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Comment by Robert Anders on September 3, 2009 at 2:45pm

Sorry I have been absent for so long but business has kept me from writing much. It appears that the virus gremlins are out in full force again! In the last 3 weeks I have cleaned or rebuilt at least 15 systems. I am open to discussion topics so leave me a comment or e-mail with your suggestions.
Bob

Comment by Collision Hub Admin on July 17, 2009 at 2:09pm

Group Members... Sorry for the moving around. Some data was going to come off the "Wall" in the Comments.
I moved Bob's GREAT Article to Discussion Threads so they'll hang around and comments will match up to entries.

Seems the group is very popular reading!!!

Comment by W. Guy Finley on July 13, 2009 at 6:55pm

XP can address up to 4 GB of RAM (have to remember the video card's memory, if there is a separate video card needs to be counted in this) but you would need to change the PAE setting.

I can't see use for much more beyond 2 GB for most systems. The biggest culprit is not hardware but what that system is doing when it's not doing business -- websurfing and inadvertent downloading and installing of malware and viruses.

Run a good anti-virus, Avast is a great inexpensive and slim anti-virus that has never let me down. Every few months go through the machines and run Ad-Aware or a similar program to get rid of the malware you are almost certain to have picked up.

As far as backups I think eventually this is going to become a thing of the past as we increasingly move to "cloud" computing. Estimating programs are becoming web-based and in the cloud, I'm certain there's plenty of accounting and shop management that is already as well. Cloud computing ensures that not only is your information stored on a managed sever but that provider has redundant backups to make sure you don't lose data.

One last thing set up LOGINS for ALL of your employees who use your machines. If there's no login or a generic login you're asking for trouble. Set up accounts for those users and have someone help you lock down what they can do on that machine (as far as installing programs, etc).

--Guy

Comment by Jeanne Silver on June 23, 2009 at 10:37am

I had a backup issue that caused me a lot of heartache. I was not doing daily backups and realized that there was a flaw in the software that was not noticeable and only affected one small piece of my accounting software. Without the backup, I had to eliminate a month's work and re-key it all manually. It was a nightmare and a huge loss of time. Learned my lesson the hard way.

Comment by Robert Anders on June 23, 2009 at 8:59am

Welcome to Frank Terlep. Frank has been in the "Computer in Collision" business for at least 20 years and is a very good person to know. Currently, he is the head of Summit Software. I am looking forward to some interesting posts or discussions from Frank.
Bob Anders

Comment by Jeanne Silver on June 8, 2009 at 9:59am

So, how do I put secure wireless in my shop?

Comment by Jeanne Silver on June 6, 2009 at 2:04pm

Such good advice Bob, and I can tell you from experience, it is not only painful it can shut a business down if the data is lost. Not only do we back up our system every day to an external drive, but I back up to a thumb drive. I lost one month on an accounting system due to a corrupt file with no daily back up and that was enough to teach me a valuable lesson.