them by date, and you will soon have a library of archived data backups you can restore from as needed.

Why go through all that trouble? Well, suppose you find out that a very important Excel spreadsheet is now corrupted and you can’t open it. You haven’t used it for several months, and your backup strategy has been to keep writing over the same tapes every week. Chances are all the backups of that Excel file are probably corrupted, too! But what if you would’ve used a different strategy and kept an archive of your backups for each month of the previous year? You could then easily go back in time to the month when you knew the Excel file was still working and restore that copy…the issue would be quickly & easily resolved. Time travel can be pretty useful sometimes!

How to Make Effective Data Backups

If you have multiple computers networked in your office, keeping all your data in a single location (like a file server) and backing that up every night is the recommended way to perform backups. I would also recommend using a 20-tape rotation, which gives you the ability to “go back in time” up to a whole year (in various intervals) to restore important files.

You should also keep the most recent copy of your backup off-site (i.e., at another location away from your office). This is critical because if your building burned to the ground, your data backups would be destroyed right along with it. With a recent off-site copy, you could restore what you need on new equipment and get back to the business of ministry quickly.

I recommend using enterprise-quality backup software to perform your data backups. Good software, like Veritas Backup Exec and Computer Associates BrightStor ArcServe will schedule everything for you, run automatically and keep logs of everything that does and doesn’t get backed up. These programs can also notify you by email (or some other method) when a backup is finished, if it was successful and whether or not you need to address anything. Aside from a little ongoing monitoring, everything can be automated. All you have to do is remember to change tapes every day.

If you’re a home office or small office user without the resources to do tape backups, a ZIP drive, an external hard drive, a CD/DVD burner or even one of those cool little USB jump drives that fit on a key ring would all be options to consider. There are also services that let you do online backups over the Internet for a monthly fee. These are good options, as long as the amount of data isn’t too large. Some services you can check into include Remote Data Backups, U.S. Data Trust’s LiveVault Online Backup Service and iBackup.

Another Form of Insurance

Backups are really like another form of insurance. What kind of problems would you have if your ministry data was wiped out? Could it be replaced at any price? With a relatively small initial investment in equipment and some ongoing monitoring and maintenance, you can practically guarantee that your critical data will be available when you need it.

Protecting your data by effective backups is only part of the solution. Next time we’ll talk about some simple steps you can take to protect your network against hackers, viruses, disgruntled employees and other potential vulnerabilities.

Donnie Schexnayder is a ministry technology expert. He holds industry certifications from Microsoft and CompTIA and has over 10 years experience in supporting churches and Christian ministries with technology. With a mixture of passion and expertise, Donnie helps ministries advance their mission of bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth by using cutting-edge technology. Donnie lives with his wife and 2 children in Colorado Springs, CO.

Eternitek: Advancing Christian Ministries Through Technology

http://www.eternitek.com

info@eternitek.com

Demand for laptops is shooting up at present. Taiwanese companies have said raw material shortages will affect fullfilment this year due to the high demands. Many have forcasted laptops to be trendy but its amazing that theres been no drop in sales. This is a business that is looking to better on numerous things all in one go so new trends and curiosity is created all the time.

I’ve witnessed an increasing amount of consumers asking for gaming notebooks. Also with the amplified competiton and quick technology shifts, notebook computers don’t hold their price for too long. Laptops can now genuinly be used for gaming by us due to the advanced performance of up to date systems. Other positives to come from advanced manufacturing techniques is compact, cooler parts that give way for slimmer, slick chassis’s. Desktops are bigger and eat more electricity so no matter how much better gaming notebooks have become desktops will always perform faster. Gaming notebooks are always pushing the speed boundaries of notebook computers so its always a true yardstick of how far the technology has come in that relation.

Numerous small system builders offer custom built laptops to specialist markets. With custom built notebooks you traditionally get to find what brand of parts is going into the system. Defining what you require simply is the big advantage. The large number of laptops are specified for the average consumer which means you may not find what you’re looking for. Mass customisation of laptops has got past this dilemma. The great news is that there are a vast number of companies who offer custum laptops and they give unparalleled service as well. Yet a further good point.

I can’t wait to see what notebook computers are introduced next. Basic ultra mobiles are the popular trend. I do not feel anyone thought they would be such a big success. In my view the market would react well to a 15″ version modelled on the exact fundementals. If you utilise less powerful parts then I figure this is really doable already. Analysing the trends it looks like gaming notebooks will get smaller and faster. I really don’t know what to await apart from those concepts mentioned. Someone is creating a product to be unique in a crowed market.

For the speed these are the best laptop computers.

On the Internet we see many local business directory websites out there, some are good, some are bad, but the concept makes sense. Can we make these systems better, so they are more accurate, timely and are easily accessed with low bandwidth wireless handheld devices?

