RealtyTechBytes.com » Computer Maintenance

Before you call tech support, try this!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 02:00:39 +0000

One of the little secrets that tech support people know (and one that they wish that you knew) is that a simple reboot cures many computer issues. Computer won’t print? Try a reboot. Programs won’t open? Try a reboot. Computer acts strangely? Try a reboot. You get the picture.

This is especially true of computers running any version of Windows, but it also holds true for Macs. As someone who uses both PCs and Macs, I can assure you that all computers need a periodic reboot. If you turn your machine off at the end of the day, and then back on again in the morning, you are effectively rebooting it daily. But even so, if it starts to act strangely, try a reboot anyway.

Did you know that your phone could use a reboot too? Most of us have phones that stay on around the clock. Turning the power “off” doesn’t always accomplish a reboot…the phone may just go into sleep mode. If your phone starts acting strangely, pull the battery out for a few minutes (at least 2) if you have a phone that will allow that. If your phone battery can‘t be removed (iPhones, I’m thinking of you), then you will have to do a manual reboot. On an iPhone just hold down the Home button and the (Sleep/Wake) button at the top right until you see the Apple logo, then release both buttons. (This works with iPads too). Ignore the message that comes up asking you to “Slide…to turn off” and continue to hold until the Apple logo appears.

If you got an Android or Blackberry phone, please read your documentation to learn how to do it.

I have heard that a reboot is like a two week vacation on a tropical island for your computer or phone…it refreshes everything.

So the next time your gizmo starts to act up, don’t call tech support until you’ve tried a reboot.

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Before you call tech support, try this!

You are your own worst enemy!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 16 May 2011 02:00:12 +0000

You are your own worst enemy!

Pretty bold statement, but I felt like I needed to get your attention quickly. I am of the opinion that the real estate industry is masterful at shooting itself in the foot. We have a number of ways that we do this, many because of national and state association policies, to say nothing of MLSs that refuse to come in the 21st century.

But the way that I am referring to is our stead fast refusal to pay even the most basic attention to our computers.

Let me explain. For the past few weeks I have been visiting real estate offices to train them on some fabulous software that they get as a member benefit from their association. The association has hired me to visit these offices and work one on one with the agents who cannot get the software to work. Without exception, I have found that the number one reason that they can’t get the system to work for them is because their computers get in the way…the very computers that they depend on for their livelihood defeat them before they can get started.

Here is a small sampling of what I found:

Computers running Windows 2000 … really? I mean come on folks, Microsoft hasn’t supported that for years. A Windows 2000 machine on the internet is like a breeding ground for viruses and mal-ware as it is likely unprotected.

Other computers running Adobe Reader 7…seriously? Older versions of Adobe Reader have serious security flaws that have been addressed in version X.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6…oh come on now. Why are you even running Internet Explorer in the first place, let alone Version 6? Friends don’t let Friends run Internet Explorer at all, but if you have to run it because your MLS is so far out of touch with modern day computing that you must, at least upgrade to version 8. Even the most backward MLS system can handle that version. If you don’t have to run Internet Explorer, don’t. Opt for Firefox instead.

These three issues alone have been the reason why the agents of that association hated the new system. Once we upgraded Adobe Reader to version X, and moved them to Firefox, they fell in love with the new system.

Here is some action that you can take:

First of all, go here and read this article: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/help/windows-update which will you understand how to keep your Windows computer updated. Then go here to get the free Adobe Reader Version X: http://get.adobe.com/reader/. Then go here to get Firefox: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/new/

Mac users, click on the Apple logo in the upper left of your screen, then click on Software Update. That will check all of the software on your Mac and allow you to upgrade anything that has a newer version. You can then update Adobe Reader by following the link above. No need for you to grab Firefox unless you want to, because the browser that comes with your Mac (Safari), is also an excellent browser.

I can hear you now, though: “I’m not running that software and I am not having any problems”. Really? You could be having issues with old and antiquated software and not even be aware of how much your computer is slowing you down. Best to take a few minutes and check things out. In fact, why not calendar this as a “To Do” every few months.

