Recently, I “downgraded” my Comcast service from Business to Residential – largely because I got more speed for less money, and I wasn’t anticipating coming anywhere near the 250GB cap. I hate artificial ceilings, but that’s the price I pay for paying less of a price?

I know I don’t knowingly download 250GB worth of data every month – I’m not THAT hardcore.

However, that 250GB cap is for all transfers (upload AND download) – and it’s not just for email and Web browsing, but everything. EVERYTHING. I was reminded of this when I read the article by another local boy about how Comcast is totally screwing him. Completely.

Since I record a TON of videos for YouTube, and most of my production is remote, I rely on Dropbox to better facilitate content for the channel. I connect to Dropbox from more than one machine (and, yes, LAN sync is always on). Either way, I push a lot of bits down the pike (before editing) – and a lot of bits get pushed back to me (after editing).

Tonight, as I was recording more videos for the YouTube, someone suggested that Dropbox was causing me to push my limit:

I’m guessing that user is 100% correct. I immediately disconnected Dropbox from one of my computers and cleared out certain folders (without realizing ramifications, causing further consternation). Video is bandwidth intensive – and not just when you’re wanting to watch it. I know I have likely pushed and pulled extraneous gigabytes of video data in these two weeks on Comcast’s Residential Class service.

Thank goodness my offsite “online backup” option stopped working a while back, or I’d have been in twice as much trouble by now. Could you imagine? I mean, how frequently do you see online backup services advertised everywhere? I wouldn’t recommend an online backup service if you’re dealing with a data cap, that’s for sure. No way in hell.

So, to put a finer point on my alarmist headline: be forewarned about using ANY KIND OF data-intensive service (like Dropbox or any online backup option).

Comcast – ease up there, dude. You’re screwing some of us out of very useful services.

I realize I’m probably more of a business user at this point, but your new Business Class prices are nowhere within the realm of reasonable – that’s why I “downgraded” (and got better speed in the process). Y’all need to set up some kind of in-between “Producer” or “Prosumer” level. We don’t want your Exchange or email crap – we just want no data caps for us to push legitimate traffic around.

I’m obviously willing to spend money – we all are. But you have to match our needs better (especially if we have “no choice” but to go through you as a broadband provider for home).

Now, I should also take this time to tell you that Comcast really isn’t horrible – at least, not the people I’ve dealt with. They accidentally turned off my service for 24 hours this week. A technician saw me flagged as a former Business subscriber and he accidentally killed all of my services (TV, Internet) – until I tracked someone down later that day to get to the bottom of the problem. By the following afternoon, they realized it was their issue (since my business connection existed at the same place as my residence). Comcast is now going to offer me a refund for some outstanding charges. It was their mistake, but they cleaned it up – with a good degree of speed and candor.

Seems like they’ve got another mistake on their hands, here, by ignoring power producers who aren’t pirating anything. I doubt anybody at corporate is going to pay attention to my plight – and they’ve obviously done their best to ignore Andre’s. If you’d like to read more about what happened to another Seattle-area Comcast subscriber, he’s detailed the literal post mortem in a complete ‘Day After’ blog entry.

There is no competition with Comcast – they’re pretty much the only game in town in certain areas of Seattle, and that sucks (for consumers and power users, at least). I don’t even want to get into the headaches my neighbors have had with the problematic Netgear routers Comcast keeps passing off for them to use. That’s another battle for another day.

*knock knock* Anybody there?

Comcast 250GB Cap? Avoid Dropbox or Online Backup!

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One of our Lockergnome users recently asked the community what the best method of cloning a hard drive is. For a Mac, you can use Carbon Copy Cloner, which is free and simple. You already know that performing regular backups can save you from disaster. Using CCC gives you a peace of mind that is priceless. In addition to general backup, CCC can also clone one volume to another, copying every file to create an exact replica of your source volume.

Since I’m not familiar with Windows alternatives, I chose to check out one of the coolest sites I’ve found: AlternativeTo.net. There are seemingly thousands of programs there which will do the same type of thing within Windows that CCC can do within Mac OS X.

As with anything, do your research before choosing a cloning software. Do a simple Google search of the name plus the word reviews. Read what others have to say about the program’s performance and pick something that not only best fits your needs but also has fantastic reviews by people who have actually used it.

What is the Best Way to Clone a Hard Drive?

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Over on Lockergnome, someone was wondering if the data on a corrupted drive is recoverable. The last thing you want to do if a drive is failing is to continue to write data to it. If there’s a question of data being corrupt, do nothing until you can get a professional to look at it. I’d be more inclined to send it to a third party than I would be even taking it back to a store where it was purchased from.

There are businesses built to do nothing more than recover your precious data from hard drives gone bad. The people you find at a local store that your drive was purchased at may not be as well-trained in the methods used to SAFELY retrieve your data. Do you really want to trust those photos, videos and documents to someone who may or may not be able to properly recover it?

If you’re reading along and have had experience with this, please leave a follow-up comment here. The community could use GOOD recommendations of people and companies who can help them gain access to their lost files.

How do You Recover Data from a Bad Drive?

For those of you who have long enjoyed having an unlimited amount of space within your Mozy account to back up your data are about to cry on your keyboard. As soon as your current subscription runs out, there will be no more “unlimited” plans to choose from. Instead, Mozy will start charging nearly six bucks each month for up to 50GB of data. If you need more space, you will have to pay another two dollars per month per 20GB. If you have more than one machine to back up, you can choose the new multi-machine option: $9.99 per month for up to 125GB and three computers.

“There has been a change in consumer behavior,” said Russ Stockdale, Mozy’s vice president of product management. “What we have seen since we launched an unlimited service five years ago is there has been an explosion in digital content, specifically digital photos and video.” Many customers store many MANY Gigabytes’ worth of videos and photos on their machines – and on Mozy’s servers.

If you’re a Mozy customer, what’s your reaction? Do you plan to stick with the company or start shopping around for something new?

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Mozy Getting Rid of Unlimited Backup Plans

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This is my first SCSI device – ever. In all my years of owning computer equipment, I’ve never had a single SCSI device. I’ve had plenty of scurvy devices over the years since none of it ever had enough Vitamin C. SCSI is fast. That’s one of the reasons why they’ve decided to add it as a feature to the TS-459 Pro – a NAS device that is capable of swapping up to four iSCSI devices. Thanks to the folks at QNAP for sending this to me as a review unit.

The QNAP Pro 4-Bay Desktop Network Attached Server TS-459 can be utilized as the networked shared storage of VMware virtualization environments and Windows cluster servers. The unique “virtual disk drive” adds flexibility to expand the capacity of your NAS to allow file sharing across any platform. This makes for the perfect file server in business – or home – environments.

The TS-459 Pro is the powerful 4-bay network attached storage (NAS ) server, which is designed to provide an affordable and easy-to-management solution with iSCSI service for virtualized and clustered environment. The TS-459 Pro also offers versatile business applications to maximize the efficiency of the data center in the business environment. Incorporating the next-generation Intel Atom D510 1.66GHz Dual-Core processor and 1GB DDRII RAM, the Turbo NAS delivers exceptional performance and maintains high reliability for multiple concurrent applications and intensive data transfer with guaranteed low power consumption.

I’m no stranger to NAS devices. Why would you want this one in particular? SCSI is fast. Raid allows you to have redundancy with the data you’re putting inside this system. There’s a lot more to this thing, though. It has a file server built in. There’s an FTP server built in. It has surveillance station inside, meaning you can hook up a security camera. There’s a print server built in. It even supports IPv6 and delivers instant SMS and email alerts.

This powerful device can literally do almost anything you might think to throw at it. The list goes on and on. Why wouldn’t you want it? You may think the external hard drives you already have are sufficient. This machine comes with four USB ports on the back and two e-SATA ports. There’s a single USB port on the front for convenience.

