Tech Bargains: Sites You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

Tech Bargains at Your Fingertips

It seems summer gets shorter and shorter every year. How is it that back to school is already here? Whether you’re in the market for a PC, printer or router to get set up for the new academic year, or you’re just poised to take advantage of the season’s sales, you’ll be joining thousands of shoppers buying computers, peripherals and gadgets in the coming weeks. Before you walk into your local electronics store, there are many websites, some that you may have never heard of, that offer great tech bargains.

Newegg:

While the name may be a head scratcher, Newegg.com is one of the largest online retailers specializing in computer parts, networking supplies (like routers and wireless adapters), RAM, and external drives. Since they are frequented by Nerds like me, the reviews are a reliable tool to aid you in choosing between models if you’re not sure what to buy. Their extensive selection is easily whittled down with search modifiers. While they carry a huge selection of additional products, they shine in their top category: “Computer Hardware.”

TigerDirect:

Similar in their offerings to Newegg, Tigerdirect.com is a good source for price comparison. Be sure to factor in shipping costs and/or taxes as they can markedly change the final price of your selection. Luckily, both sites offer a well laid-out cart function that allows you to see final cost before requiring your credit card number.

TechBargains:

The real magic of Techbargains.com is in their “Top System Deals” and daily “Hottest Deals” that amass the best bargains on tech from across the net, saving you hours of scouring the web for what’s on sale where. “Top System Deals” shows the best bang for your buck at build-your-own PC sites like Dell and HP, offering up a selection of the best packages and the coupon codes to get the lowest price. The current deals section on the right of the webpage lists codes for Dell & HP sales so you can build your own system and still get a great price.

Monoprice:

My go-to site for cables and adapters, Monoprice.com, offers a dizzying selection of the less glamorous yet still necessary accessories to get your computer, peripherals and home theater working properly. Rock bottom prices makes it worth wading through the massive selection to buy network cables (i.e., CAT 5e or Ethernet), HDMI cables for your monitor, adapters for your portable electronics and much more.

Decide.com:

While limited in their product listings, Decide.com helps take some of the guess work out of when to buy the electronics on your list. It shows the going price of popular laptops, tablets, phones and cameras but takes it further by using up-to-date information to predict if there will be a price adjustment up or down in the near future. Considering a Kindle Fire? Decide.com suggests you wait to buy due to a new model rumored to be released soon.

NerdSecret:

If I’ve ever mentioned a product that you thought would be useful in your own home or office, I’ve compiled a site with links to the gadgets I’ve reviewed as well as some cool or goofy stuff that my fellow Nerds find appealing. Nerdsecret.com saves you scrolling through back articles to find tech bargains or that gem you meant to bookmark.

Small Business Data BackUp

Data BackUp - You Don't Even Need A Truck

Data backup is the flossing of the tech world: you know you should do it, but you just never get around to it. There’s something in human nature that makes us learn the hard way – cavities are no fun. Yet when it comes to risking the data that you need to run your business, the price of procrastination is too high.

For small and medium businesses, data backup is all about automation, redundancy, and reliability. The first step to reducing your exposure to hardware failure is consolidating your data in one more reliable and easier to backup location. Instead of saving files to each of your workstation computers, saving files on a shared server will mean that if Jane’s hard drive dies tomorrow you won’t lose the parts of the client presentation she was working on.

Small offices often designate one of the computers on the network to be a “server” that all other systems transfer files to. There are several limitations to this method. The hard drive in this system is just as vulnerable to crashing as those in your other computers. It will have to be left on all the time to allow others on the network to access data, and if you forget and power off the system while someone else is working on a file they will lose their work. Running constantly puts more stress on the system and drive.

If this is the method you’re utilizing, the easiest way to protect your data from loss is to set up a cloud based synching program. You may have an onsite backup hard drive; perhaps it’s even automated. When was the last time you checked that files written to your backup drive are readable? Users often discover that the backup drive has failed only when the primary drive dies and they try to restore files from their backup.


The main drawback to relying completely on a cloud-based backup system is that you have to be online for it to work. If your hard drive or server fails, you’ll have to download all your data to a new drive or have CrashPlan send it to you, which can be time consuming.

