There are lots of services out there that specialize in online backup. I personally use Dropbox, which isn’t truly an online backup service in the traditional sense but serves my purposes well. I pay $10/mo for 50GB of space and unlimited computers.

Zip Cloud offers “unlimited backup” space for $4.95/mo which sounds great until you actually sign up. The red flag was they tried to squeeze you into yearly billing. So $4.95/mo becomes $60 if you’re not careful, more on this later.

First off, you can pay quite a bit extra per month for “unlimited upload speed”. This is probably the most scammy upsell. The speed of your backup is determined by the the upload speed of your internet connection. For the most part, upload speed  is abysmal in the US. You would essentially be paying extra to remove an artificial limit placed on your account by Zip Cloud and still be waiting days for your backup to complete. My guess is support would blame your internet connection after taking the extra money.

Instantaneous backups? Yup, that’s a monthly upsell too. Every reputable service offers instantaneous backups of your files even with the introductory or free plans. What use is a backup that’s days old? Every additional computer to be backed up or sync’ed also incurred another monthly fee.

ZipCloud / My PC Backup is nickel and diming their customer. Generally, I’m okay with the upsells or “freemium” business model. However, scamming people with nonsense upsells is not okay. The ‘unlimited upload speed’ package is what turned me off right away. It’s a pity that you don’t see all this nickel and diming before you sign up.

Once I seen what was going on  I went to cancel and here are screen caps of the cancellation process.

Remember that yearly billing squeeze I mentioned earlier? Look the first option of cancellation:

Continuing on with an offer of 20% off:

No, okay how about 50% off?

You really want to leave? Well okay but would you stay with us to the end of your billing period so we can keep your money?

Zip Cloud seems  pretty desperate, don’t they? Stick with reputable services like Dropbox, Mozy, and Carbonite. Skip scammers like Zip Clound / My Backup PC.

From Almost Geek - Tips and Tricks for all the Gadgets in your life

That was easy!

From Almost Geek - Tips and Tricks for all the Gadgets in your life

The process is pretty simple. I simply used Google Chrome’s built-in Print to PDF feature to “print” the web page to a PDF file then emailed that file to my Kindle’s private address which syncs the PDF to my Kindle.

This won’t help you actually surf the web while offline. You cannot comment on blog posts for instance nor like the page on Facebook but you read what you wanted to read. This will be very convenient for me.

Most of the stuff I save to read later is either long form or overly technical perfect for reading when stuck in a waiting room somewhere. Heck, it might even allow me to spend less on books from Amazon!

If your interested in making PDFs yourself read my other article: How to make a PDF.

From Almost Geek - Tips and Tricks for all the Gadgets in your life

PDF is short for Portable Document Format. In short, PDF is universal; A document that displays the same on any device that supports reading PDFs and pretty much every device from your smart phone (even some dumb phones) to your tablet and computer can display PDF files.

Content creators use PDF files to insure all text and images get displayed the same everywhere.

How Do I Create a PDF?

You can create PDF files  easily in office suites like Microsoft Office and Open Office. If you are using a Mac, OS X has a “Print to PDF” function built-in. You can using that in any application by opening the Print Dialog (command P for short)

Google’s Chrome browser has a built-in PDF “printer”. Create a PDF file of any website by simply selecting Print from the wrench menu and select “Print to PDF” as your destination printer.

There is also a way to generate a PDF from any program that can print. You do this by installing a virtual printer. This basically tricks the program into printing to a file instead of a real printer. I’ve always used Primo PDF for this functionality.

3 Easy Steps to Creating a PDF from Any Program:

1. Download and install Primo PDF
2. Create a PDF from any program simply by opening the print dialog (Ctrl P) and selecting Primo PDF as the printer.
3. Save the file on your hard drive.

Your done! Have a better way? Sound off in the comments.

From Almost Geek - Tips and Tricks for all the Gadgets in your life

The windows haven’t been cleaned since being installed. It’s been bugging me for a good 6 months today I got a jump-start on an early spring cleaning.

Our apartment has two problems with keeping the windows clean; There are three heavy smokers in the house the windows get stained real fast. plus we’re on a main street, beside the building is a the town shop, so lots of diesel trucks passing but with the soot to match.

How Long Will This Take?

5 to 10 minutes per window. I did 11 full size windows and a door in 2 hours including a couple of smoke breaks.

What You Will Need:

• Windex – Cheap stuff from the dollar store works just as well.
• Bleach – This cuts the nicotine, grime, and soot.
• Spray Bottle - 50/50 bleach with warm water
• Rags – an old t-shirt works fine
• Paper Towels

5 Steps to Squeaky Clean Windows:

1. Spray a good dousing of bleach water on the glass and frame.  Avoid getting bleach on the frames if they’re wood!
2. If possible pop the windows out so you can clean the outside. Spray the outside down with bleach too.
3. Give it a few minutes to penetrate. With a rag wipe the bleach off on both sides. We’re not going for picture perfect in the step just get all the big stuff off.
4. Take clean paper towel and wipe the remaining bleach off both sides.
5. Spray a generous amount of Windex on both sides and wipe in a straight up and down or side to side. Paying attention to the edges.

