Computer Basics - Things To Remember About Living in the Digital Age

Over the past Memorial Day holidays there were many things to enjoy: family, friends, BBQ, catching up, and reminding people about computer basics. Invariably there were some colleagues and family that had some snafus over the weekend that I managed to help them with. Many of these problems affected people whom I thought had a better plan that what they were using.

I mentioned to them that I would post a recap of what I advised so here we go:

• Backup and Restore! This is a classic lesson for everyone. It is not enough to simply "backup" something. It is also important to attempt a restore of what you have backed up as well. This can range from a few documents to your whole computer. If you are not comfortable doing it on your own in a planned manner, then you will really not like the feeling when you are forced to do it. For those that do not want to do it themselves via mechanisms like Windows Backup and Recovery or Apple's Timemachine, there are some online services such as Carbonite that you can look into. Warning for those that attempt online services: it is based on your connectivity so if you have a slow internet connection it will take a long time.
• Simple Sharing and Access. For many people they have had a hard time trying to share or access documents or files remotely or from different work sites. For many cases I would recommend services like Dropbox and Box.net. These are excellent services that are easy to setup, easy to manage, and best of all work very well. Both have web access in addition to native OS support. Also both have mobile solutions for your tablets and smartphones! So enjoy!
• Collaborate! At times when people want to help with their computer I have to admit that out of all the services I have tried there are only a few that I can recommend work pretty well and with little to no issues: GotoMeeting and GotomyPC. These services simply work the most reliably with the easiest setup and at reasonable costs. GotoMeeting is one the most reliable ways to collaborate in real-time. GotoMyPC has helped a lot for those annoying troubleshooting issues with clients, colleagues and family. Again look into these when you need to :)
• Web-based Documents. Another thing to consider if you want to just make some documents that you want access to all the time, try using Google Docs personal. I would also suggest just signing up for Google Mail while you are at it. With Google Docs you can have the benefit of documents such as presentations, word docs, and spreadsheets that you can access via any web browser. It comes in handy too for sharing and collaboration as well :) Best of all it is free!

There are also a lot of other services that can be of great use for specific needs: Slideshare is an excellent place for presentations, Vimeo is a great place for videos especially if you are tired of the 2m restriction on YouTube, and if you want a really drop dead simple service for a blog that is really feature rich try Squarespace it is really an excellent service!

There are numerous other options out there for almost any need that you have.

A quick note about whether to keep it on your own devices or use someone else's service... use common sense. If it is like a hyper-sensitive document, it is just best to keep it away from as many prying eyes as possible and to have a few backups such as on flash drives if needed. However if it is something that you do not mind that someone sees from time to time, put it on a service. As with any service make sure that you read the "fine print" about what they do with the data, access to it, etc. If you are uncomfortable with any of those terms then do not use the service. Personally if you feel comfortable using Facebook or Twitter, then you will be comfortable using most of the major services :)

I hope this information comes in handy. And remember, even though there are many new services and products out there, none of them replace the inherent intelligence and wisdom of you the individual. So please act responsibly!

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