Recently I wrote an article and submitted it to an online article submission website; I titled it “local Mexican Restaurant” my thought was, let’s see how well this is picked up in the search engines by Internet surfers. My experiment was done to prove my theory of where wireless devices are headed because of the new GPS systems now have voice activated systems and you say: “nearest fast station” “nearest Starbucks” “Local Mexican restaurant.” My thoughts are in studying the CES 2006 Show in Las Vegas that indeed, this is one of the major pushes in electronic devices.

My thoughts are that people will be using these systems personal tech devices to find local businesses. And I believe that in the future all these systems will be linked. Your cell phone will ring a certain tone when you pass by a Starbucks or your favorite “Fruit Smoothie” establishment. When you car gets low on fuel it will start putting local gas stations of your favorite brand on your GPS display in your car.

If and when some smart entrepreneur figures this out and can build a website which can look as if it is designed for an at home Internet Surfer, but loads fast enough for PDA, Cell Phone and other wireless devices then they will have figured out the answer to what is needed for the Business Directory Website Genre. Think on this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

If you need a laptop which one should you choose? There is a large range of mass market laptops that are very cheap and then you have those gaming laptops that are pricey and fast. Though I think it depends on your needs you should always buy the latest technology you can buy. You never know when you may get addicted to the latest game, only to realise your cheap laptop is not up to the task. Laptops for gaming are just high specification laptop computers which can easily run todays software and games which makes more sense if this is a long term purchase.

The speed of the laptop depends on what goes inside of it. It’s common for Oem’s to use cheap components to keep the price down. In the future this can determine the reliability of your laptop. There is also a difference in the speeds of different components. The memory, hard drives, cpu, graphic card, come in different varieties and its a good idea that you compare like for like. Another overlooked spec is the lcd resolution. Higher resolution screens are more expensive because they let the user see more when using the laptop.

The processor, ram and video chip are things to pay attention to when you are buying gaming laptops. The cpu should be a dual core cpu like the intel core duo or amd turion x2 with a clock speed of over 2GHz as the minimum. Minimum requirements for memory are 2GB if running Vista but more is recommended. For a gaming laptop you need to have a dedicated video card. 256MB is the standard dedicated video memory to look for. I think an Nvidia 8600M gpu should be good for playing all the latest games well. For hardcore gamers get only the top of the range graphics cards.

When looking to buy laptops, whether they are for gaming or any other purpose where is the best place to buy? The established manufacturers would prefer you buy via retail as it makes their laptops more valuable however there are discount online retailers popping up all over the place and with their low operating costs they are offering extremely cheap prices. In the case of gaming laptops too, for the most choice online seems to be the best place to look as you just won’t find the same variety of these systems in your local computer shop.

Title: WILL A PLAGUE DESTROY THE WORLD?

Author: Arthur Zulu
Contact Author: mailto: controversialwriter@yahoo.com Copyright: Copyright © Arthur Zulu 2002 Word Count: 452
Web Address: http://www.1stbooks.com/bookview/10975

Publishing Guidelines: Permission is granted to publish this article electronically or in print as long as the bylines are included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.

WILL A PLAGUE DESTROY THE WORLD?

By Arthur Zulu

Figure out this puzzle. What are these? Oropouche, Rocio, Chikungunya, Mokola, Duvenhage. Q. Guanarito, VEE, LeDantec, Sindbis, Marburg, O’nyongnyong. Yes, give me your answer.

“Names of new planets” No, come down to earth. “Names of new fish species” No, come off the river. “Botanical names”. No, leave the forest. “Characters in a Greek drama”. No, exit the theater.

Ok. No idea. Let me help you. Now, try this.

“I am the greatest killer in this century. I was living under the skin of chimpanzees, till some hungry bushmen invaded the forest, killed the game and ate us up. From the forest to the dinner table, I can now be found in the bodies of millions of persons, destroying their immune systems and sending them to their untimely graves. I have a cousin in this obituary business called HIV. What am I?”

Of course, you got it right — AIDS. So the saying goes in some quarters that someday, a plague would wipe out the world. But can they be right?

Well, if you see emerging new diseases, some with strange names as you saw in the above list, you would subscribe. The common trait about these diseases — old and new, is that
they are deadly and have defied medical cure.

When the Black Death swept ferociously across Europe in the thirteenth century, killing 25 million lives, and defying science, people thought the world was going to end. Well, neither the world nor the siege of deadly microbes came to an end. And there is no guarantee that man will one day discover an Almighty vaccine to wipe out these killer
viruses.

True, small pox has been eradicated. But look at this list of oldies that have made a come-back — Tuberculosis, Malaria, Cholera, Diphtheria and Bubonic plague. And they are harvesting millions of souls!