Give your computer a little attention and it will stop fighting you! (You can thank me later!)
*** This Just In*** Life Hacker just posted this video on how to do updates on your computer! http://lifehacker.com/5802139/how-to-update-software-for-beginners

Microsoft Fixit Center

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 02:00:00 +0000

It’s been a long time since I fired up the Windows Installation on my iMac at home. In fact it’s been several months. During that time I just haven’t had the need to use Windows as I am perfectly happy with the Mac in it’s native configuration. Because it had been months since I last ran Windows there was about 10 gazillion Windows Critical Updates to install and it was hours before I could use the machine!

When it finally settled down and let me use it, I quickly took care of the reason I fired up Windows in the first place (I needed to look at a website that I am developing to see how it looks and performs with Internet Explorer) and then started looking around at the assorted things on the desktop.

One of the things I found was a program called Microsoft Fixit Center. Apparently I installed this last October, ran it once and forgot all about it. At first I was thinking how bad does Windows have to be to merit a fixit center from Microsoft, but as I poked around inside of it, I realized that this was more than a fixit center, it is actually a way for the average non-techie Windows user to look under the hood and solve some very common annoyances.

It’s a free download from http://fixitcenter.support.microsoft.com/Portal. You’ll need a Windows Live ID from Microsoft, which is free, in order to access it. It’s a fairly quick download as it just downloads a framework. As you need to test various parts of your system it will offer to install them. Then you can run a diagnostic which reports any problems it may find along with suggestions to fit the problem.

If you are experiencing a problem that it doesn’t know about, it offers to take you online where there presumably is a larger database of information.

Unfortunately (Or fortunately depending on how you look at it) my machine did not have any problems. I installed and ran every one of the diagnostic tools but found no problems) I can’t tell you how well the suggestions work. But, I can tell you that it seems to have an answer for almost all of the problems that you might be tempted to call a technician about..

So, I have a suggestion of my own for you. If you are running a Windows machine (My virtual machine is a Windows XP machine) go get this and install it. It’s free, and having it on hand may save you some money later.

And another piece of advice if I may…restart/reboot your computer at the first sign of weird behavior. In my experience, that fixes a huge amount of computer “problems”.

Let me know how Microsoft Fixit Center works out for you. As for me, I am going to suspend the XP virtual machine and go back to Mac, because that’s how I roll these days.

Stay safe with Windows…for free!

Jerry Kidd — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 03:00:00 +0000

Most of my time on computers is spent on my iMac or my MacBook Pro and I am thrilled that I made the switch to Mac a few years back.

But, there are occasions when I have to use my Windows 7 desktop machine at my office. I also have Windows XP Service Pack 3 installed as “virtual PCs” by way of VMWare Fusion on both my iMac and MacBook Pro. (I also have two Windows XP laptops and my wife has a Windows XP desktop, netbook and a Win XP Virtual machine on her iMac). This means that I have to pay particular attention to keeping those Windows machines humming along.

I thought that I’d share two tools that I use to keep those PCs safe from malware and also to keep them working at peak efficiency.

The first tool is Microsoft Security Essentials. This is Microsoft’s answer to Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro, Avast, AVG, et al. From the Microsoft Security Essentials website:

About Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free* download from Microsoft that is simple to install, easy to use, and always kept up to date so you can be assured your PC is protected by the latest technology. It’s easy to tell if your PC is secure — when you’re green, you’re good. It’s that simple.

Microsoft Security Essentials runs quietly and efficiently in the background so that you are free to use your Windows-based PC the way you want—without interruptions or long computer wait times.

This is a FREE tool (in case you missed that word above!) that I have been using on my desktop and virtual machines for over a year. I also use it on my XP laptops and also on my wife’s computers. With all those copies of Windows running, it would be a small fortune to pay for anti-virus upgrades every year!

I realize that there are other free antivirus solutions available, but my thinking is that Microsoft is in the best position to understand how to best protect it’s products.

My experience so far has been excellent. Back in my Norton, Trend Micro and McAfee days (I have tried them all) I found that although the protection was great, they all slowed my system down to one degree or another. I’ve experienced no noticeable slow downs and I have had ZERO infections of spyware, virus or other malware since I installed the software. So, if your antivirus software is up for renewal, you might want to consider checking out Microsoft Security Essentials.

