Cloud backup and cloud storage, when used together, could literally save you time.

Picture this scenario: you just finished writing a very important letter that could decide your future career. You made some large changes to the sentence structures of an entire page because you didn’t like the way you worded it at first. You save the file. You start moving some of your paragraphs around to improve the organization of your letter. You save the file again. The next day, you come back to do some more work and find out that when you reorganized the paragraphs, you accidentally deleted the page to which you made all those sentence changes. What would you rather do – spend possibly an hour or more rewriting the page or restore from the version you saved before you started reorganizing?

If you’re a sensible person, you’d likely choose the latter rather than the former. Let’s face it, we all have limited time in our lives. Just the thought of having to redo a task you already spent the time to finish makes you want to bury your head in your hands.

We are all living in a modern era with technology meant to save us time. So why aren’t enough of us using it? My previous articles (Your backup in the Cloud and Secure your cloud storage) spoke about the benefits of cloud backup and cloud storage. This time, I’m going to tell you why you need to use both at the same time.

First off, you get double protection for your most important data. What are the most irreplaceable files on your computer? Your family photos? Legal documents? That music collection you spent years converting from vinyl? If you’re using one and not the other, it’s like driving with either a seatbelt or an airbag; ordering a burger or fries, but not both; or choosing between sleeping and eating.

Cloud storage will allow you to access your data for everyday use. You also get some revision history backup for your files. Remember that scenario above? You could just restore your document to the point before you started reorganizing those paragraphs, saving you time that could be better spent with family, watching TV, or taking a nap.

Meanwhile, cloud backup would give you that extra layer of backup at an archive level. Do you want to remember what your child looked like two years ago? Even if you deleted it, you could pull the photo file out of cloud backup and relive that nostalgia! Did a virus delete all your files and sync those changes to your cloud storage, thus deleting everything everywhere? Just restore it from cloud backup!

Another reason why you should use cloud backup and cloud storage together is you gain the ability to reap the pros of both without the cons. If you’ve only been using cloud backup, you lose the convenience of having access to your files on your phone. If you’ve only been using cloud storage, you lose the chance to back up old files you want to keep but don’t need immediately. Leveraging both together ensures you get the best of both worlds.

Collaborate on projects with your co-workers, employees, or friends using cloud storage. This level of productivity means you get more done in less time. Pay a fee to have your cloud backup provider mail you a physical hard drive of your data backup so that you have a copy you can instantly access in an emergency when your Internet is down or being too slow to restore from the cloud.

If you haven’t noticed, this is basically an advanced million dollar strategy that corporations use called the ‘three rules of backup’ (you can read more about these rules at http://goo.gl/AyoKt3). It all comes at a fraction of the cost – approximately $20 a month. Even if you’re not a business owner, isn’t your data worth much more than that to you?

The world has gotten to a point where most technology solutions take some time to set up, but are relatively easy to maintain or maintain themselves. As mentioned previously, both cloud backup and cloud storage have solutions that are ‘set it and forget it’. Do you really want to risk a lifetime of taking risks with your data because you can’t be bothered to spend half a day setting up these solutions? At worst, you could hire somebody to do it for you!

Guess what? If you already had cloud backup and cloud storage set up, your files would have been backed up in less time than it took you to read this article.

Don’t let tomorrow be the day you lose your data. Set this up today!

This article was cross-published on Thompson Citizen.

The post Cloud backup or storage? How about both? appeared first on Yawhann Chong.

If you’ve been reading all these tech articles, you’ll notice a trend with the Cloud, security, and data backup. There’s a huge importance placed on each one of these topics, and for good reason.

With the increasing size of files and Internet speed combined, we’re finding traditional mainstays such as emailing files to each other outdated. Thus came the advent of cloud storage. Cloud storage providers such as Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, and Apple iCloud, to name a few, have all claimed a portion of this space.

However, not all of them are very secure. These companies claim they encrypt the data on their end, but the biggest caveats with this model are that they have access to your data because they control the encryption, and they’re susceptible to data inspections as requested by the law. After the notorious data security controversy with the NSA (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/the-nsa-files), it’s hard to feel like anyone can trust their government these days.

