No one should rely on any one storage device for their data. Always keep your files in multiple locations, including usb thumbdrives, CD or DVD, external hard drives, and other mediums.

Lethbridge College students have access to their internal college “Z” drives, which offer 750MB of space, but students should save their data on portable drives as well, to minimize the risk of data loss, says Dean Johnson, manager of network services at Lethbridge College.

“Don’t rely on any one thing,” says Johnson. “Use online storage services such as Google or Windows Skydrive.”

Online storage services, including Box.net, allow students to access their files from anywhere with an internet connection. The storage services double as a back-up location for those irreplaceable files.

There are online services dedicated to automatically backing up your files via a small program you install on your computer. Two examples are Carbonite.com, $40 per year, and Mozy.com, $4.95 per month. Either provides incredible peace of mind, and are automatic, so you don’t have to think about it.

With Carbonite and Mozy, they backup all the files you have selected the first time, which takes a while, but only backup the files that have been changed or updated after that.

Another benefit of storing your data online is you can access it from anywhere, as opposed to “Z” drives, which are only accessible on college campus.

Keep data in multiple places in case something happens to one of the sources, so in the case of a hard drive failure, loss of a usb thumbdrive, or a fire, you’re not at a loss, or forced to recreate a report or essay you spent hours or days on.

The college does not keep back-ups of the student “Z” drive, so it’s important not to rely on it as the only storage source, Johnson says.

Information Technology Services doesn’t monitor the data either, though it does monitor quotas automatically.

Student receive an automated email if they go over the allotted 750MB to alert them they need to reduce the number of files they have stored.

However, for Communication Arts and Multimedia in particular, that space fills up very fast, which is why students are encouraged to use external hard drives for their recorded video and graphics work.

“Keep your data on your person,” says Johnson, referring to portable storage.

To read all of my stories and columns, visit the Endeavour website or www.thedigitaldistraction.com.

Originally posted 2008-10-09 17:22:53. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Students are using USB thumbdrives to carry a lot of their work between school and home, but those handy devices might accidentally carry a virus that could infect another computer if the user isn’t careful.

“I know the antivirus is supposed to be doing its job. It’s like a security net, you know there’s something there to protect [the computer],” said Tyler Tzech, a student at Lethbridge College.

Having an antivirus program as a primary means of protection on any computer in today’s world is important, but people should be careful not to solely rely on it to be reactive to possible threats. We need to be proactive to prevent any problems in the first place.

“User behavior is important. Don’t go to sites that seem to be faulty or phishing for something. That’s as important as the software itself, I think,” says Tyson Wiebe, who works in the Library Commons at Lethbridge College.

Websites that look real in every sense, but are in fact only imitating reputable websites, such as eBay or YouTube, and are designed to collect personal information for malicious purposes. This technique is called ‘phishing’, as in fishing for information.

Being proactive against internet threats such as viruses and spyware can help prevent incidents such as the Lethbridge College virus outbreak in 2004.

“The last one was September of 2004,and I think it was called ‘Blaster’,” recalls Dean Johnson, manager of network services at Lethbridge College.

According to a message sent to IT managers at the time of the outbreak in 2004, “the Help Desk received calls from various areas on-campus that some staff/faculty computers were popping-up with virus alerts.” “The problem was limited to the staff/faculty areas and the academic labs were only seeing a slow-down of network/Internet traffic.”

The message continued to explain that computers located around the college campus were tested and cleaned if infected. It took a few days to locate and clean staff and student computers, an experience the college quickly learned from.

“We now have a McAfee server that forces updates to all college owned computers, so this type of problem has not happened since then,” says Johnson.

Users should make it a habit to make sure their antivirus is updated and that anything going from their computer to another computer is virus-free, but the most important thing of all is to be smart about what you download and the websites you visit.

SIDEBAR:

Partial source: techguylabs.com

1. Don’t open email attachments

2. Don’t click links in email.

3. Don’t download files from places you aren’t absolutely sure are safe.

4. Update your Operating System regularly!

5. Use a firewall (hardware router).

6. Never run as an administrator

7. Use an effective and updated antivirus program

Originally posted 2008-12-04 18:34:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter