General Info

Question:

You may know the feeling.  That sinking feeling you get deep in your gut that tells you something just went horribly, horribly wrong with your computer.  It's usually confirmed when you navigate to your photos, music, or documents folder and find... that... it's... EMPTY.  Or maybe you try to access the file and get some strange error, or your computer locks up, never to be resurrected again.

Because of this type of devastating occurrence, one of the most common questions I get is:  "How should I back up files on my computer?"  You'd think it would be easy, but the truth is that there are a lot of ways to safeguard your digital loot - and I'd like to help make a little more sense of them.

I'll confess... I've been a little obsessed with the news lately.  What with the recent presidential election and the ongoing financial disaster, it seems only natural to be more interested in tailing current events than ever.  It took a while for me to truly jump on board, but once I got all my RSS feeds up and running, synced with NetNewsWire, and ready to go, I'm a virtual dumping ground for all things headline. 

Tech, finance, and world news updates pour into my reader(s) faster than bailout money into AIG's coffers, and I can barely keep up.

That being said, I'm fortunate enough to possess one of the best mobile news readers around:  the iPhone.

Recently, Revelations2212 posted a question to the experts:  "I have some nasty spyware or adware on my PC.  I have ran Ad-Aware, Spybot and Anti-Malware and I can't get it removed. I have done everything I can think of, can someone give me some suggestions on what to do? What is the best spyware / adware remover out there?  I need it badly, as this has been going on for more than a week now."

I've decided to tackle this question since it seems to be the root of the vast majority of people's computer related issues, and in many instances, can be easily resolved.  I'd like to share some of my personal insights and experiences, gleaned over the years from helping dozens of people with this type of issue.