With that said, how can you secure your cloud storage from the prying eyes of a nation’s leadership, many of whom have been proven time and time again in recent years to take liberties with the law when it comes to personal security vs. national security?

The first thing you can do is use a cloud storage provider with a feature called zero knowledge. What that means is they still encrypt the data on their servers, but you are the one who holds the encryption keys. Without the keys, all they see is encrypted data, which would take years to decrypt even if they used the most powerful computers in the world. The caveat with this is if you forget your password, you (and everybody else, thankfully) are essentially locked out of your account and your data.

There are two very excellent providers on the market as of this writing. SpiderOak (spideroak.com) is a very popular choice. They provide zero knowledge encryption and 2 GB of free storage. Plans start at $7/month for 30 GB and their 1 TB plan is only $12/month. I tested their solution out for a few months, and the only issues I had with their service were clunky desktop and mobile apps. It’s also difficult to share files to people, but convenience is something one has to relinquish in order to gain this level of security.

Sync.com is a newcomer to zero knowledge cloud storage, and it may be of interest to you that they are Canadian owned and operated. You start with 5 GB of free storage with the ability to earn an extra 1 GB of extra space for each new person you refer who signs up for a free or pro account. They offer 500 GB a year for only $49, and a whopping 2 TB for $98 a year. They tout themselves as a “secure Dropbox replacement”, and while it’s not perfect, they come quite close. An added feature to note is 2FA (two-factor authentication), which means you have to provide a 60-second code from your phone when you log in, which means you don’t have to worry too much about making a super secure password.

That said, it’s still very highly recommended that you create strong passwords as per the previous article, “Your personal security is based on habits, not software“. Once that’s done, make sure to follow the best practices and enable 2FA as well.

Our digital lives are a huge part of our physical lives, whether we want it to be or not. It’s not just about technology and the Internet, but the relationship between them and how they complement our lives. We are more interconnected today than ever before, and we all need to take steps to protect our digital footprint just as much as our tangible impact on the world around us.

For example, a celebrity used to be perceived by fans based on what they said or did in public, but now they’re adored or persecuted for what they post on Twitter. This is the current reality in which we live.

What’s keeping you from taking the necessary steps to make your cloud storage for your eyes only?

This article was cross-published on Thompson Citizen.

The post Secure your cloud storage appeared first on Yawhann Chong.

“Buy anti-virus software.” “Install your system updates.” “Don’t visit questionable websites.”

All these tricks to protect yourself from security risks are just that – tricks. Real security comes from good habits. Build those habits first until it becomes second nature, and then implement strategies to further lock down your digital life.

First off, you need to kick these habits:

• Social engineering. People who use social skills to acquire your passwords or clues to hack your passwords are dangerous. Mistrust everybody when it comes to your personal information. Even the people who are closest to you shouldn’t get your passwords from you, because if they are socially engineered, they become your weakest link. Another thing you should not be doing is making passwords with your personal information. We’ll cover that below later, though.
• Sticky notes. There’s no point of creating passwords if you leave them lying out in the open, ready for the taking. Maybe your home might be like Fort Knox, but it takes only one curious or mischievous guest to make all your defenses crumble down.
• Notebook. This is a close second to sticky notes. Writing down your passwords temporarily is fine when you’re trying to memorize it for the first time. But never put them in a permanent place like a notebook.
• Text or document file. These kinds of files are not secure, so are equally not advisable for password storage. Here’s a rule of thumb – if it’s not encrypted, don’t use it!

Get into these habits instead:

• Personal safe. Writing down your passwords on a sheet of paper at a time helps you memorize your password. However, once you’ve memorized it, put it into a personal safe. Of course, make sure it’s a safe that is very difficult to remove from the premises, either by purchasing a large safe or bolting it to the floor. It sounds like extreme measures, but we live in extreme situations.
• Safe deposit box. We trust our banks with our finances, so it follows that we can trust them with our passwords too. Store your passwords in written or digital form at your bank. If you have a will written up, you can even leave your passwords with your next of kin.

Now that we’ve established the yes-and-no’s of security habits, let’s move on to the passwords themselves.