The drives are hot-swappable, but what if you don’t want anyone swapping your drives? Psh. No problem – just lock it down using the included key.

I am more than happy to have this on my home network now. There’s even a VGA port on the back of this sleek little number. I absolutely love this, and can’t recommend it highly enough.

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iSCSI RAID NAS – Three-in-One Hardware Heaven

Eli writes (unedited):

Hi Chris, OK, I consider myself a pretty tech-savvy guy. But I’ve recently come to this point where I feel like my faith in the digital age’s media revolution is verging on collapse. I’m hoping you may be the man to resolve my dilemma. I have around 250 gigs of data that I like to have access to at any given moment. Whether its a video clip, a song, or a picture I want to tag in Picasa, it’s all part of my data flow.

Now, the PCs I’ve been using for the past 10 years have never really kept up in terms of storage capacity. So I’ve relied on an external drive as sort of media hubs. I’ve kept all my programs, system settings, etc. on the internal drive, so as not to allow a system failure to affect the media content. I now realize that I had sort of fooled myself into thinking that this was a “backup”, when it really wasn’t. The data, while separate, was never being backed up at all.

About a month ago, my external drive died. Fortunately, the local PC shop was able to salvage it, and transfer it to a new drive. But then THAT drive died, and the data couldn’t be recovered. I’m not in the process of transferring the data from the original drive to a third drive! But going forward, the dilemma is thus: how do I have a large and real-time accessible drive running, that is also backed up so that priceless content (baby photos!) are never gone forever? Does one simply need a massive internal drive, with an external drive solely devoted to backup? Thank you so much for your time.

Why not use something like a Pogoplug? While the online backup option is currently not available, I do believe it’s coming at some point in the future.

Of course, you could also sign up for one of those online backup services. That won’t hurt.

Those two options, together, could be a win.

Then again, I hope all of the media you’re tracking is media you’ve either created or have acquired the proper licensing for. If not, I’d suggest dumping “illegal” audio and video in favor for services like Rhapsody or Netflix. Why you’d care about managing THAT locally to begin with is a bit beyond me.

Media Backup Dilemma

It’s no secret that I am a Tetris fanatic. That is pretty much the only game I play and truly enjoy. Forget the fact that the game is addictive. Researchers at Oxford University have suggested that playing Tetris can assist in the treatment of post-traumatic stress.

According to the research, playing Tetris after a shocking event can help reduce the number of horrific flashbacks that a person may have. According to Dr. Emily Holmes, memories become permanent six hours after trauma. She feels that playing Tetris will interfere with the process of memories being kept by people’s brains. She further speculates that in the future, Tetris could be used to help people who are suffering after accidents or during wars.

I am grateful that I have never suffered a severely traumatic experience. However, I still maintain that playing Tetris is good for keeping my stress levels down.

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Playing Tetris Eases Stress

When purchasing a hard drive, most people look at the storage available, the speed, the price, and the warranty. The manufacturer’s warranty will be the last thing on your mind if there is a major hard drive failure. To put it in very simple terms, everything on your hard drive could be inaccessible. Everything on the hard drive could be gone.

Of course, there are recovery services that might be able to save some of the data. However, there are no guarantees and, whether successful or not, such services are expensive. And you will want your files, pictures, music, and all that data on your hard drive. You will be looking for all those registration numbers for those software programs that you use. You will not be thinking much about that warranty.

Avoid this disaster. It is possible to safeguard yourself from this catastrophe.

You have heard people say it repeatedly: “do a backup of your data.” Yes, do a backup of your hard drive. It is not difficult. That hard drive you are using will fail. It happens to everyone. Hard drives do not last indefinitely. Problems with the hard drive are a matter of “when,” not “if.”

If you are one of our readers who is doing academic work, you cannot afford a computer disaster at this time of the year. Do a backup copy of all your school stuff. We know some students who do two backup copies and keep one copy off the premises.

