AS Computer Services ; Computer Repair in California, Missouri

With the advancement of broadband internet people are turning into network administrators at home. Broadband allows consumers to share an internet connection by means of a router or switch. Dial up while slower was a more secure solution because the pathway to your computer wasn’t always open and it was a direct line from your computer to your internet service provider.

Today it’s hard to do anything on the internet without broadband, so how do you keep it secure as dial up? It’s actually very easy. Use a router. A router is a box that sits between your DSL or Cable modem and your home computers. It’s main function to share your internet across more than one computer. Modern routers are also what are called firewalls. Firewall is term used for a hardware or software solution that blocks incoming traffic from ever reaching your system. Routers block all incoming, unwanted, traffic from entering your home network. A hacker can try all day to call up your internet connection but since the router is so simple it can’t tell what data is being transmitted so it just looks like a dumb box to the hacker.

With laptops becoming more and more common routers also transmit a Wide Field or WiFi connection. This connection uses microwaves to transmit network traffic. Since this connection is going thru the air and not wires a bad guy has an easier entry into your system. That’s why WiFi must be encrypted. Encryption is the act of scrambling the data in such a way that the only way it can be decoded is by using a pass key that you have created. WPA encryption is the only one you should use. WPA is not hackable. WEP encryption can be hacked in three minutes or less in the hands of a skilled hacker. Use a strong passkey. No don’t use your birth date or any other guess-able data. Rather use numbers and letters that you can remember. You will only have to enter this information once on each computer.

All of the information on how to setup your router can be found in the documentation with your router.

If you want help securing your network give AS Computer Services a call! Mention this blog post and get 10% off Labor.

Nothing is more important on your computer than to back up your data.  Imagine all the pictures you took at Christmas time lost because your computer crashed.  Weekly back ups are essential.  Backing up your data has gotten easier as the years have gone by.  It used to be that you would have to burn your data onto countless CD’s.  The upside of this is that you would have a time machine  of all your data.  The downside of this system is that you have stacks of CD’s in your office.

Today data back up is easy.  External Hard drives are one solution to easily back up your data.  These hard drives plug into your computer’s USB port and acts like another hard drive on your computer.  To back up your data you simply have to copy the files to the external hard drive.  Western Digital makes great hard drives that are fast and easy to use. It’s important to keep your files on your computer as well as the external hard drive.  Consider both a back up to each other.  If you don’t have two copies of a file you can considerthat you don’t have the file.

But what happens if your house burns down?  This is a horrible turn of events, but having your priceless pictures would be a good consolation.  Backing your data up to an online source is an excellent way to have the third leg of the back up triangle.  Carbonite is a great service to use.  The best part about it is the files update on carbonite when you update them on your system making the back up process effortless.   If you’re still on dial up carbonite is not for you, your files are are too large to update each time on a 56k connection.  If you are still on dial up you should either burn your VERY important data on a DVD and either send it to a loved one that you trust.  An external hard drive in a bank Safety deposit box is a better solution because you don’t have to keep spending money on DVD’s, plus Hard drives hold more.

If you have any questions or would like AS Computer Services to help you setup your back up solution please contact us.

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Thanks

Andy