Passwords are the gatekeepers to your personal life – banking, work accounts, Facebook, and especially email. Since email is the last line of defense where you can reset your password, you must make absolutely sure that your email password is not only unique, but highly secure.

If you’re using the following as passwords, you need to stop immediately because they are very easy to hack these days:

• Birthdays. It doesn’t matter how you’ve formatted them. Birthdays are easy to guess because they only have so many combinations.
• Pets. If you’ve ever had your account hacked because somebody guessed your pet’s name as the password, then you probably already have this as a “pet peeve”.
• Family Members. Friends and nicknames are also included in this list.

There’s a pattern here; if you publically advertise your love for it, don’t use it as a password.

You’ve probably read or heard of guidelines for strong, secure passwords, but I’ll go over them with you here along with some advanced techniques:

• Length. Passwords have to be a certain length, and that policy varies between applications and websites. Best practices are 8 to 12 characters, because it’s a length that you can still memorize but keep certain hackers at bay.
• Complexity. Don’t just use lowercase letters (a-z) and numbers (0-9), change cases to uppercase (A-Z), and include special characters (e.g. !#$%^&).
• Extremely secret. Have you been sworn to secrecy about something? Haven’t told anybody about something embarrassing? Have a secret love for Justin Bieber? It’s the perfect candidate for a password.
• Passphrases. A passphrase is a short sentence or phrase made into a password, such as, “1<3Lampz” or “Uk1ck3dMYd0g”.
• Acronyms. Take a long sentence and make an acronym out of it. E.g. “ADIDAS”, which is short for “All Day I Dream About Security”.
• Be creative. You can bend the rules of language however you want. Spell something wrong. Use another language. Create a portmanteau (crazy + awesome = crazesome). The sky is the limit.
• Mixed themes. If you plan to use a passphrase, make sure you don’t use words that are related to each other by theme. For example, you can use coffee and horses in one passphrase, but you shouldn’t use coffee and java together.
• Two-factor authentication. Some apps or websites offer this feature, which means you are sent a second, time-limited passcode to your smartphone or other connected device after you attempt to log in. While it might be overkill for your World of WarCraft account, it should be mandatory for your email.
• Secret email. Speaking of email, sign up for a secret email that you don’t use regularly to recover extremely important account information like your banking. Leave the newsletters and cat pictures to the regular email that you give out.
• Put it all together. After you’ve looked at all these strategies, put as many of them as possible together into your password. This will ensure maximum security for yourself.
• Change regularly. Just like your clothes, you should change your password on a regular basis. An average rule of thumb is every 3 months, but if you implement these strategies, you can safely do this every 6 months instead!

The final point for a good password strategy is to not use the same password on more than one site or application. This may seem difficult to do, but there’s a solution that I will introduce in the near future that can assist with this.

How many of these strategies can you implement into your life?

This article was cross-published on Thompson Citizen.

The post Your personal security is based on habits, not software appeared first on Yawhann Chong.

Backing up to an external hard drive is considered a local backup. This protects you from data loss or data corruption. However, what if your local backup goes missing or suffers a hardware failure?

This is where the Cloud steps in.

First off, what is the Cloud? For the most part, it’s just a buzzword for an accessible computer network, whether in your home, office, or on the Internet.

Note that the Cloud is mostly used as a misnomer for Cloud service, which is a technology service or set of services that exists on the Cloud. Think of it like how Kleenex is commonly used to inaccurately describe all types of facial tissue.

A very good example of a ubiquitous Cloud service is email. Since your email exists on the Internet and you access it through your Web browser or an email app, it is, by definition, a Cloud service.

So why would you use a Cloud backup service? Because local backups are sometimes not enough. In fact, it can sometimes replace local backups.

Unlike local backup, software for Cloud backup is not included with Windows or OS X.

So what are your options for Cloud backup? Two very highly acclaimed solutions are BackBlaze and CrashPlan. Both have their pros and cons, but the focus here is on how each can serve you best based on your requirements.

