Everyday-ICT

BACK UP YOURSELF TODAY

Many a time we lose our phones, tabs or pads or laptop and the first thing that comes to our mind is the files and important document we have saved and then we are like “Oh no! My whole life is gone”. I know for a fact that everybody knows that backup exist and understand how it works but many people still don’t use it because they see it as too much trouble. I will advise you to start cultivating the habit of backing up your important contacts, messages and documents, because there are some certain files you just can’t get back when you lose them.

You may not know the importance until you actually lose that precious computing device you store your files with. There are various ways by which you can backup your files. If you an Oracle Savvy or a database person, you will know about a process termed mirroring or redundancy….by that I mean backing the same file or set of files in different locations. With that you never have to worry about losing your files when you lose your device.

Below are some of the various ways you can explore to backup your files.
1.Dropbox: http://www.dropbox.com you can use the Android, Nokia Lumia and Iphone drop box app. Download it from GooglePlay, Windows App Store and iTunes respectively. Set it up to sync your contact and messages as you add and receive them. Once you set it up you don’t have to worry about anything. With this you can backup anything on your phone and laptop. You can set the frequency of the backup too. As a free user you have 2GB space. That’s more than enough to backup all your contacts and messages for a lifetime if you don’t want to go premium to use backup other heavy file type. At http://www.box.com you can also get the same service. Remember the mirroring I talked about.

2. For those with Nokia Lumia you can make do with Skydrive on your phone. If you have the Symbian device you can backup all your document including contact and messages by going to file and choosing backup and save it to an external drive like your memory card and restore it back any time. Always remember to save it onto an external drive.


3. The android fans have lots of ways to Backup, I will suggest Google drive in addition to dropbox.

4. Itunes is always a portable companion for the i-all guys, just sync your contact and messages with i-cloud and you are safe.


5. If you are in Nigeria you can make use of the following network provided backup service. On the MTN Network, you can the MTN Backup SIM directly from your non GPRS phone. It cost #100 for the first backup and #50 for subsequent sync. This charges applies when doing it directly from your handset as online backup is free. You can only backup 200 contacts using this method but if you want to backup up to more than 200 contacts to a maximum of 5000 then you can go to http://www.mtnonline.com/mtnbackup and signup for the service. For ETISALAT steps go to http://www.etisalat.com.ng/easybackup.php and download their app @ http://easybackup.etisalat.com.ng/m or send SUB to 48900. For AIRTEL go to http://mybackup.airtel.com/airtelafwap and type in type in your number, a link will be sent to you to download the backup app. For AIRTEL you can also send “MYBACKUP to 522” to get the link.

Then of course the old way; saving your files to various flash drives, external hard drives and disk

The point isn’t if one method is better than the other. Honestly whether you use the method suggested above or you have a better way of backing up….the point is learn to back up your important files so that when disaster strikes, or your computing device of choice experience sudden death or get stolen, you will be glad you did. By the way, this is actually the whole idea behind the growing cloud computing technology you see today.

start backing up now...

Your contributions, comment and feedbacks are highly welcome.

Remember the right information is key….so keep learning.

Dropbox Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. Never email yourself a file again!

LEARN STEP BY STEP HOW TO USE MICROSOFT APPLICATIONS (WORD, EXCEL, POWERPOINT, ACCESS, PUBLISHER, PAGEMAKER, CORELDRAW ETC WITH YOUR PHONE.

GCF Learning: are you tired of having to go for training on simple things you could have done yourself? Well, GCF Learning is actually a group of developers that design easy to understand tutorials on popular software and apps like MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Publisher, Access, CorelDraw etc…..you can got to google play and search for GCF and you will get all their apps. The good part is they come with step by step screen shoot and some short videos for quick understanding, so if you are the type tired of reading prose, you also get a hands on video to play with and the BEST part is its free to download…..so enjoy learning…

Remember knowledge is power…..so keep learning.

THE IDEA BEHIND DATA SHARING

DATA SHARE: This is the era of data my friends and everyone wants cheap and efficient ways of maximizing their data usage. Every average individual wants more data to browse and the era of unlimited data plan is gradually slipping away if not already gone. The reason isn’t far fetch as new social networking app and sites get dish out every day; but i find the idea of data sharing a little bit interesting and cost effective.

For every app, product or services created by any individual or group of people, no matter how stupid always has an underlining assumption and believes. This is also true for data sharing. So, what exactly is data sharing? In a layman terms; Data sharing is simply sharing your data plan with two or more people irrespective of their location or type of device they use. This means I can have a central SIM residing in a NOKIA TOUCH LIGHT PHONE not capable of browsing, subscribe to a data plan and share the data with the SIM in my Modem, My IPAD, My Samsung Galaxy Phone as well MY Family and Friends SIMs. This is totally different from WIFI Hotspot and Data Gifting because unlike WIFI Hotspot which is phone dependent, Data sharing is network dependent and it’s not limited by the phone type. This means you can use a non GPRS enabled phone to share data to a GPRS enable phone. It also means that I can be in Lagos and share my data with someone in Abuja.

Here is a scenario to fully understand how it works; Let’s say I subscribe to a data plan of 250MB on MTN, ETISALAT or if you are in the USA AT&T with a validity of 1 month and I have 2 brothers and 2 sisters in school (you know student always don’t have money, even the rich ones, it’s a culture) and they want to be able to whatsapp, vibe, tweets their friends but have no money to subscribe and they want your help to pay their internet bills or perhaps you and your friend in different location wish to combine money to subscribe to one data plan, be it 10MB or 16GB.

Well, this is where data share comes into play. You can simply add their name to your data share list and wherever they are they can start browsing with your subscription….cool right….Well, the good part is you can always delete and add them back and its password so anyone can’t just add their number to your list. Ok, mine is just to let you know that this technology exist, yours is to find out from your ISP (Internet Service Provider) how to subscribe for the service.

For those on the MTN Network you can dial *131 # and follow the steps. It is actually available on all the major Networks world wide.

At least you know now that data share exist and this what I intend to achieve on everydayICT allowing you to fully understand and maximize the use of things you see everyday around you.

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Remember no knowledge is a waste….so keep learning.