Last week my company's IT department installed some new software on my work laptop. This week it has been causing countless problems. I actually thought my laptop broke and needed to be replaced. Then I remembered the new software install and did some digging around. It isn't broke but sure feels like it.
Today the offending program is backing up my laptop to an Internet cloud without warning me. As it progresses, my computer keeps freezing up to the point that not even the cursor moves. If I wait a bit, it becomes unstuck and I can use my machine for a moment or two. Then it gets stuck again. When I put the machine to sleep, I can't wake it up again until I plug the laptop back in. I need a word stronger than "annoying."
For someone that stays put in the same office day after day, this wouldn't be a problem but right now I am on a mid-week business trip and am waiting for a late-night flight to San Francisco. I am at the airport using less-than-reliable WiFi. I would hope that the backup software would ask me if I wanted to delay the large file transfer. Nope. No matter what I do, I can't get the automatic backup to stop. I even opened the application and tried to pause all backups for 4 hours. That didn't work.
I must have started the backup before I even left on this trip. My dashboard says it is transferring 58 gigabytes of data. Some of that has been at the hotel, some at the offices I have visited, and some at the airport. I'm just glad I discovered this before connecting my computer and using my phone as a WiFi hot-spot. I think I would have burned through my monthly data plan in a matter of hours.
Interestingly enough, I discovered this problem during one of my meetings when I really needed to get into my laptop. When I couldn't get in, I thought I was going to have to have the company get me a new computer. Then I thought back to the last backup I performed (Tuesday of last week) and wondered how much work I would need to redo. Hopefully you see the irony of a backup causing me to think about my last backup and whether or not I did it recently enough.
Showing posts with label backups. Show all posts
Showing posts with label backups. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Time to Clean up my Computer
The end of the year is one of those times where we think about changes in our lives that we plan to make for the coming year. A lot of people resolve to lose weight. In fact it is probably one of the most broken new year's resolutions. So instead of trying to lose weight yourself, see if you can't help your computer or mobile phone lose a little weight. It is rather simple and can be done quickly with immediate results.
Start with your screen desktop on your computer. Go through all of the files and see if you really need all of them. If not, go ahead and delete them. If there is a question as to if you will need it or not, simply move the file to another directory or onto some form of backup. Also make sure to review computer programs and applications. Most Windows computers come loaded with a number of applications that you don't really use or need. Simply uninstall them.
Now move to your phone. Do you really use all of those apps you downloaded. Perhaps you downloaded a game and played it a lot in the past but don't any more. Be sure to check your download directory on the phone to make sure you don't have any files there that are unneeded. Finally go through and delete any photos that are not wanted or needed. I am always taking pictures of whiteboards and then making notes from them. The photos can be erased once the notes have been sent out.
The best thing about helping your electronic devices lose weight is that you can do it while eating the last of the Christmas cookies and not feel guilty about it.
Start with your screen desktop on your computer. Go through all of the files and see if you really need all of them. If not, go ahead and delete them. If there is a question as to if you will need it or not, simply move the file to another directory or onto some form of backup. Also make sure to review computer programs and applications. Most Windows computers come loaded with a number of applications that you don't really use or need. Simply uninstall them.
Now move to your phone. Do you really use all of those apps you downloaded. Perhaps you downloaded a game and played it a lot in the past but don't any more. Be sure to check your download directory on the phone to make sure you don't have any files there that are unneeded. Finally go through and delete any photos that are not wanted or needed. I am always taking pictures of whiteboards and then making notes from them. The photos can be erased once the notes have been sent out.
The best thing about helping your electronic devices lose weight is that you can do it while eating the last of the Christmas cookies and not feel guilty about it.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Problems with my Mac Laptop
Yesterday I went to turn on my Mac laptop computer and it wouldn't boot correctly. I have an encrypted hard drive in the event that someone steals my computer. When I turn on the machine, it asks for my password. I was making it that far and it was even working enough to know if the password entered was correct or not. After a few seconds, it would bring the login screen back up but not allow any input from the mouse or keyboard.
My hope was that once I got the laptop back to my office and on the network, the problem would fix itself. My flight from Salt Lake to the Bay Area was plenty early and I was in the office at 8:30 giving my hypothesis a try. Unfortunately it didn't work. Next was a call to our IT department. They asked if I had tried resetting the NVRAM and I had. There wasn't anything they could help me with over the phone and so I brought it to our IT department's walk-in office. Most of the company uses Windows laptops and I am one of the few with a Mac. That means I had to make another trip with the laptop to another office where the Mac specialists reside. I dropped the computer off and headed to a meeting.
It was a distraction to be without my computer and very difficult to concentrate during my meeting so I was very happy to get a call from the IT department telling me they figured out what was wrong with my Mac. It seems that the hard drive had somehow had permissions changed. They had to boot my laptop from another hard disk, change the permissions on my drive, and all was fixed. Unfortunately I wasn't there to watch how they did it so I can't give step-by-step instructions. It was a great relief to have everything fixed though and they didn't have to reinstall anything. Naturally the first thing I did when I got back to my office was to take a backup of the computer. Now should something go wrong again, I don't have to worry if they have to erase my hard drive to fix it. I have a backup. I should probably do that with all of my computers now. Furthermore, I should probably take backups on a regular basis. OS X includes Time Machine which is perfect for such a task and I plan to take advantage of it from now on.