Some features to consider are:

• Restore process. How easy is it to restore your files? Some apps make it easy, and some make it a chore.
• Cost. Most of these solutions have similar price points, but make sure to do the math before putting your money down.
• Backup speed. Some apps take longer than others to back up your files than others. This all comes down to smart computer programming from the developer, not your hard-earned dollar.
• Backup space. How much space does your data occupy? How much space will you need? All of the options presented here offer unlimited space. However, you should beware of file size limitations imposed by other solutions not mentioned below.

BackBlaze (backblaze.com) is quite possibly the easiest Cloud backup service you will ever need. The application to install on your computer is small and fast. Best of all, it’s the cheapest solution of the two, coming in at $5 per month, or $50 per year. When you want a no-nonsense, turn-key solution, this is your choice. However, its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness, so people with specific needs should look elsewhere if they need more features. The biggest caveat is the restore process – it’s inconvenient, especially if you have a lot of files in different locations. Also, there is no local backup, and the cost grows quite high if you have multiple computers in your household.

CrashPlan (crashplan.com), on the other hand, is made for people who need more control over their backup options. While it can be daunting to a newcomer, it can be set up with careful scrutiny. Just like BackBlaze, once you set it up, you’ll never have to do it again and backups occur automagically. The biggest strengths are: the ability to back up to other computers, including ones at your office or family member’s house; an easy restore process that puts BackBlaze to shame; and a lower annual cost when you have multiple computers in your household. The caveats of CrashPlan are the learning curve and its bloated amount of options for those who need a simple solution.

So, if you decide to go with a cloud backup solution, why would you still need local backup? The answer: faster data restoration. While both CrashPlan and BackBlaze offer restore options, they are highly dependent on how much data you need to restore, and how fast your Internet connection is. Think of Cloud backup as a contingency for your local backup.

As everybody knows, your computers and attached devices won’t always last forever, so leveraging the Cloud gives you access to resources you wouldn’t normally be able to afford on your own. The smart consumer will take advantage of both options.

The post Your backup in the Cloud appeared first on Yawhann Chong.

You’ve seen and heard it all before. Maybe you are even a victim. Vacation photos from your trip in Greece, a University term paper on which you spent weeks that’s due tomorrow, your entire digital music collection painstakingly ripped from vinyl, and even that funny cat picture you wanted to share with your cat loving friends – all gone without warning. This is the situation known as data loss.

There’s even the odd situation where you opened a spreadsheet file to encounter cells with only part of your budget and the remaining cells filled with random symbols and characters; or your mom tried to show you a picture of herself standing on a cliff overlooking a European town, but you only see her head and the rest of the photo is blank with some nonsensical color blocks. This is a different but similarly frustrating phenomenon called data corruption.

Both of these issues are the enemies of your data integrity. The safety of your digital life depends on your computers and smartphones running smoothly, but also on that dreaded word we all hate to hear – backup.

When was the last time you backed up your files? A month ago? Maybe it was a year ago. Perhaps you’ve never done a backup. Either way, you forgot, didn’t have the time, or didn’t know how to do it.

The loss of irreplaceable information is devastating, and you can never get back what you lost without reaching out to an expensive data recovery lab with a low success rate.

As with all issues in life, the one surefire solution is to perform preventative maintenance. So it all comes full circle to backup once again.

Backup doesn’t have to be complicated. Windows and OS X both come with automatic backup solutions built in to the system.

Apple’s Time Machine is very capable at keeping multiple snapshots of your files, and is intuitive to use, like most Apple software products.

While Microsoft’s Windows Backup is rudimentary, it will do for most people’s needs. Both in-house solutions come with automatic scheduling and only require an external hard drive and some setup time, but even for a novice, you should be able to get something like this set up in a couple hours as long as you read all the directions carefully.

Those of you who need a solution with more comprehensive options, here are some recommendations for both operating systems.

For OS X, a great alternative is Carbon Copy Cloner. It’s a powerful tool that can create a full bootable backup for your Mac, which means if your hard drive ever stops working, you can restore your backup to a new drive. There’s a bit of a learning curve, though, so if you are averse to that, stick with Time Machine. Visit bombich.com to try before you buy.