The other tool that I find indispensable on my Windows machines is CCLeaner. I’ve been using this little gem since it was called “Crap Cleaner”. As it gained a larger following, the folks at Piriform decided to clean up their image and changed the name to CCleaner!

Its job is to scan your hard drive and remove all of the unnecessary junk files that Windows creates and then carelessly leaves all over your hard drive. And it does it very well.

You down load it, install it and then run it. You do have to periodically remember to run it, but the actual scanning and cleaning time is measured in minutes. It’s smart to check for updates each time you run it so that you can be sure that you are using the latest information to check your computer. From the Piriform web site:

Features

CCleaner is our system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it’s fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware!

Cleans the following:

Internet Explorer:Temporary files, history, cookies, Autocomplete form history, index.dat.
Firefox: Temporary files, history, cookies, download history, form history.
Google Chrome: Temporary files, history, cookies, download history, form history.
Opera: Temporary files, history, cookies.
Safari: Temporary files, history, cookies, form history.
Windows: Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary files and Log files.
Registry Cleaner: Advanced features to remove unused and old entries, including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more… also comes with a comprehensive backup feature.
Third-party applications: Removes temp files and recent file lists (MRUs) from many apps including Media Player, eMule, Google Toolbar, Netscape, Microsoft Office, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and many more…
100% Spyware FREE: This software does NOT contain any Spyware, Adware or Viruses.

Both sites have extensive documentation via videos and/or screenshots and PDFs to show you how to use them, so you should have no trouble in using them

Between these two programs, (and Windows Firewall) I have had ZERO issues with my Windows computers over the past few years, which is a miracle of the highest order in my book!

What are you using to stay safe and efficient with Windows?

Free tech support when you need it most

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 00:00:12 +0000

How many times have you been working away on your computer or phone and ran into a problem? And there was no one around who could help you solve it?

Even if it only happens once, that’s one time too many! Luckily, there are some pretty nifty resources on the web that could help you get back to work quickly.

Microsoft Answers is the first one. This site can be found at http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx and it contains help for Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, MS Security Essentials and Windows Phone. You can search for answers by topic or you can pose your own questions in the search box.

Not to be outdone, Apple has an excellent online Support page at http://www.apple.com/support/ with separate sections for each Apple product. There are videos to watch, articles to read and you can even connect with an expert for “personalized and convenient support”

If you use any of the Google Mobile Services and products, you can go to http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile?hl=en to get help with Android devices, Apple devices, Blackberry devices, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Voice, even YouTube, Picasa, Reader and much more. It’s forum based, which means that you first search for an answer to your question from all the previously asked questions. If you don’t find an answer, you then post your question and hope that some kind soul on the forum can answer it for you. That doesn’t sound like a good system, but from my experience, asking questions on forums has almost always gotten reasonably accurate answers and fairly quick ones at that!

If you’ve got a BlackBerry device and needs some answers, hop on over to http://na.blackberry.com/eng/support/ to get support on a large number of devices, including downloads, documentation, forums and even billing support!

One site that almost no one thinks of when looking for tech support is YouTube. That’s right, http://www.YouTube.com. With 24 hours worth of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute, you can bet that someone has probably created a video on how to solve your particular problem, and uploaded it to the popular video sharing site!

So, even if your favorite tech geek isn’t available right when you need help, you may be able to solve your own problem by quickly visiting one of these support sites and be back up and running in no time!

Microsoft feels your pain and wants to help

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 02:00:56 +0000

I learned about a new Microsoft Beta program the other day that promises to make life a bit easier for users of Windows 7, Vista and XP. It’s called “Microsoft Fixit Center”. It’s a small download that you obtain from http://fixitcenter.support.microsoft.com/Portal/ and install.

Once installed, you login with your Windows Live ID. After you log in you can run a series of diagnostics on your computer. (If you don’t have a Windows Live ID, the program will offer to set you up with one. It’s free and is required in order to run the program)

Just having a program that could identify problems with your computer would be nice enough, but this goes a step further…it offers to fix anything that it finds that is wrong!

As you may know, I am certified by Microsoft and CompTIA in the art of diagnosing and repairing PCs, so I approached this product with both a skeptical eye as well as my “Oh boy, this is wonderful” eye.