To make this as easy and as economical for you as possible, here is a bargain from Acronis. It is the Acronis True Image Home 2010 and the True Image Plus Pack add-on. This will give you continuous data protection and there is a forty dollar ($40.00) discount.

True Image Home 2010 supports Windows XP SP3, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows Vista SP2 (all editions) and Windows 7 (all editions).

This offer is valid until March 31, 2010.

There are really too many features to list. We are familiar with the excellent features of the Acronis programs and have no hesitation in recommending this software. Please take the time to see what these programs offer for your security. As readers know, we always prompt you to beware of malware and to take steps to protect your computer(s). Doing backups gives you protection. It gives you a copy of your hard drive in case the malware is impossible to remove and doing strange things to your machine. The precaution to remember is that, when you do make the backup copy, just make sure that the copy is free from any malware infections.

Take a few minutes to look at this offer from Acronis. It is exceptional. Thanks to Acronis for this generous price for our readers.

Losing Everything on Your Computer Would be a Disaster

Among our readers are those individuals who run small businesses and have the responsibility for many computers. A common complaint that is heard is that it is very time consuming to protect and restore data for all those machines. To make it easier to manage workstations, we are recommending Acronis Backup & Recovery.

“Built to protect the intellectual property in desktops and laptops in small enterprises, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Workstation provides optimized data protection and ease of operation. It creates an exact disk image of your office desktop and allows you to back up key data files and folders. Designed to simplify system restores, users can perform self-service recovery for files and folders in moments without administrator intervention. Even an entire Windows system can be restored in minutes using an Acronis one-click restore feature.”

This programs offers a multitude of features. One that bears mentioning is encryption which is included. Using this security procedure should be part of everyday policy. This Acronis program supports operating systems from Windows 2000 to Windows 7.

For a limited time, Acronis is offering our readers over a twelve percent discount (12%+). This offer is effective from February 2 to February 10, 2010.

Now it is possible to free the tech person from doing repetitive tasks. And just saving that tech person a few hours more than justifies the cost of this Acronis backup and restoration program.

More Acronis Coupons:

• Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 - $20 off Acropack 2010: Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 & True Image Home 2010 (Posted on 9/16/09 and Expires on 12/31/15)
• Acronis True Image 2010 - Special Offers (Posted on 9/16/09 and Expires on 12/31/15)

Find More Coupons

Small Business Security

While writing about the astronauts tweeting from space earlier tonight, I couldn’t help but think about other technology breakthroughs that could be coming sooner than we think. Even five years ago, we wouldn’t have dreamed that we’d have people out in space sending real-time messages to us here on Earth via an instant-messaging type of communication such as Twitter.

Heck, five years ago we thought that “someday” we would have a black President. We figured maybe “one day” we would see cell phones that actually let us DO things. It seems to me as though “someday” is here much sooner than we figured.

What other things do you feel that we may see come to fruition sooner than we previously thought? What other ground-breaking news have you read today?!

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What Does the Tech Future Hold?

Experienced computer users harp on this, and we have for years. Do a backup of your data. Do the backups often. It just prevents so many disasters.

Think for a minute and consider the dilemma in which you would find yourself if everything on the hard drive was gone. Absolutely everything can be inaccessible if there is a hard drive failure. It becomes a ‘situation critical’.

Think also if your laptop, netbook or even your desktop were stolen. It would be another disaster situation.

The time and possible money lost could be considerable. And we are trying to prevent these sort of disasters from happening to any of our readers. There are some things on your computer, like pictures, that simply are irreplaceable. You want to protect those files and you do so by doing a backup of your data. What would happen if you lost all those class lectures notes on your laptop?

Disasters happen to all of us who have spent much time on the computer. Hard drives do fail – and will fail. It doesn’t matter what brand it is. And the manufacturer’s guarantee will be meaningless because you just want your data back. The manufacturer’s guarantee will be the last thing on your mind because you will be focused on retrieving your data. That can be an expensive job, if it is even possible. You will want your data files, all your music, all your pictures, all your software… everything back.

