Recently I’ve been working with clients who have lost, or came close to losing their data.

Some people have an external backup drive.  This is a great idea, I think everyone should have one.  It gives you a quick way to recover if anything happens to your Mac or PC.

I would also suggest that you might want to go one step further…. online backup.  If your house gets trashed, fire, break in, tornado etc, you lose both your computer and your external drive..  bye bye backup.

With an online service, you always have a backup copy in the cloud, the company providing the service makes sure that data is protected, they have many servers, several of which can fail, and your data would still be protected.

After much deliberation I have chosen the backup provider I would like to recommend.  This is based not only on price/features compared to the competition, but also from friends who use the service, and my own, personal experience.

I think Mozy Backup is where you all should be looking.  Go ahead and sign up for their FREE 2gb account.  While this wont give you a complete backup solution, it shows you what the service can do without any cost.  If all you want to backup are documents and spreadsheets, 2gb may be sufficient.  Those wanting to back up everything though, will require more space.

Mozy Home is the plan most people will need.  It offers unlimited backup for just $4.95 per month!

Note that you must choose the Pro version if you will be using Mozy backup for commercial/business use.

I thought it was about time I posted this. I’ve been using this company for a couple of years now, most of my IT purchases for business and personal use have been through them.

A word of warning, as this is generally refurbished stock, it often moves quickly, especially the much coveted Apple stuff. If you want something you see on their site, you often have to pounce on it. Many times I’ve deliberated and then missed a chance on a good deal.

Everything they have has warranty. I had to return a monitor once that I had shipped to me, it just wouldn’t power up. I took it back to their place in Colorado Springs, and was able to just swap it out. Luckily they had another of the exact same monitor in stock. Despite there being a line of people, they let me test it right there and then before taking it out of the store. Its the same monitor I’m using today to make this post.

I do have an affiliate link for you, I get a very small percentage if you buy from them based on my recommendation. Most customers I deal with will hear me recommend techforless as a great source of IT equipment. Watch out for their , there are often some great deals to be had.

Tesla uses a suite of different software tools to clean customer’s computers depending on the nature of the infection.

MBAM, or Malwarebytes is one of these pieces of software.  it is a fantastic anti-malware product from Malwarebytes.

This software is very good in its freeware version, clearing up nearly all of the problems we have found on customers computer systems in the last few months.
Where it really comes into its own is if you buy a license to get the following features:

• Realtime protection – Stops these programs from getting on your computer in the first place, means you dont have to remember to scan the pc yourself
• Scheduled scanning – If there’s a “best time” for a scan to run on your machine, set it and forget it
• Scheduled updating – You dont need to keep checking you are still up to date, as long as you have access to the internet, the program will take care of itself.

The company also has a threat center, which you can visit to get a heads up of what is currently circulating, find it at this link. The site is very clean and loads quickly.

If you would like to purchase the software, please use this link so they know Tesla sent you. We can always come out and clean your machines of viruses and malware, but by having this software, you may save yourself callout fees and unnecessary dowtime.

Malwarebytes Anti Malware