An even better solution is to set up a NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive with two or more hard drives in a RAID configuration. Data written to the backup device is replicated over multiple drives simultaneously. If one drive fails, you can pull it without downtime, running off the additional drive(s). I particularly like the hybrid solutions offered by Netgear Ready NAS as they work with Egnyte cloud file server software (www.egnyte.com) to create a system where data is stored locally for quick access over the local network, while automatically synching to a cloud file server. Data is not only automatically backed up, it’s accessible anywhere, eliminating the need for FTP and VPN systems to access shared files when you’re away from the office. You’ll pay a monthly fee to Egnyte (starting at $24.99/mo for up to 5 employees and 150GB of data), but many find it’s more cost effective in the long run than managing a file sharing network.

Small Business Network: Buy This Not That!

Small Business Network: Stability Trumps Budget

These days a business that can’t get online can’t go very far. From emailing appointment confirmations to processing credit cards, when the network goes down, business productivity grinds to a halt. Small business owners are stuck in a unique position: they need more reliability than a standard wireless firewall router can offer, but likely can’t afford the enterprise solutions offered by Cisco. In this, part two of my “Buy This, Not That” series for small businesses, I’ll explore a mid-range networking solution to bridge the gap.

When I started my company in 2004, I ran our call center out of a room in my house. Budgeting was tight and we used our DSL connection and a standard 4-port D-Link wireless router to maintain our customer database, appointment scheduling and webpage. What a headache! Every time the signal dropped (which was often), all of the systems would get disconnected from the server. If someone was partially through entering appointment notes or updating customer contact information, everything would be lost.

Luckily, moving to our first office location later that year afforded us the opportunity to set up a more reliable network. First, we invested in a Sonicwall router. Recently purchased by Dell, Sonicwall (www.sonicwall.com/us/) offers a wide range of networking solutions for small and medium size businesses with prices from around $400 for entry level routers to $2,000+ for units that support more users and integrate more security features.

What makes Sonicwall “security appliances” different from basic firewall routers is that they offer integrated anti-virus and anti-malware and the ability to control content access through the device. This means that instead of depending on your employees to police themselves – not go to adult content sites, download games or files, or open suspicious attachments – the Sonicwall can be configured to block content, viruses and spyware before it enters your network. This security extends to VPN client access. While this is incredibly important for any business that allows customers to access the Internet over their business network, I’m planning to invest in one for the house when the kids are old enough to surf the net.

They also offer additional levels of reliability. Their entry-level wireless router, the Sonic Wall Tz 100 Wireless-n Network Security Appliance (available through Amazon for around $380) includes automated failover to divert traffic (when needed) over alternate connections to ensure uninterrupted network access. Putting your business on hold while you wait through a modem-router-switch power cycle will be a thing of the past.

Because of the huge range of available options, consider consulting a computer or networking professional before deciding which version fits your needs. Many Sonicwall products require additional monthly or annual fees to continue phone support, VPN client access, and integrated anti-virus and anti-malware after the initial trial periods end. While I still believe that Sonicwall offers the best solutions for small and medium size businesses, it’s important that you research the ongoing costs to maintain the features you require, as with any networking solution. They’re also more complicated to configure so you’ll likely want to budget for professional installation.

I ran cable in our office to allow as many systems as possible to maintain a hard-wire connection to the router. While Sonicwall controls all access to the network, reducing exposure to hackers, my experience is that the more parts you count on to make a system work the harder it is to keep everything running smoothly. A wireless connection requires a wireless adapter on the computer to be functioning properly, as well as additional settings that can be inadvertently broken by the user. Connecting the majority of our office systems via Ethernet cable allows for more network stability.

Stay tuned next week for the “Buy This, Not That” recommendations for small office backup solutions.

Photo used by permission: dcmorton

DNSChanger: What you need to know

DNSChanger: How To See If You're Infected, How To Fix It If You Are.

On Monday, July 9th, the FBI will pull the plug on internet access to hundreds of thousands of computers infected with a malware Trojan known as DNSChanger. Even if your computer is clean, companies that have compromised systems in their network will be taken offline, hindering their ability to do business and possibly breaking their websites, in what many are referring to as “Internet Doomsday.”

In November 2011, the FBI (together with international cyber crime agencies) identified and located a ring of cyber criminals that had infected more than four million computers across the world with a Trojan virus known as DNSChanger. According to the FBI’s webpage about this malware (www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/november/malware_110911), “DNSChanger was used to redirect unsuspecting users to rogue servers controlled by the cyber thieves, allowing them to manipulate users’ web activity.”

Systems infected with DNSChanger were ultimately controlled by the crime ring that perpetrated the infections. The Trojan re-directed unsuspecting users to fraudulent websites which in many cases resulted in users providing personal information or credit card numbers to websites they thought were legitimate. It interfered with web browsing and in some cases prevented infected PCs from downloading anti-virus and operating system updates, leaving them vulnerable to viruses and spyware.