All that aggravation can be prevented. For your own security, prepare for a hard drive failure now. No, don’t wait. Really, don’t wait. Do the backups now; do copies regularly. Some people do a daily backup. And if the information on your hard drive is really important, do multiple backup copies. Here is a program that will do this for you. It is the well known Acronis True Image Program. The backup can be done easily:

“Acronis True Image Home 2010 meets home user needs with a simple, yet comprehensive, backup and disaster recovery solution. This is a unique consumer software, providing a full set of advanced features in an affordable and easy-to-use solution.”

This is the latest version of the Acronis True Image Program. It was released just recently. It is fine with Windows 7. We have worked really really hard and secured a terrific discount for our readers. A twenty dollar ($20.00) discount is significant. That is a forty per cent discount! From now until January 31, 2010, you can save twenty dollars on this excellent, award winning program.

Use this program to protect your data. The backup can save you beyond a hard drive disaster. It can help if you have a bad computer infection. If you have a virus or malware problem, you will have an extra layer of protection. Restoration of a clean system can be simple. Just make sure that you are making a copy when your computer is free from malware, spyware and other infections. Otherwise, you will be replicating the problem. And you can find in our archives the security programs that we recommend. Don’t risk what you have on that hard drive. Acronis is an excellent layer of security and you want to make it a regular habit of using it. And this program is easy to use.

The time that you spend doing a backup is that “ounce of prevention”. It is well worth your time. Ask anyone who has spent time with a computer. Disasters will happen. You don’t want to start doing backups because you learned ‘the hard way’. Learn from other people’s mistakes. We have made those goofs. There are many experienced computer users with horror stories of lost data. That’s one computing experience that you do not want to have. This Acronis True Image Program will save you from having horror stories like that to tell.

Data Backup Has Never Been This Simple

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Aside from communicating with the opposite sex, what is a Geek’s greatest fear? I’d have to say it would be the fear of losing power! We are always worried about our batteries dying just when we need them most! Due to this, I spent a bit of my own money to buy a Solio Universal Solar Hybrid Charger. That’s right… it can charge from the Sun!! It also has a proprietary cable (ARGH!) that you can use, as well, in case you happen to live where the Sun never shines.

I can use the Solio to charge any number of things, including my iPod. I had to buy some iGo tips to attach to the end of the cable, but it worked like a charm. The Solio, by the way, is compatible with the Universal iGo tip system for use with hundreds of different portable electronics. I can leave the Solio sitting on a windowsill in order to keep it full of juice. It won’t charge as fast that way as it would if it were outside.

It takes about four hours in the Sunlight for the Solio to obtain about 2 hours worth of talk time on a cell phone! So, 5 minutes will give me about 15% of battery life. That’s not too bad, eh? What a great (and economic!) way to charge things!!

I will absolutely be carrying this with me from now on. If I happen to run out of battery, I will hopefully be able to find my way to the Sun!

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Solar Power Battery Charger

This review was sponsored by KeepVault. Editorial was completed without sponsor intervention.

Hardware crashes can – and will – happen to you at some point. It’s inevitable, and often unpredictable. You could be thinking to yourself that you’re safe. After all, your computer is fairly new, right? Or perhaps it’s not “acting funny” in any way. That means everything will stay working, doesn’t it? You sadly couldn’t be more wrong – in both cases. When a hard drive dies, there is often no warning signs, nor funny noises and symptoms. It just… dies. What would you do if you try to turn on your computer one morning, and nothing happens? Where are all of your files?

There are many cases where data cannot be retrieved from a dead disk. All of your work, homework, photos, music and files are simply gone. Everything you’ve done, and all you have saved – poof. Why are you taking that kind of chance? There are so many options available to help back up your information, which you should be doing on a regular basis… even daily. KeepVault is one of the best online backup services that I’ve come across.

