20 SECRETS THAT YOUR IT WONT LET YOU KNOW

In the first part of a six part series, David Moore takes a behind-the-scenes
 look at the ‘dark art’ of computer maintenance and reveals some obviou
s (and some not so apparent) tricks to keeping your system up and running.

Speaking on behalf of my techie brethren, it’s fair to say that sometimes,
 despite the claims, we simply don’t know all the answers.

The truth is that the computer troubleshooting field is so vast, complex
 and variable that no technician can know the answer to every problem.

Even if we could, tomorrow the game will have changed.

But, like any good professional, we do know where to start looking.

Over the next six weeks, I will share 20 observations that guide the
 sometimes ‘dark art’ of computer maintenance.

Some of these ‘secrets’ your computer technician won’t want you
 to know about. Others, well, they are simply too embarrassingly
 to share.

But every one of these 20 pointers will help shed some light on
 the most common complaints and concerns of the non-technical
computer user (i.e. probably you).

To whet your appetite, today I will be revealing the first four:

1. There’s no such thing as a virus proof computer. Anyone
2.  who says so is lying.
3. The technology you buy today is already obsolete before
4.  you get it home.
5. Getting your “lost data” back is sometimes very easy.
6.  Sometimes.
7. Data backups don’t work most of the time.

There may be computers that, right now, don’t have viruses
 on them but that doesn’t mean they never will.

There may be computers protected by anti-virus software
 today that won’t be tomorrow.

The whole game for the people writing the malicious softwar
e (MALware) is to catch someone’s computer with its pants down.

The more you brag about being secure the bigger target you are
. If you are already a big target then guess what, you are being targeted.

Virus protection is an electronic game of leapfrog. Your protection can
 only protect you from what it knows about today. It can’t prevent from
 attacking you what the bad guys wrote overnight.

Sooner or later (in fact, both sooner and later), you will get a virus of
 some sort (yes even on Macs, linux…whatever).

The only real questions are, ‘How much damage it will do’ and ‘Do you
 have a backup from which to recover your lost data?’.

You may think you already know this. You’ve heard it before.

In fact, it is obsolete before it even comes to market. Even before
 it goes into production.

All you are buying now is what is available, not what can be done.

This is exacerbated and affects your hip pocket unacceptably when
 you buy technical equipment ‘on special’.

The bigger the special the louder the vendor is saying, ‘Buy this ou
t of date crap I don’t want’. That too may sound very obvious. It is
 very obvious.

The types of data loss that can affect you are many and varied so
 I won’t go into them here.

However, most of them are a bit like losing your keys. You know
 they are somewhere. You just have to find them.

Sure, data is ‘soft’ in that you can’t touch it but the mysteries of
 how and where it is stored elude most people.

You are probably aware of the recycle bin. It is a place where
 deleted stuff goes before it is permanently erased. Well, to your
 computer technician there are many similar mechanisms
 analogous to the recycle bin where we can go to get your data.

A lot of people view their computer as a single device where its
 failure spells total doom. This is not the case. Quite often the
 failure of a single component can leave your data completely
 intact. It is just a matter of plugging your data storage into
 another computer to see it.

It has to be said, though, the opposite of this premise is
 also horrifyingly true on occasions. Sometimes it is simple
 to screw up your data so badly, so quickly, that no-one
 can ever get it back. (Think viruses and malicious software
for one example.)

If there’s one common theme that has run through my 25 years plus
 of IT career it is how badly data backups are done and how often they
 fail. I’m talking about the data backups failing. Not the failure that forced
 you to discover that your backups were stuffed.

Ask your business insurer to see if your company’s data is covered
 in your business insurance? I mean it. Pick up the phone now and find
 out.

I’ll wait while you do it…

You’re back? What did they say? Hmmm, that’s a worry isn’t it?

You should consider that your important data is unique. There is
 no warehouse somewhere with data just like yours that can be
 bolted on to replace the damaged parts.

Chances are that when it is gone it is really gone. Totally and
 irreversibly gone. All you’ll be able to do is recreate it from
 scratch and only you know the true cost of that!

I’m sure you’ve heard all this doom and gloom before and I
 am equally sure you’ve ignored it to one degree or greater.

I’m not going to tell you how to do your backups because
 every case is different.

However, in my next piece, I will tell you something else that
 I suspect you’ve not heard from any IT person before.

It is probably the most important piece of information you’ll
 ever hear about data backups. It comes from the heart. It
 comes from cold hard facts and it comes from painful experience.