In computer news this week, 01/12/2000

In computer news this week, 01/10/2001

Computer goals for the new year:

Some of the ideas in the rigid old computer mainframe world were pretty good, including the concept of having an annual computer plan and goals .

Unfortunately, today's PC world lacks organization, and usually there is no computing plan at all. Here are some goals I think every company and individual should set for the year 2001.

1. Do a complete system backup on a regular basis. Usually this is done using a tape backup unit, or perhaps one of the new inexpensive zip drives. I see 250Mb zip drive units selling for as low as $ 150 now. You should have 2 complete current system backups of your data at all times, and one of these should be stored offsite. If you can't do a complete backup, then do a backup of your most critical data. The most common mistake businesses make in buying a new computer is not buying a backup unit with it, either a tape drive or a zip drive. If you think you're going to back up a ten to 40 gig hard disk onto floppy disks, forget it.

2. Migrate into the modern world and replace any old Dos programs or early windows 3.1 programs you may still be using. Chances are your vendor no longer provides support for these programs, or is out of business. Your operating system should be at least windows 98, or you can consider updating to the current version, WindowsME or Windows 2000.

3. Every business should have an email address and a web page. Just like every business needed a fax machine and a fax number several years ago, in today's business world you need an email address for doing business. The phrase "What's your fax number? " has been replaced by "What's your email address ?" and finally those documents which were being faxed are now being emailed.

Am email address and a web page are expected of all businesses today. Some businesses can expect to have a profitable web page for ecommerce, but most others should just realistically view a web page as a required current technology for telling current and potential clients who you are and what services you provide.

The 2 go hand in hand, most ISP companies that provide access to the internet which you have your email address through also provide you with the space for a web page, in differing forms. The current monthly cost for a commercial web page can run from $ 10 a month and up.

4. Every business should attempt to replace traditional faxing with computer email and computer faxing. It makes no sense at all to have documents in the computer, then print them out, walk over to a fax machine, spend time faxing them, and then having people on the other end receive these faxes and then have to retype them back into their computers.

Digital cameras and webcams are now very affordable - under $100 - and allow you to send pictures of yourself or anything with your email.

5. Related to the internet email there are software tools that everyone should have, and the best of these programs is marketed as shareware and you can find itat shareware.com. The program is called Winzip, which is a file compression program used to reduce the size of documents being emailed. A 100K word document can be reduce to around 10K and sent 10 times faster by zipping it. If you receive a document with a .zip file extension, you will need winzip to uncompress and use it.

Winzip also contains a mime decoder; mime being a format that encrypts emailed documents and is very often used by ISP's as a standard part of file transmission. You recieve a word document from another office, but when you open it you see nothing but gobbly gook characters. You call the folks at the other office and they swear the sent you a straight word file. But in the transmission through the ISP the document got mimed. Often a mime document will have a file extension of .mim or .mime, but often it will just have the orginal file name, and you need the mime decoder part of winzipto use it.

Happy and safe computing for the new year!

For Raw Bytes, this is Frank Delaney

POB 222 Spangle, Wa 99031 (509)245-3736 Email: fdspokane@earthlink.net