Once the rogue DNS servers were found and seized, the FBI faced a daunting challenge. Take them offline and millions of systems would lose all access to the internet causing widespread damage to online commerce and business functionality. Instead, they set up temporary replacement servers which allowed infected computers to remain functioning in the hopes that users would clean the Trojan off their system before the temporary servers go offline on July 9th.


Perhaps more troublesome, a report by IID (Internet Identity) indicates that machines at 12% of Fortune 500 companies and 4% of government agencies are still infected with the malware (http://internetidentity.com/news/blog/686-iid-finds-12-of-fortune-500-still-infected-with-dnschanger#). When their systems are taken offline on the 9th it will lead to loss of productivity and may make it harder to service their customers.

Facebook and Google are sending notices to users that browse to their sites from a DNSChanger-infected computer. However, even if you haven’t been notified of an infection you shouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief and consider yourself in the free and clear.

When the FBI disables the temporary servers it will break infected system’s access to the internet but it will not remove the malware from those systems. Take a few minutes to ensure that you’re not kicked offline on July 9th.

First, open your internet browser and go to www.dns-ok.us. If your system is infected you’ll see a red image with the words “DNS Resolution = RED.” Alternatively, a green image with “DNS Resolution = GREEN” means that your computer is looking up IP addresses correctly. Unfortunately, a green isn’t necessarily an all clear either. Some internet service providers have created their own mini-DNSChanger servers which allow infected systems to bypass the FBI servers to access the internet. This means that while you won’t lose access to the internet on the 9th you may still be infected.

Next, if you don’t have a reputable antivirus software program installed on your system, get one. I like Microsoft Security Essentials (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/products/security-essentials) because it scans for and protects against malware and viruses in one step. The DCWG’s website, www.dcwg.org, also offers a list of links to download software to rid your system of the Trojan.

Finally, make sure your anti-virus is up to date. You’d be surprised how many users cripple their anti-virus by not downloading updates regularly. Once it’s up-to-date, run a scan to make sure you’re DNSChanger free before finding out the hard way.

Still worried that your system is part of a malware-infected bot net? Get in touch with us at www.callnerds.com/nerdchick

Check out the news coverage about the DNS Changer on KRCR News Channel 7 in Redding.

Data Backup Basics

Easy Steps to Get Started With Data Backup

There are certain things we all know we should do: change the oil every 3,000 miles, choose different passwords for every online login, and back up our computers. Though I know better, I sometimes get to 5,000 miles before changing the oil, I can’t remember 500 different passwords, and I rarely back up my computer. I am a bad person. While mom showed me how to balance a checkbook (thanks mom!), no one ever showed me how to back up my computer. Now I can return the favor and teach my mom, and you, how to back up your system.

Your computer’s hard drive has moving parts and all mechanisms with moving parts eventually break. Sometimes it takes years, or decades, but it’s usually when you’re in the middle of a doctoral thesis. Modern technology has created a new type of drive to combat this problem, a Solid State drive. While this type of drive doesn’t have any moving parts, it still runs on electricity. What all this means is simple: one day your hard drive will fail. The only thing you can do is prepare for that day with a regular and reliable backup system. There are two types of data backup methods and you can use one, or both. It depends on how badly you’ll miss the pictures of your kids’ first steps… hint, you should do both.

The Basic External Backup

The Cloud Backup

The second system is to create an off-site backup. If you’re as lazy as me (um, as busy as me…), this is the option for you. Crashplan works on both Windows and Apple computers. Choose to back up to another computer on your network, a friend’s computer, a local external drive, or to their servers. I recommend you use their servers for several reasons. First, it’s cheap. For a mere $3/month you can backup one computer, or for $6/month you can backup as many as 10 computers with unlimited storage. Second, it’s reliable.

Backing up your computer to another computer on the network or a friend’s computer has the same risks as backing up to an external drive - they will all eventually fail. Crashplan has redundant servers, so your data is backed up on multiple servers for safety. After running through their simple setup, access your files through the program installed on your computer or through their website.

Not sure if you’re protected from data loss disaster? Send me a note at www.callnerds.com/andrea for my list of most often neglected, but necessary, files to include in your backup.

[transcript]

Hi. I'm Ryan from Nerds on Call. Today we're going to talk about data backup basics. There's certain things in life we should all do. Change our oil every 3000 miles, use different passwords for every website we go to, and, of course, backup our data. But not a lot of people know what to do when you say backup your data.