I gave it a workout on my VMWare Virtual XP Pro machine that runs on my Apple iMac. Since this is a pretty recent installation of XP Pro and it has been running flawlessly, I didn’t expect the program to find anything, but it did find one small issue with printing that I didn’t realize that I had. The repair option looked harmless and so I let it run. Within seconds it was done and the problem was solved.

Next, I went to my office where I have an older Compaq that used to run Vista, but now is running a clean install of Windows 7 Home Premium (I completely removed Vista before installing Windows 7 six months ago). I downloaded the software, installed it and logged in. The log in showed my Virtual PC which was a nice touch. A subsequent log out and log back in showed both machines.

One big difference was immediately apparent, there were many more diagnostics available under Windows 7 then there were under XP. I take that as a sign that Microsoft is moving away from XP.

My experience was substantially the same on this machine. It found some issues that I allowed it to fix, but it also found some issues that it couldn’t fix. They were mostly driver related (This machine was originally set up for Vista not Windows 7) and it wanted me to go to 3^rd party web sites for the fix.

So, my conclusion and advice is that you go get this free product from Microsoft and run it if you are experiencing problems with your Windows 7, Vista or XP computer. This is a beta program, so that means that we can look for improvements over time…or it might mean that it could be abandoned by Microsoft and disappear.

Better go get it now…it might just save you a long call to tech support.

Data disaster blues and how to avoid them

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:53:14 +0000

Pop quiz! When was the last time you backed up your important data on your computer? You know, the IMPORTANT data like photographs, documents, your financial records…the stuff that would kill you if you lost it. What? Never?

If that was your answer, you are not alone. Most of the people that I talk with NEVER back up their data. I guess that if you don’t have anything that you would hate to lose that would be ok. But, almost everyone has something on their computer that would cost a lot of time, money or heart ache to replace if it was to be lost forever.

You might say to me that you have been ok up until now with your “I don’t back up my computer” strategy, but I am here to tell you that you are living on borrowed time. Ask ANY computer technician if you are at risk and they all will tell you that it’s not IF you will wish you had a backup, it’s just a matter of WHEN. You see, all computer hard drives will eventually fail. Many computers will contract a virus that could delete or corrupt data, some computers will get stolen or lost and some will be lost to fire, flood or earthquake. (To say nothing of the times that you accidentally delete something that you wish you hadn’t!)

I’ll admit that backing up a computer is no where near as much fun as playing a rousing game of solitaire with the computer, or reading or sending email. But, it’s got to be done. The purpose of this post is to expose you to several different ways to get the job done with a minimum of aggravation and cost.

To start with, if you have a Mac Running OS 10.4 or later all you need to do is buy an external USB Hard Drive equal in size to your computer’s hard drive and plug it in. The built in “Time Machine Software” runs in the background and creates backups on the fly. Every time something on the Mac’s Hard drive changes, Time Machine stores a copy. If you choose to activate the MobileMe account for $99.00, then Apple will give you 10 gigabytes of online storage (along with some other other goodies) which will allow you to sync items like calendar, contacts email and more from your Mac to the online storage giving you some redundancy.

If you are in the Windows world, you can do much the same, just not as easily. You can purchase a USB external hard drive equal in size to your computer’s hard drive and use the included backup software that comes with most of them to schedule backups.

This will work well, but still leaves you exposed to theft of the backup drive and your computer as well as fire, flood or earthquake loss.

The solution to this is sign up for an online backup service such as http://ww.Mozy.com or http://www.carbonite.com. Both offer free and paid services. You download a small piece of software to your computer, install it, run it and it will ask you what you want to backup and how often you want to backup. At that point it’s on autopilot. If you have a lot of data, you will outgrow the free allotment and will have to purchase a paid program that can be as little as $4.95 a month for MozyHome (No commercial or business use allowed) or pay $3.50 a month and .50 per Gigabyte for the MozyHomePro. Carbonite is similarly priced but does not have a free option beyond a trial period. Both services use very strong encryption to make sure that your data is safe while being backed up over the Internet as well as while they store it. Both services offer robust, yet easy to use Restoration of data should you need it.