If you’re a Windows user, check out EaseUS Todo Backup. The free version does everything one could hope for with multiple options. It doesn’t even cost much to upgrade to the full edition, if ads aren’t your cup of tea. Get it from easeus.com if you’re ready to supercharge your backups.

Don’t delay your backups and get started today. A nightmare of losing everything could be just around the corner. All it takes is a couple hours out of your life to set up a backup job schedule, then the rest will be automated. Considering that the cost of entry is low and the only tangible price is time and effort, how much is having peace of mind for your data worth to you?

This article was cross-published on Thompson Citizen.

The post Protect your data before it’s too late appeared first on Yawhann Chong.

Welcome to my new website, Yawhann Chong.

I decided to start from scratch and build a new web presence for my other endeavors that are not related to filmmaking. My film reel can still be accessed at ZhangYaohan.com.

For now, this site will act as a repository for cross-published articles I post to the local newspaper, Thompson Citizen. Please note that I am not affiliated with them, I just submit articles to them for publishing.

Thanks for visiting!

The post The new Yawhann Chong appeared first on Yawhann Chong.

“The best Windows ever is here.” – @Windows on Twitter

Tech pundits the world over in the news and social media were touting the release of the Microsoft Windows 10 operating system for months leading up to its eventual release this week. It’s no surprise after the severe disappointment of Windows 8 that Microsoft decided to vigorously test Windows 10 with its users and listen to their input. If you are already running Windows 7 or 8/8.1 and are happy with what you have, why should you care about upgrading?

First off, it’s free. As a user, you are entitled to a free upgrade if you are running a genuine version of Windows 7 or 8 – that is, you either purchased Windows 7 or 8, or you bought a computer that came with either version pre-installed. If you are unfamiliar with computers, you can find this out by consulting your local computer technician or checking the sticker on your physical computer that tells you what version you are running.

If you are a Windows 8 user, you probably share the disdain every other person has for the Start screen that replaced the beloved and familiar Start Menu from Windows 7 (and previous versions). Well, that worry is over, because Windows 10 heralds the return of the Start Menu – with an option to switch to the Start Screen if you happened to like it.

Upgrading has never been easier. In just a few clicks and following the prompts, Windows 10 more or less installs itself without much interaction. It’s the perfect opportunity to leave the task running overnight so you don’t have to sit and wait. Downgrading to your previous version is also a simple task if Windows 10 doesn’t turn out to be your cup of tea.

Most of your existing apps will continue to work with Windows 10. This has always been a source of contention with previous upgrades to a new version of Windows. I remember the nightmare of upgrading systems from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. At the time, Windows 95 was revolutionary, but a lot of old applications were incompatible; it was a year before enough apps were available to justify the upgrade. Now you can upgrade to Windows 10 and be assured that most of your mainstream applications will function normally. Even if they don’t, you may only be a quick app update away to alleviate that situation. One rule of thumb is to run the Upgrade Advisor utility prior to running the update.

Internet Explorer (IE) has finally been replaced by a new web browser called Edge. It’s no secret that IE has been the black sheep of the Web browsing family. With faster, secure, and customizable solutions like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera, IE was left in the dust. Microsoft decided to build Edge from the ground up, burying IE for those who still need it for legacy web app support. Despite its infancy, Edge is already a much improved experience with more features to come later this year, which will allow it to go head to head with the competition.

The updated Action Center takes one of the best features from mobile platforms and puts all the most commonly used system functions in one easy to reach location. Now you can turn on/off Wi-Fi, sounds, brightness, etc. from a single location.

People who have played the Halo video game series will recognize the new voice of Windows 10 – Cortana. Cortana is like the Siri to Apple’s iOS. Ask Cortana for today’s weather, where to eat, or even to tell you a joke, and she delivers it in a way that outshines Siri. She even integrates nicely with Edge. This marks the first widespread integration of voice assistance into an OS, which may very well take us closer to a future not unlike Minority Report.

No matter what you decide to do, you can’t deny that this is one of Microsoft’s largest endeavors with Windows ever, with a timed worldwide release across 190 countries. Are you going to update today or wait until later?

This article was cross-published on Thompson Citizen.

The post Windows 10 is now available and why you should care appeared first on Yawhann Chong.