There's three main methods of backing up your data. One, you can back it up to another computer. You can back it up to an external hard drive, or you can back it up to the Cloud. One of the easiest ways to backup your data is using an external hard drive. We really like Seagate because it comes with software for free. It will allow you to go through your system, choose the files you want backed up, and then keep them backed up automatically. The second system is to create an off-site backup. We really like CrashPlan.com for this. What you can do is you can create a backup to another computer on your network, your computer at work or a friends computer. The best part is it's totally free.

The last method that we would use to do backup is to backup to the Cloud. Now, when you say that, basically the Cloud is just a series of servers that are hosted by somebody else. They handle all of the backup and redundancy for you, so you don't have to. Again, CrashPlan.com does a great job with this, and for most people it's only about $3 to $6 a month.

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3 Things To Do When You Set Up A New PC

Set Up A New PC: Protect, Transfer, Store

After scrimping and saving, researching and debating, you finally settle on the perfect new PC, only to realize once you get it home and plugged in that you can't get much use out of it until you get the files and programs from your old PC onto your new one. Here are my top 3 steps to set up a new PC.

If you'd have asked me three years ago how I get a new system set up like the old one, I'd have told you how lucky I was to have a team of skilled technicians to set up a new pc for me. It turns out that the magical process of migrating data to a new computer isn't so complicated after all, and most typical PC users can be up and surfing the net on their shiny new machine in no time.

#1 Do not surf unprotected:

Before you take the new system out for a spin, make sure it has an installed, up-to-date anti-virus program. This will help protect you from transferring infected files from your old PC and corrupting the data on the new one. If you aren't sure whether you have anti-virus and anti-malware protection, make your first stop on the Internet to Microsoft's website to download its Security Essentials program. Your second step is going to be to install the programs that didn't come with your new PC so that you can open the files you move over from your old system. This means if you use a budgeting program like Quicken or a photo editing program like Photoshop, you're going to want to track down the disc and any necessary registration keys so that you can get it installed on your new computer.

#2 Transfer your old files to your new computer:

 

Once you've decided the transfer method that's best for you, Windows Easy Transfer will scan your old PC for files to transfer and then ask you to select the files you want to migrate over. It will provide you with a list of programs installed on your old system not yet installed on your new one, and for those available online it will give links to the latest versions.

#3 Keep your old hard-drive:

Finally, if possible, you should keep your old drive, just in case you missed something. While it may be tempting to format the drive and get rid of it, hanging on to just the hard drive will allow you to retrieve anything you may have missed. If you are turning over your old system to the kids or selling it, consider using an imaging software such as Acronis True Image Home , which offers a free 30-day trial and allows you to create a complete copy of your hard drive that can be restored if you forget to move something onto your new machine.

One final tip. If you're still hanging on to your Commodore 64 for fear you forgot to pull something off the hard drive, drop me a note on Facebook or email me at nerdchick@callnerds.com. We can get you ready to put that gold mine up on eBay in no time.

[transcript]
Hi, I'm Ryan from Nerds on Call, and today we're going to talk about moving to a new PC. So, now that you've got your brand-new PC, you've got to get all your stuff on it. So what do you do first? The first thing you're going to want to do is install an anti-virus program on there. We recommend Microsoft Security Essentials. The reason why you want to do that right away is because it takes less than seven minutes for a computer to get infected while it's on the internet these days. So now that you've got anti- virus installed on there, the next thing you're going to want to do is install all of your programs. See, you can't move programs from an old PC to a new one, so you're going to have to locate all the discs for all the programs you used on your old one, like Quicken, PhotoShop, and all the other programs you use. Once you get all those programs collected together, install them one by one on your new PC.

The next thing you're going to want to do is move all of your data from your old PC to your new one. First, you'll need to get both of your computers set up on the same network. If you don't have a network set up, then you can buy a transfer cable from Amazon.com. To get the easy transfer, click on the "start" button, go to "accessories", and then "system tools." You can always back up your data to an external hard drive or, if you don't have a lot of data, to a little flash drive. Finally, once you've transferred all of your data, the next thing you want to do is save that old hard drive out of that old PC. The reason why is that there's no way to completely erase all of that data, and you wouldn't want it falling into someone elses hands. Not to mention, if you accidentally forgot to transfer something over to your new PC, you'll have a back-up file if you just keep that old hard drive.
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