PSPINC CEO Kenichi Uchikura's Blog

My desk ... My iPad

May

25

This little device is very useful ... but can not replace my Macintosh. I use only iPad in the weekend when I do not need to do any complex tasks.

#Computer #Internet

Truth About Off Site Backup

PSPINC provides many hosting solutions to companies and individuals. And online storage is one of them. However, we rarely call it online backup or disaster recovery. Sure, we can store your data at our secure data centers in Seattle and Bellevue, but those are data, not system files. What is the difference between data and system files?

Lets look at this scenario. When do you need your backup? You need a backup when your computer crushes. So most likely your computer is not booting up. In order for you to boot your computer, you need to repair or replace the parts that is broken and reinstall your operating system. Or, if the computer is not repairable, you need to purchase new computer that comes with new operating system. Either way, you have a computer with operating system. So why in the world do you need a copy of operating system that is stored off site?

There are radio commercials promoting off site backup saying when you crush your system, your are protected because you have your backup. The truth is, you cannot restore your system using off site backup. When you crush your system, your system is most likely gone for good. You need to have so called recovery disk locally to restore your computer to the factory shipped state. Once you are back to the original state, you can use on or off site storage to restore data.

Besides most operating system are several giga bytes big. Do you know even with 6Mbps (common connection), it takes 22 minuets to download just 1GB of data?

Also, a lot of times your application programs need to be reinstalled again when your computer is crushed. By restoring the application from the backup, you can restore all the files except so called registry information. The registry is the area the operating system manage to keep important information about your application programs. When you reinstall your operating system, your registry becomes blank.

There are some backup software that can take a snapshot of your computer and enables you to back that up and restore it in case of the system crush. It is a good idea to use something like this software but using this to backup your system to off site is not a good idea. Remember, you need working computer to access your off site backup. When your computer is crushed, you have no computer to access your system data.

When it comes to backing up your computer, you need to

Create a system recovery disk. This backs up your system to CD or DVD and restores your computer in case of system crush. CD or DVD that you create becomes the boot disk in case your computer becomes non bootable. The software to create a bootable recovery disk(s) comes with your computer.

You need to backup your data such as documents, pictures, music files, movies and presentations to external hard disk. When you purchase external hard disk drive, you should look for USB 2.0 or Firewire connections to the computer. The external drive should not be smaller than the one you have on your computer.

Once you have your data stored in the external disk drive, you should store those data to off site storage.

PSPINC can help you setup everything you need to backup your system and prepare for the worse case scenario.

#Computer #Internet

Who owns your domain?

May

19

Have you ever heard the term "Domain Hijack"?

Yes, your domain can be hijacked when you forget to renew or sometime unintentionally sign something that looks official from the hosting company.

Also, a hosting company or a web development company who takes care of your contents can hijack your web site too. You need to make sure

Do not sign anything you receive from your hosting company without verifying.

Check who owns your domain name. You can use WHOIS service to verify that information.

Make sure your web site does not contain anything that does not belong to you. There are rare cases that web development company added advertisements rom the other companies without any consent.

Know when your domain expires. nOne you loose it, it will not be easy to get it back.

If you have any question, please contact Pacific Software Publishing, Inc., even if you are not our customer, we will be happy to work with you.

#Computer #Internet

Using Bluetooth Keyboard with iPad

May

6

I found an Apple bluetooth keyboard in our office. I paired it with the iPad to see if it makes iPad any easier.

I connected Apple USB USB keyboard to iPad yesterday, but iPad did not have enough power to support USB keyboard.

Actually, by having external wireless keyboard makes iPad more useful. Now I have a cursor key (arrow key) enabling me to edit text much faster and easier. Also by having an external keyboard, entire iPad screen can be used instead of being covered 50% by the software keyboard.

I really recommend it.

#Computer #Internet

Bad Blood between Apple and Adobe

May

5

Apple does not support Flash on iPad and iPhone. I have mixed feeling about this.

#Computer #Internet

iPad Email Sharing Problem Resolved!

Apr

30

You want to check your email from your iPad outside of the office. When you are back in the office, you want to use your regular PC or Mac to access your email. So both PC and iPad are accessing the same mailbox. When two or more computers are accessing the same mailbox, you will encounter an access conflict and one that comes later than the other are kicked out.

This problem does not happen when you are using so called IMAP email server, but many of us who use POP3 email server will encounter this problem. This problem caught my attention when I got my iPad. iPad was grabbing the mailbox and not letting it go making my desktop unable to access my email.

So I asked our top engineer (guru) to look into this problem. He just released the upgrade version of our POP3 service. I don't know how he did it, he solved the problem and I can now share same mailbox with my iMac and iPad. This upgrade will be available next week to all our customers at www.DreamersI.net.

#Computer #Internet

Sharing One Email Account with Many

Apr

29

It is sometime necessary to share one email account with multiple computers. In my case, I need to share one email account with my Desktop, Laptop and now iPad.

We found out using iPad, it locks the mailbox all the time making it impossible for my desktop and laptop to access the mailbox. This morning we deploy the new version of POP that does not lock mailbox. It made it possible for me to use all three computers to share one mailbox.

This was deployed to PSP email account only just in case it does something bad. Now we know it works, we need to make sure it will not cause any damages. We can do those changes because we build our own mail server software. We are working very hard for you.

#Computer #Internet

Buying a used Macintosh

Apr

28

When you buy a used Macintosh, make sure you do not buy a Mac with G4 CPUs. They are not compatible with the current operating system (OS X 10.5 or 10.6). The most current OS for Mac require an INTEL CPU. That is why G4 Mac are cheap.

#Computer #Internet

Backberry Update Problem

Apr

26

Ihave reported that I had problem updating the Blackberry. I am happy to report that I am not experiencing any more of that problem.

I found out that the problem was caused by me not connecting the BB device directly to the host computer. I was using USB hub. This caused the BB to loose connection to the host when it was rebooted.

If you are having the BB update problem, you might want to check the connection.

#Computer #Internet

Managing Multiple Services

Apr

24

When you have multiple email accounts, bloguru accounts, web de video and photos, just remembering the login usernames and passwords becomes very difficult. For that reason PSPINC developed and released Single Sin On service called Web de Apps. It is free. If you are PSPINC hosting service user, you already have an account. Try it for free.

http://webdeapps.com/

#Computer #Internet