My hope was that once I got the laptop back to my office and on the network, the problem would fix itself. My flight from Salt Lake to the Bay Area was plenty early and I was in the office at 8:30 giving my hypothesis a try. Unfortunately it didn't work. Next was a call to our IT department. They asked if I had tried resetting the NVRAM and I had. There wasn't anything they could help me with over the phone and so I brought it to our IT department's walk-in office. Most of the company uses Windows laptops and I am one of the few with a Mac. That means I had to make another trip with the laptop to another office where the Mac specialists reside. I dropped the computer off and headed to a meeting.
It was a distraction to be without my computer and very difficult to concentrate during my meeting so I was very happy to get a call from the IT department telling me they figured out what was wrong with my Mac. It seems that the hard drive had somehow had permissions changed. They had to boot my laptop from another hard disk, change the permissions on my drive, and all was fixed. Unfortunately I wasn't there to watch how they did it so I can't give step-by-step instructions. It was a great relief to have everything fixed though and they didn't have to reinstall anything. Naturally the first thing I did when I got back to my office was to take a backup of the computer. Now should something go wrong again, I don't have to worry if they have to erase my hard drive to fix it. I have a backup. I should probably do that with all of my computers now. Furthermore, I should probably take backups on a regular basis. OS X includes Time Machine which is perfect for such a task and I plan to take advantage of it from now on.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Ransomware and Backups
I few days ago I was watching TV and saw an ad for a local computer store in Utah. The owner of the store talked about a new kind of computer virus called Ransomware. As I use only Mac or Linux and not Windows, I really don't worry about computer viruses. While a protected operating system doesn't guaranty you won't get a virus, it makes writing viruses really difficult and so most hackers don't even bother. Besides Windows has the majority of the market and so if you are going to extort money from unsuspecting computer users, that is where you will make the most.
Today I discovered that most of the antivirus software vendors have been able to lock out the majority of ransomware. That doesn't stop would-be extortionists from trying though. There is another class of ransomware that lacks any real ability to harm your computer. Basically you go to a web page that claims you have done something criminal like downloaded music illegally, or worse. You are then told you have several hours to pay a "forgiveness" fine. When you try to leave the web page, you are unable to do so. When you try to close your browser, you can't. For the unsuspecting user, this can be very frustrating. The trick is to kill your browser from the operating system. PC Magazine has an article outlining the steps if you need help.
The best thing you can do to keep yourself safe from any computer virus is to back up your hard disk frequently. I like to keep my computers backed up locally. That means I use a portable hard drive, Burnable DVD's, or some other form of backup media and keep the data myself. There are a number of online backup companies that also work well. It doesn't matter what you do, just make sure you back up the important stuff. Then when some website tells you to send them money or you will never see your stupid cat videos again, you can rest assured knowing you've got a nice copy of your important data.
Today I discovered that most of the antivirus software vendors have been able to lock out the majority of ransomware. That doesn't stop would-be extortionists from trying though. There is another class of ransomware that lacks any real ability to harm your computer. Basically you go to a web page that claims you have done something criminal like downloaded music illegally, or worse. You are then told you have several hours to pay a "forgiveness" fine. When you try to leave the web page, you are unable to do so. When you try to close your browser, you can't. For the unsuspecting user, this can be very frustrating. The trick is to kill your browser from the operating system. PC Magazine has an article outlining the steps if you need help.
The best thing you can do to keep yourself safe from any computer virus is to back up your hard disk frequently. I like to keep my computers backed up locally. That means I use a portable hard drive, Burnable DVD's, or some other form of backup media and keep the data myself. There are a number of online backup companies that also work well. It doesn't matter what you do, just make sure you back up the important stuff. Then when some website tells you to send them money or you will never see your stupid cat videos again, you can rest assured knowing you've got a nice copy of your important data.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Oops!
I know it may sound hard to believe, but yesterday I made a mistake. It wasn't a little mistake either. Then again, it wasn't a tragic mistake. I was working on one of the servers at the office and noticed we are keeping around a bunch of nightly database backups. I was cleaning them out and managed to delete every last one.
If I had been working on Windows or the Mac, restoring the files would have been as easy as going to the trash and pulling the ones I was trying to save. On Linux, a delete (or rm) really is a delete and it is nearly impossible to recover the removed files. Instead I will be forced to restore from a tape backup. That shouldn't be too much of a problem because the backup directory is copied to tape regularly and so the files still exist somewhere. It will just take a bit of work this morning.
I don't often make mistakes like this and will definitely be more careful with the "rm" command in the future. However my mistake now gives us a chance to make sure our backups really are working. If not, then I hope nobody ever needs to go back and look at what is in those old database files.
If I had been working on Windows or the Mac, restoring the files would have been as easy as going to the trash and pulling the ones I was trying to save. On Linux, a delete (or rm) really is a delete and it is nearly impossible to recover the removed files. Instead I will be forced to restore from a tape backup. That shouldn't be too much of a problem because the backup directory is copied to tape regularly and so the files still exist somewhere. It will just take a bit of work this morning.
I don't often make mistakes like this and will definitely be more careful with the "rm" command in the future. However my mistake now gives us a chance to make sure our backups really are working. If not, then I hope nobody ever needs to go back and look at what is in those old database files.
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