Thinking about uninstalling that bloated virus scanning application but don’t because you still want to scan on occasional file for viruses? Virus Total, an online virus scanning service, might just be what you’re looking for.

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You’ve heard the warning so many times you can probably recite it like a mantra - back up your hard drive data, back up your hard drive data. Despite the repeated warnings, many of us simply don’t take action. Some of us procrastinate while others of us foolishly believe that a disaster could never happen to us. Whatever the reason, the end result is the same: we’re simply not backing up our data like we should.

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Exactly what is “net neutrality?” You probably know, but have you ever tried to explain it to a non-technical person? They might “get it”; however, sometimes they won’t. In those cases, just refer your friends to this post at Webmaster Source. The article contains a fantastic collection of videos that explain the details of net […]

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Do you carry around a USB thumb drive for easy file transportation? If so, you should check out this list of 5 USB applications. The list is short and the applications simple, but you can certainly get more out of your thumb with any of these applications. The post from MakeUseOf.com is well worth checking out. I highly recommend SyncToy from the list, I routinely use it for simple backups and love it.

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Attention everyone that is thinking about starting an independent career project. You know who you are. You’re someone with a good idea to make a little extra money or someone with an idea so great that it could one day help you break free from — “The Man”. The only thing holding you back is knowing whether you idea is “good enough.”

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Concluding my week long Twitter posts I’m listing a few good links to more Twitter resources:

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On Wednesday 5/21/2008 I detailed the steps I went through to solve my nephew’s unmountable boot volume problem. Fortunately for my nephew the problem wasn’t nearly as catastrophic as he originally thought, and I was able to get his machine back up and running. Unfortunately not all Windows boot failures are the same, and not all of them are easily remedied. If you’re experiencing a boot failure different then my nephew’s, you should check out FixYa (a technical support, instruction, and repair service). They have a fairly extensive list of common boot failure errors with recommended solutions.

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Since my recent hard drive issues, I’ve been thinking about different approaches to the basic “computer backup.” During my daydreams I wondered about a specific backup facility for the Thunderbird email client. Yes, a basic system level file backup can save all of my Thunderbird email data, but is there a way to backup email from within Thunderbird itself?

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I’ve been having some problems with my computer’s hard drive recently. The drive is actually a RAID level 0 two drive configuration. And while RAID 0 technically isn’t RAID, because it offers no data redundancy, I set up my desktop computer at this RAID level to make two 250 GB SATA 3 drives into one large and very speedy 500GB drive. I would have gone for a RAID level that offered some data redundancy, but my budget at the time did not allow for a third drive. Now I’m suffering a little pain from that decision.

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This week I’ve been writing about Microsoft’s dominance of the realm of word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation graphics — the office suite. In my opinion OpenOffice remains the best alternative to the Microsoft application trio because OpenOffice is free, has most of the same features as Office, and can read and write all the proprietary Microsoft Office formats. If, however, you’re not sold on OpenOffice, there are a few other alternatives; however, most are not free and don’t come as nicely packaged as OpenOffice.

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