One more way of backing up data, that is free is Windows Live Mesh Beta (https://www.mesh.com/welcome/default.aspx). This service gives you 5 gigabytes of free storage and allows you to sync multiple computers with the storage (phones and Macs too). Of course if you don’t have multiple computers this won’t work for you! But, if you do, and if your storage needs are under 5 GB, this might be the best solution of all, as not only will it keep the two computers in sync, you can also grant access to your files to another party, like your assistant, if needs be.

As you can see, with a minimal (or no) cash outlay, and a little bit of your time, you can “buy” yourself some peace of mind and security. If you are not sure that you can handle doing this on your own, hire a tech to set it up for you. It will be money well spent.

Have you staked out your piece of the Internet?

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:32:37 +0000

That’s an odd question! What do I mean by that?

The simple answer is that I want to know if you have a domain that you own. Do you have an address on the Internet that you can use for your blog or website? Do you have an address on the Internet that you can use for your own dedicated email address?

Maybe you already have an address, but now you want to expand your empire. Aren’t all the good names taken already? How can you quickly do the research to locate an available domain name, and then get it registered without hours of trial and error?

I’ve got the answer here for you in the form of an online domain search that has quite a few very interesting features. Go to https://domize.com to try out their “Fastest Domain Search Ever”. Just start typing in the name of the domain that you are thinking of and it will immediately start searching availability using one of five possible domain registrars. By default it selects GoDaddy, but you can also search Dotster, Network Solutions and Moniker if you choose.

<– Here is a shot of the home page. Just start typing and the site will start checking for you. It will check availability of .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .us by default and you can also add .mobi if you wish.

Power search is a feature that allows you to bulk search lists and combinations of words to quickly check a large selection of potential domain names.

Add lists to your query by writing a list of words, letters or numbers separated by commas between a set of [square braces]. Enter “[red,blue,green]light” to search for redlight, bluelight and greenlight (.com, .net, .org etc.).

You can also call a few special functions:

* [like:word] will list synonyms of the word you enter
* [set:item1,item2,item3...] will list more of the same type of item
* [bulk:http://url/textfile.txt] will load a list of domains to check from the given url

They have also provided some pre-made lists to help you out:

[vwl] – Vowels -The 5 vowels of the English language: a, e, i, o u
[vwly] – Vowels (including y) – The 5 vowels plus “y”
[cns] – Consonants – The 21 consonants in the English language
[alpha] – Alphabet – All letters in the English alphabet
[digit] – Digits – All 10 single digits 0-9
[digite] – English digits – “one” to “ten”, spelled out
[digite20] – English digits to twenty – “one” to “twenty”, spelled out
[digite10s] – English tens – “ten”,”twenty”,”thirty”…
[ending] – Endings – Common word endings, “er”, “ed”, “ster” etc.
[prep] – Prepositions – Most common English prepositions
[color] – Colors – A list of common colors
[verb] – Verbs – A list of the most common English verbs
[phonetic] – Phonetic alphabet – The phonetic alphabet: “alpha”, “bravo”, “charlie” etc.

Once you have a name or a list of names that you want to register domize.com handles that by switching you to GoDaddy and starts the process of registration by filling in the name of the domain that you want.

This free, online tool makes very short work of researching and registering that perfect domain name. What are you waiting for? Go stake out your piece of the Internet now.

Free conference calling for everyone!

Jerry Kidd — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:58:48 +0000

Have you ever had the need to set up a conference call? And have you ever been stymied by how to do it on the office phone or your cell phone? Do you know if your home phone can do conference calling? I may have the answer to these questions for you in today’s post. It’s called rondee, and yes, it’s absolutely free!

With rondee you can set up scheduled conference calls or you can create on the spot conference calls. You can have up to 100 callers on the call and you can record the call. You can email invitations and you can track the invitations so that you know who has accepted (and who hasn’t!).

There are no downloads, there is nothing to install. You log on to rondee and set up a free account. Thereafter, you login to setup the date and time for your call. You are then prompted to add the details of the call and to enter the email addresses of the people that you want to invite. (Or you are given a pin number to distribute to your invitees via text messages or even by calling them yourself and giving them the log in info). They simply dial in at the appointed time, enter the pin number and they are connected to the call.

Here is what the email looks like that your invitee receives.

Not much too it and notice the lack of advertising for anything but rondee itself. If they click on the link in the email, they come to a web page where they can accept or decline. If they accept, they can add comments and even invite other people as well. It’s all pretty easy to follow, and you get notified of everything they decide to do.

To get started, just go to rondee.com and create an account. You don’t have to do it this way, but if you do create an account, you get to register your phones. A benefit of registering your phones is that ever time you use the phone to call rondee, it recognizes your phone so that you don’t have to use a pin number to get to the call. Another benefit of registering is that you can create an address book of frequently used email addresses. This will save you time when setting up a rondee. Once you have done that, you go the web site and follow the steps as illustrated here. Pick a date, pick a time, invite attendees, choose a topic and you are done. You can even download the details into your Outlook or iCal calendars!

I see several uses for this for real estate agents. The first and obvious use is if you have clients who are at different locations and you need to talk to them both. One might be at work and the other at home. Just setup an on demand rondee and you are good to go. You can add in the lenders, title, inspectors and so on. And, don’t forget that the call can be recorded. If you do decide to record the call, all parties to the call are notified that the call is being recorded and all parties can later download the finished call. (You will need a free 3rd party converter to convert the call from the GSM format to WAV or MP3, but that is all explained on the rondee website, complete with links to the converter software)

Another use is in prospecting. Have you ever wanted to set up a First Time Homebuyer seminar, or a short sale seminar, or an investor seminar but were concerned about the cost? In today’s world of high gas prices, doesn’t it make sense to do a teleseminar? You could use rondee to do just that. They have a two tier pin system where some invitees get one pin that allows them to talk (you and your presenters for instance) and another pin that you would give to attendees who could only listen.

Given that you can record the calls, you could create your teleseminar with just you and your other presenters. Do a seminar, record it, download it and convert it to MP3 and then put it on your blog or web site. The possibilities to use this to promote yourself are almost endless.

Remember, it’s free. All you need to enter into a call is a telephone. Cell phones work just fine, too. Please don’t whine about the fact that you have to call a San Diego number. If that is a huge problem for you, you can pay rondee for the use of an 800 number!

Tell me how you would use this tool to enhance your business by leaving a comment so that we all can benefit!

Cool email backup tool

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:18:49 +0000

If you’ve got a business email account then you have an asset that needs to be protected. What would happen if one day you logged on to your computer and opened up Outlook (or almost any other email client) and it did not open? Or it opened but it couldn’t find your email?

If you are using a corporate email system then you might be ok as the admin’s MIGHT be able to restore the email for you…but maybe they can’t because they don’t have the backup files any longer. Or, maybe it’s late at night or on a weekend and they are not available. Even if they did have the file and even if they were available to do it for you, the amount of time that it would take for them to locate the backup, and run it to recover your mailbox is staggering.

There has to be a better way…and hopefully it’s a no brainer, and oh yeah, free would be great too!

As it turns out, this week’s topic, Amic Email Backup is all of that. It’s drop dead easy to use, you can schedule automatic backups and it is free! Here is where you get it: http://www.amictools.com/v-amic_email_backup.html

The software is easy to use, and has two working modes, a Wizard mode and a standard mode.

The Schedule feature allows you to backup the email database daily, weekly or at any chosen time period. The email database can be saved on one computer and restored to another, thus making Amic Email Backup not just a backup utility but also a synchronization tool.

Once you have downloaded the Installer, just double click on the file that you downloaded and the installation wizard will appear. Follow the easy steps in order to complete the installation.

Creating your first backup is easy as well. Just follow the Wizard which will walk you through the steps, or you can use the manual mode to select which email you want to backup and where you want to place the backup file.

Here is what the manual screen looks like:

My initial backup took over 35 minutes and resulted in a very large file. (I have over 9 years of email stored) The options tab allows you to break the file up into “pieces” that will fit on CDs so that you could copy the files onto CDs for off site storage. You could also take the CDs to any other Windows computer that is running the same email client (like Outlook) and Amic Email Backup will “restore” those files on the remote computer.

Now that is a great way to ensure redundancy AND to safely store your backups in a different physical location!

Give it a try and let me know what you think. I’d also like to hear what you are using to back up your email. Drop me a note in the comments!