Backing Up Your Address Book

It's obviously very important to back up your data periodically to an external source. There are lots of options for this including external hardrives, cd/dvd roms, or even buying into an online resource that allows you to save your files on their system. Each of these have their pros and cons... Regardless of which version you choose, I have found the one thing everyone forgets to back up is their "Address Book".

Everyone spends years and years compiling the contact information for all of the people they correspond with, but then forget completely to save that data on an external source. Most backups that people do don't actually include the data files of something like Outlook, Eudora, or whatever email program you are using. Most people only back up things like My Documents, and rarely get everything on their hardrives because it's just too much stuff to constantly keep.

So, what's the solution? Do a specific backup of your Address Book!!!!!

Almost every email program has an "Export" function that allows you to turn your Address Book content into a "file" that can then easily be included in your normal backup process. In Outlook, this is under [File] [Import and Export]. Almost all email programs have this somewhere.

When you find it within your program, simply follow the Export process. It is highly recommended that once you get to choose the "file type" that you choose to back it up as a CSV (Comma Delimited File). The reason is that this is a fairly universal file format that can be uploaded back into most email programs and also can be opened in Excel. This way you can pull it into whatever program you choose, or even make edits or preview it in a chart format.

As you are saving it as a "file", I also recommend you consider naming that file by the "date" first and then whatever you want to call it. For example, if I were to do it today I would call my file "2009-04-25 My Address Book". By doing this, your file system will then "alphabetize it" by the date. Thus, when you do it next month it will put them in order. This way you always know when you saved it last, and can jump back in time easily if you need to.

After all is said and done, and you've begun to back up your contacts. Make sure to simply add it into the back up process you've regularly chosen to save all of your data. This way, you can always recover if your computer crashes, your email software stops working, or whatever strange computer blurp happens to you.

Don't forget to back up your Address book! It's important!!!!

Updating a Website Made Easy

How many times have you gone surfing around the internet and found websites that were literally years out of date?

In today's market, almost every business and non-profit needs a website. The uses of a website are endless when it comes to making money, marketing your business or organization, and expanding the services you offer. In the creation process, most either try to get the biggest, fanciest, most expensive monstrosity of a website they can or they try to get one at no cost through donations or volunteers. In both cases, they get themselves out onto the internet, but don't usually think of the future.

Like any other form of marketing, websites need to be updated and changed. Almost every business or organization will grow over time. Often they'll add new services, new events, and new ways they want the world to view them. If your website isn't growing with your company, then it isn't representing you in the manner that you intended. In fact, it's making you look bad. The problem becomes, was it built to allow changes? Now, there's a simple solution to this problem.

There's a new product on the market called iUpdateIt. It's a simple website updating tool that makes it really easy for the average person to add, remove, update, and schedule content changes on their website. In technical terms, this is called a Content Management System (CMS), but in real people terms this will make it easy for practically anyone with basic computer skills to begin updating select spots on a site. Go to http://www.iupdateit.com/ to check out the system.

There is a free account too! Give it a try...!

Stay Away from the Spam Censors

It's a sad state of affairs as spam overtakes all of our email boxes and literally costs Americans billions of dollars a year. It's an endless war that seemingly has no end and no way to combat it. This battle that's being fought has many soldiers, but few who really know how to win the war. So far there isn't a solution.

There are numerous companies and organizations on the internet that have recently cropped up with their own version of a solution to the spam problem. A couple of the more well known versions of this are SpamCop and SpamHaus. Many of these have created criteria that they determine to figure out what is spam and what is not. They create these policies and procedures using their own formula. They then go out and try to convince the public that they are the authority on stopping spam and attempt to bring people under their umbrella to sign up for their services. As the public joins and their membership grows, so does their power. Is this a good thing or is this a bad thing?

We have found that in general this is a bad thing. We realize that the intentions of these companies are good, but the end results are not. The systems they setup to block spam are flawed. There really isn't a perfect solution so they create what they feel is the best they can do... a happy medium that can have serious repercussions.

Some of what they do are things like "blacklist" servers that have lots of spam going through them. Okay, you say that's a good thing. Well, not really. On every server there are literally thousands of customers. When one customer violates the spam laws, the rest of the people on that server may have to pay for it. That's not cool. How would you like it if your email was blacklisted by one of these companies for what someone else did? Your emails wouldn't go through and you'd have no way to combat it. That's a violation of our freedoms!

Unfortunately, these companies are creating a power base that is unregulated and people across the world are falling into their pit. In the long run, they create a form of censorship that may be detrimental to the freedoms that we all enjoy. If you are considering joining one of these services, we'd like you to think twice. Just because you are frustrated with too much spam doesn't mean you should choose one of these options. Choose freedom over censorship!

The above tech tip is strictly a subjective opinion.