That’s it! All my windows came pretty much picture perfect using the method above. Should I start a cleaning service now?

From Almost Geek - Tips and Tricks for all the Gadgets in your life

Blogger Logo

Self Hosted WordPress is all the rage these days, in fact this is what we run here at Almost Geek. However there are other options for hosting a blog on your own domain, Blogger is one of them. WordPress and Blogger are two of the largest blogging platforms on the internet. What many people don’t realize is they’re able to run a Blogger blog on their website should they desire which is great for business sites as your not sending your traffic offsite to a blog hosted on a blogger sub-domain.

There are some distinct advantages to using self hosted Blogger over WordPress they are:

1. Blogger requires little technical knowledge there are no upgrades to preform as there is with WordPress.
2. Blogger can hosted pretty much anywhere as it doesn’t require PHP or a database.

With advantages of course comes disadvantages:

1. Blogger has no add-ons to change the functionality of your site. WordPress has an entire site of plugins.
2. Your pretty much limited to Blogger’s default templates unless you know how to edit CSS which more than likely out of your realm of expertise if your considering Blogger.

The decision is yours;  Blogger is simple and easy to use set and forget. WordPress has a bit of a learning curve and requires regular security pataches but is infinitely customizable.

For the scope of this tutorial we’re going to work cPanel with putting your blog on a subdomain. A subdomain is simply something.yourdomain.com, you probably want your blog to be blog.mydomain.com The reason for this is to future proof the blog, should you decide to use mod_rewrite  in the future or you already are we don’t want your blog in a sub directory of your main site as it will cause conflicts. Most hosts allow your to make sub-domains, if you don’t see the add sub-domain option in cPanel email your host’s support.

Login to your domain’s control panel @ yourdomain.com/cpanel and click on subdomains. You may want to add the sub-domain then go to bed and setup the rest of blogger in the morning, this way the new sub-domain has time to register with the DNS system (this doesn’t cost you a dime).

Add Subdomain on cPanel 1

Next your want to name your subdomain, I choose blogger.almostgeek.com. After choosing the name you want to change the Document Root to /blog or whatever you feel is best. Be careful here as by default cPanel adds /public_html/, you have to change it and remove the /public_html section. As mentioned above in order to future proof you don’t want it under your current website’s directory, public_html.

Now we head on over to Blogger and register @ Blogger.com if you already have a Google or Gmail account sign in with that. The process is pretty self-explanatory here are some screenshots to follow along with.

Blogger Signup 1

Blogger Signup 2

Blogger Signup 3

In the following screenshot you will want to click “Advanced Setup Options” drop down and choose setup a custom domain.

Blogger Signup 4

Here on middle of the page, you will want to click ‘Already Own A Domain? Switch to advanced settings’

Blogger Signup 5

On this screen you need to put in the sub-domain you made in cPanel, ex. blog.yourdomain.com. This is where waiting overnight to complete this process will pay off, if you do it too soon you will get an error.

Blogger Sign Up 6

<rest of the sign up process including FTP information>

From Almost Geek - Tips and Tricks for all the Gadgets in your life

From Almost Geek - Tips and Tricks for all the Gadgets in your life

I’m simply picturing messaging myself but instead of sending it to phone number I put my email address in the To: field of the picture message. When the new phone is activated I’ll just forward the messages back to that phone. Easy peasy.

From Almost Geek - Tips and Tricks for all the Gadgets in your life

If you’re lucky enough to have run your owner server or have ssh access on your shared account this thread over on Admin Extra is right up your alley. My buddy Mike asked about updating sites faster by downloading and unzipping the files right on the server. Michael Biddle replied with a concise tutorial so check out the thread: http://adminextra.com/threads/since-were-talking-about-ssh-clients.5079/

The cavets only are the method mention will overwrite everything so if have a custom favicon or file they will be overwritten. Mike suggested downloading the package to your computer first, removing any files you don’t want changed, and re-zipping everything, then uploading the ZIP to your sever and following Michael’s tutorial. Sounds like a good plan to me. Why I didn’t think of that, I don’t know but I frequently use Michael’s method when installing new sites.

For those of you unfamiliar with SSH (secure shell) check out this other thread on Admin Extra for an introduction and brief primer: http://adminextra.com/threads/ssh-clients.5051/

From Almost Geek - Tips and Tricks for all the Gadgets in your life

My new habit was taking a daily multivitamin. The bottle had been sitting on my dresser for over a year and had expired. I threw the old bottle out and made a New Year’s resolution to take one daily. I had bought the vitamins with the best of intentions but since I don’t take medication aside from the occasional antibiotic I never remembered it.

Enter Google Calendar. I set up taking the pill  as a daily recurring appointment at 7am with a text reminder an hour before. When I wake up the text is there to remind me. It took me about 3 weeks to get into the habit and not need the text in the morning.

I also use this feature for reminders when I’m out and about. Say I’m going to the laundromat and need to stop for groceries on the way home. I’ll set it as an event with a text reminder 2 hours from now. No more shopping lists for me on short trips.

From Almost Geek - Tips and Tricks for all the Gadgets in your life