As if these are not enough, dozens of new infectious diseases have been springing up all over the globe. Like Legionnaires disease, Ebola hemorrhagic fever, Hepatitis D, Hepatitis C, Vibrio cholerae 0139, E. Coli 0157: H7. Human and equine morbilivirus, and several others. Some of them like Ebola, appear and disappear like a magician doing abracadabra.

Even our cows and chickens are getting mad now (no thanks to the rampaging virus.) And soon men will be getting crazy, or preparing to exit the planet. How?

Consider these scenarios. Suppose a deadly plague defying all known cures appears unannounced. Or suppose a disease like AIDS become air-borne so that we get the pathogen by breathing. You breathe in yours while I breathe in mine.

Well, the result will be mass suicide, and apologists of this theory are betting 50 to 50 that a plague will end the world.

A man must die of something, however. Either of natural causes like a deadly plague. Or of unnatural causes like plane crash.

But which is better? To die of a disease with an exotic name — Oropouche, Chikungunya, O’nyongnyong, or to die of one with a familiar name — AIDS, Ebola, Cholera, Tuberculosis or Bubonic Plague.

You have no choice: soon you will know!

Copyright © 2002, all rights reserved

About the Author:

ARTHUR ZULU, The Most Controversial Writer in the World, is the author of the best - selling book, HOW TO WRITE A BEST-SELLER. Download your copy and FREE excerpt at : http://www.1stbooks.com/bookview/10975. For FREE writing helps, mailto : controversialwriter@yahoo.com

ARTHUR ZULU, The Most Controversial Writer in the World, is the author of the best - selling book, HOW TO WRITE A BEST-SELLER.

Dr. Joe Vitale’s new book comes out this week.
Here’s a brand new article he wrote, which he is giving you as a
gift to share with you, or (if you have one) your list and your
website visitors. If you have any questions, let me know.
-Jason Mangrum

“How to Overcome Fear”
by Dr. Joe Vitale, Author
The Attractor Factor - www.AttractorFactor.com

I’m in Chicago attending a Dan Kennedy event. At the first break
a young man stops me, saying he is one of my subscribers and a
big fan. I’m flattered. We talk. During the brief conversation,
he confesses that fear is what stops him from achieving anything.

Interesting. Just that very morning I had breakfast with Paul
Hartunian, famous publicity expert, when he told me, “There is no
such thing as fear.”

“There isn’t?” I asked Paul.

“No. You are born with only two fears,” Paul explained. “The fear
of loud noises and the fear of falling. You lose those early on.
Any other fears are created by you. They aren’t real.” “How do
you get rid of fear?”

“Stop it.”

“Stop it?”

“Just stop it,” Paul said. “Say you have a fear of bridges. If I
put one million dollars in cash on the other side and said you
could have it if you walked across the bridge, nude, in front of
a crowd of people, you’d do it. Why? Because the reward is
greater than the pain. Make the rewards greater and the fears
will vanish.”

I told the young man before me the same thing.

I then went on to add that most people in business have a fear of
success, or a fear of failure. “I was just in a seminar with Ted
Nicholas,” I went on. “Ted said he had failed many times, and
what he learned is that nothing bad ever happens to you when you
fail. Instead, you get life’s greatest lessons.”

Of course, Ted is known as the four billion dollar man because he
is now a legend in direct marketing. “As for the fear of
success,” I told my new friend in Chicago, “what I’ve learned is
that the more successful I am, the more I can help myself, my
family, and the world.” In the last week alone I had made
contributions to a new children’s foundation dedicated to helping
babies suffering from a stroke at birth, and I made donations to
Paul Hartunian’s dog rescue work.

“Success enables me to help myself as well as everyone else,” I
said. “When you realize the good you can do as a success, the
fear evaporates.” I saw a light come on in the eyes of the fellow
before me. He seemed to get it. He seemed to realize that fear
was stopping him, but that he was the one creating it, so he
could be the one to let it go. As Dan Kennedy said in
Chicago, “There is no limit to the money available. The pie is
infinite. It’s up to you to go scoop it up.” Fear? Stop it.

You’ve got a life to live, and people to help. Go for it.

————————————————————–
Dr. Joe Vitale is the author of way too many books to list here.
His latest title is The Attractor Factor: 5 Easy Steps for
Creating Wealth (or anything else) from the Inside Out”
Check out his newest book release at:
http://www.AttractorFactor.com
————————————————————–

PS. If you feel this is a powerful article, share it. Share it
with your friends, your family, your co-workers — put it on your
website, send it to your list — put it in your newsletter — use
it as content for whatever you need. As you give more, you’ll
have more to give.

About the Author

Dr. Joe Vitale is the author of way too many books to list here.
His latest title is The Attractor Factor: 5 Easy Steps for
Creating Wealth (or anything else) from the Inside Out”
Check out his newest book release at:
http://www.AttractorFactor.com