Most of us have a fair amount of information stored on our computers. Photos from digital cameras, music libraries, various documents, financial information, family trees and other memorable items are all saved on our computer hard-drives. A fantastic array of information and history all compiled and centralized on this one machine, at our fingertips whenever we want it, as long as it doesn't break.

Like everything else, hard-drives can break or systems can be compromised. Usually you will not see it coming. You will realize you have a problem when you go to retrieve something from your computer and it's not there. Do you have another copy of these files somewhere? Dare I use that all intimidating word, "backup"?

Very few home computer users (and many small business users) have backups of their computer systems. Not having a backup is similar to not having insurance, not a problem until something goes wrong. There are also a number of computer users that THINK they have a backup, until they need it, sadly discovering that their backup hadn't been operating as expected.

Read the full article on data backup at FITS website by clicking here.

If the process sounds a bit intimidating, FITS provides backup strategies designed to suit every budget. Need a backup plan? Not sure if your backup is doing what it should? Contact us for a no-cost backup assessment at (416) 640-2874 or email me at DMielke@FileBankIT.com

Photo Bug

Want to make those holiday photos look more professional? Check out Windows Live Photo Gallery photo-editing application. This no-cost program (for Windows 7 and Vista) is feature packed without being overwhelming.

Importing your pictures into the program direct from your camera, phone or storage device is straightforward. Options allow you to group photos in order to set prefix names as well as name destination folders to better organize your gallery.

Once imported, you can then identify people in your photos using the built-in face recognition program as well as classify your collection by using geotag locations, descriptive text and captions. (Face-recognition gains the smarts to start identifying people on its own and allows batch-add to make the process even faster.)

Included are standard editing features like cropping, straightening, exposure/colour correction as well as excellent red-eye and blemish removal tools...

Feel free to contact me regarding any of your computer related issues - (416) 640-2874 or email me at DMielke@FileBankIT.com.

Be On The Look Out

Ever wonder how NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) got to be the official Santa Tracker?

Apparently this tradition began back in 1955 (pre NORAD days) after a Colorado Sears advertisement encouraging children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. (Ooops!)
Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the Continental Air Defence Commander-in-Chief's operations "hotline."

In keeping with the spirit of the season, the Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar and track Santa's progress from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on Santa's location, and a tradition was born.

In 1958, after the governments of Canada and the United States created NORAD the men, women, family and friends of NORAD have volunteered their time to respond to phone calls and emails from children all around the world.

Today millions of people who want to know Santa's whereabouts now visit the NORAD Tracks Santa website at http://www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html

Holiday Spirit