While my old Windows 98 computer whirs happily along in Pat's room, my fairly new dual one gig processor multimedia computer had the hard drive crash. This after recently running my frequent system protections and checks, including the "Smart Drive" check with supposedly can warn of immenent failure of the hard drive. I couldn't see how that could work all the time and I was right!  So in the mind of the computer savy, did I have back-ups? Yes, but not as recent as I should. What troubles me is that this computer, a Sony, did not come with program disks. It was all on a partition of the HD.

I had bought the machine from Computer City on Bluemound. They have closed so I took it to Milwaukee PC on Moreland.They're a good sized business started in Milwaukee and also have a computer talk show on WISN Saturday morning. Right now I'm using an old laptop that I bought at a ham radio swapfest. I bought two of them for $10 each to make a point to some of my dealers moaning that computers are needed for many of the heating and cooling building controls. These old door stops still work and run the necessary software to adjust modern digital controlled building management systems.

I am using my super duper LCD superfast game quality computer monitor. the screen on the laptop is adequate but very grainy.

What I'd like to share with you from my experience is the necessity of backing up your hard drive. Windows has a back-up program that comes with it but it is junk in my opinion. Also, backing up your computer usually means only saving data that is in the "My Documents" folders. It does not save your programs! For that you will need an "Image" saving program. You should also have an external hard drive capable of holding everything on your computer. If you can, set it up to automatically save stuff as you use it.  I have disaster recovery disks but in my case they did not work.

So if you are looking for a Christmas gift for yourself or someone, look for a good external hard drive and Back-up/Image software. Milwaukee PC, Inet or most Computer retailers can help you out with what you need.
 

Ten to the One-hundredth equals a Google. Besides being an actual number, anybody who has an acquaintance with a computer knows it to be the search engine of choice. I’m proud to say that before it was well known and people were using such things as WebCrawler or Dogpile, I heard of these two students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, scrounging up computers and connecting them to create a new, faster internet search engine called Back Rub.

Knowledge is power and I know of nothing that makes so much information so easily available to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. Even “smart phones” have Google access. All of this technology has reaped great rewards for the creators of Google. That is the American way.

Google is celebrating its tenth anniversary. As part of it, they created the 10 to the One-Hundredth Project. While celebrating their success and fame, they are keenly aware of the people around the planet who face each waking moment as a challenge to contend with. So they have created the project to gather ideas that will improve the world. They show an example called the Hippo Roller. Many of the poor carry five-gallon containers to sources of water and then having to carry them home, usually on the top of their heads causing an accumulation of painful damage. A simple, inexpensive device, the Hippo Roller allows a person to push along five times the water with not too much more effort than one of us mowing the lawn. It is but an example of a step to make some lives better.

Google is looking for ideas to make life better for the poor of the planet. It may be big or it may be small. It may be a product or it may be an idea. Google will narrow the entries down to 100 and then the users of Google will vote on their choices. Google will make substantial venture capital to get those winning ideas moving along.

I’ve submitted an idea of my own. How about you?