With KeepVault, you can protect an unlimited number of computers in your home or office. That’s right – for one price, your entire family can share an account to keep your information safe. Most other services only allow you to back up one machine, charging you more for each additional computer (or requiring separate accounts entirely for each of them). For about $4.00 per month, your family can share a 40GB online storage account! This storage amount is expandable up to 5TB, with the cost adjusted accordingly.

For maximum data protection, KeepVault can take your uploaded backups and create a local backup onto a USB flash drive or hard drive. Your information is fully encrypted before transmission to the KeepVault servers to keep them completely safe from others.

The best part of KeepVault is that it is automatic. You won’t forget to back up. Once it is installed, your system is monitored by their software and backups are automagically created for new or changed files!

You have the chance to get a free 40GB KeepVault account if you tweet out the following:

Hey @KeepVault – I want to start backing up my data online, too! http://go.tagjag.com/keepvault

They’ll be giving away five of them before the week is out. Good luck!

Do you seriously want to keep risking your data, information and memories? KeepVault is a simple – and very affordable – way to ensure you will never lose a single thing on your computer… no matter what silly things your hardware may try to do.

Online Backup Service Review

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The folks at PC PitStop have been a tremendous help to our community during the time we’ve been doing live streaming. We contribute videos to their newsletters as often as possible, and they contribute to all of you via excellent and exclusive deals on their software!

Optimize 3.0 is a program that I would recommend even if these folks weren’t a part of our team. It’s honestly that good. Optimize 3.0 is a powerful tool that does a lot to boost the speed, stability and security of your computer.

You can schedule Optimize remotely to run on any computer in the World that you have access to. Use it to kill unneeded processes that eat up memory and CPU cycles, which in turn speeds up your boot times! Optimize automatically gets rid of junk files for you, to reduce excessive hard drive clutter.

PC Pitstop has now introduced a new (and still free!) product that is going to blow away previous offerings they’ve had. PC Matic is a single piece of software that combines FIVE of their other programs into one nice scanning bundle!

PC Matic includes Optimize 3.0, Disk MD, Driver Alert, Exterminate and OverDrive!! By running a simple scan using PC Matic, you’ll receive easy-to-understand reports about your computer, including:

• High and Low Threat Security
• Fragmentation Analysis
• Drivers
• Junk Files
• System Specs
• Internet Tweaks
• World Rank
• Registry Tests

One other awesome feature to point out is that all of the scan and clean results are stored on the PC PitStop servers. They can be viewed from any computer, not just the computer on which the functions were performed. The results can also be sent to you via email, in order to easily manage all of your computers from one place.

The bottom line is that we couldn’t continue doing what we do without the help of our partners, such as PC PitStop. We appreciate each and every one of you, and the support you give to our community as a whole.

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Keep Your Computer in Tip-Top Shape

You’ve seen us repeatedly say to back up your files. When someone has computer problems, one of the first questions that we ask is whether there is a backup of the important files. You would be surprised at how many people do not have a backup. And there is no reason for that lapse in security.

Computers will fail. Hard drives will stop working. Disasters will happen, so we are going to make this backup routine very easy. We have an offer for our readers from GoodSync. This program has had good reviews and we agree. It is easy to use and it is effective:

GoodSync will automatically back up and synchronize all your important files so you never need to worry about losing your emails, precious family photos, contacts, MP3s, and financial documents. GoodSync works locally – between desktops, laptops, servers, and external drives, but it is also capable of backing up and syncing files to and from remote servers using FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, and more.

This program will work with Windows XP/2003 Server/Vista and yes, Windows 7.

And yes there’s a Mac Version.

For the sake of full disclosure, we tested the pay-for version extensively. The Mac version was not tested by our reviewers.

• GoodSync - Free Trial (Posted on 9/7/09 and Expires on 12/31/15)
• GoodSync - 20% off Purchase using coupon code RANDM (Posted on 9/7/09 and Expires on 12/31/15)

Find Coupons for over 1200 Stores

Backup Security and Synchronizing (even for Macs!)