Do as I say, not as I do!
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Aesop was born in 600 BC somewhere in ancient Greece. Everyone knows his fables, but few realize what an ironic and paradoxical life he led. Aesop was a slave most of his life, and was given his freedom as a reward for his intelligence and masterful storytelling. He became involved in politics and traveled for the King of Lydia.

On one trip for his employer there was a misunderstanding about a gift he had brought to the king of another land. Thinking that the king had rejected the gift, Aesop decided to return to his land, taking the rejected treasure with him. The opposing king learned of this, and thinking he was being cheated, had his servants hide a golden bowl in Aesop’s luggage. After he left, they intercepted him, found the bowl and condemned him to death for sacrilege at stealing the sacred bowl of Apollo.

Shortly after, they dropped him off a cliff, which they deemed a fitting punishment for stealing a bowl.

Despite this irony-oozing end, Aesop’s stories have become well known and have survived for over 2000 years. Aesop understood and appreciated the irony of a good “morality play.” One of his lesser known fables is the fable of “The Young Crab and his Mother” in which a mother crab chastised her son for not walking straight ahead. The young crab said “Okay Mom, please teach me how to walk.” But try as she might, she was unable to walk any way other than sideways, like a crab should.

This is the earliest story that pointed out this inconsistency of human ethics. We see this all too often. “Do as I say, not as I do.” We have all had our own experiences with this, but I recently began thinking about this as it relates to the advice that computer techs give out every day.

A client asked me, as they do often after being given a number of options to solve a particular technical problem. “What do you do on your own computer?” That got me thinking. Is it really the best question to ask a computer guy, or a mechanic, or a politician, or a dentist? The mechanic’s car usually doesn’t run right, the cobbler’s kids go shoeless, and my wife’s computer is still doing “that thing” she told me about a month ago.

Anyway, I surveyed 5 of my fellow IT professionals to see what they do on their personal computers in the following areas that we preach to clients about:

· Backup your data!

· Upgrade Your Hardware and Software!

· You should use a Smart Phone!

· Use (insert search engine here)!

· Upgrade Your Internet Browser!

· Use Antivirus Software!

· Secure Your Wireless Network!

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So how did we do? I’m glad you asked!

The Results

Backup:

4 out of 5 techs I surveyed back up their data. The fifth said he never created anything important enough to back up, which made me wonder what he actually did all day.

Methods of Backup included copying data to an external drive manually, Carbonite, Acronis TrueImage, and Synctoy. The most common frequency was once per month.

Hardware / OS:

This one varies greatly, because most computer techs have more than one computer, so I asked about the primary workstation that they use at home. 3 out of 5 use Windows 7, the other 2 use Windows XP as their main operating system. The reason XP is still in the equation is that the techs (one of which is me) have accumulated software and gotten things working just well enough that changing would involve a lot of reloading and configuring.

As far as hardware goes, 4 out of 5 use desktop computers rather than laptops. The desktop users all have displays over 20″, hard drives over 1TB and memory over 4GB. Our laptop user has a Macbook Pro with 17″ display, on which Windows 7 is the primary operating system.

The point is that we don’t hold onto hardware very long.

It was interesting to see that all of the technicians used Intel processors rather than AMD.

Phone:

This category was a little surprising. Tech guys are gadget guys and typically walk around with the flashiest new technology holstered to their belts.

2 of our 5 techs had regular old flip phones. This is shocking, because I expected to see Droids, iPhones, Windows Mobile and Blackberries galore. We had one Windows Mobile user, one blackberry, one Droid and two boring regular phones.

I am a firm believer in the value of constant communication via a personal data device, and honestly, I couldn’t do my job without mine. Clients can definitely be more productive and efficient with a smartphone. This is one area where we dropped the ball.

Search Engine:

Google. Google. Google. All Google, all the time. Bing is gaining in popularity and there are still a lot of folks who are partial to Yahoo, but right now it’s plain to see that technicians like Google.

Internet Browser:

2 users primarily use Internet Explorer. 2 prefer Chrome, and the other likes to use Flock for the social media aspect. If you haven’t used any of these, you should check them out. You can use them all on your computer without having to commit to any of them. I was a little surprised to see no Firefox users in this list.

Antivirus:

The most surprising response I received on my surveys for this article was in the area of antivirus protection. 2 users like ESET antivirus (my favorite), one uses Panda Cloud, a cloud (internet) based antivirus scanner that is getting pretty good reviews.

What surprised me is that 2 of our techs use no antivirus software at all.

Tech #1 uses MalwareBytes Anti-Malware to scan for Trojans and spyware, but doesn’t feel the need for an actual antivirus. Tech #2 says that his browsing habits don’t leave much possibility for infection from rogue websites, and if he gets infected he will just reload his computer. Wow. That sounds a little like leaving your front door open because you’ll just buy new stuff if someone steals what you already have.

Just for the record, always use an antivirus, whether you have a PC, a Mac, or run Linux. See our recommendations below.

Wireless Security:
So many people still have wide open wireless networks that it doesn’t surprise me anymore. Even some businesses with sensitive client data on their computers neglect the need for a secure network. Once you show them the client list on their router and see 10 people connected even though they only have 5 computers do they start to think about the consequences.

Computer techs are pretty serious about wireless security. All of the techs have at least WPA (Wifi Protected Access) enabled. Keep in mind that highly secure wireless access does you no good at all if your last name is smith and your password is “smith.” Use a hard to guess password with capitals and letters. (Capital letters, as in uppercase letters, not necessarily capitals of states, although I guess that could work, if you use capitals in your capitals . . . you get the idea.

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What Does it Mean?

Overall techs really believe what they are telling you. With a few exceptions, asking your technician “what would you do?” will result in a truthful, heartfelt answer. If your technician starts preaching about viruses being “no big deal”, that smartphones are a fad, or that you should upgrade your hardware that is less than a year old, you should probably start looking for another computer support provider.

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So what do I recommend for all of these categories?

· Backup – Use Carbonite, Dell Online Backup or Synctoy for personal use, and if you are only concerned about saving the data, not the entire drive including the operating system. If you want to backup everything, look at Acronis home Backup. It provides an image-based backup that can be restored in minutes if your computer dies.

· HW / SW – It’s only obsolete if it impedes your ability to work. Use Windows 7 if you have a choice, or check out any of the great Apple products that are out there. At least 2 – 4GBs of ram. Not sure what to get? Ask us.

· Smart Phone – Absolutely. The Android based phones are the hottest things out right now.

· Use whatever search engine you like. Google, Bing, ask.com or yahoo are all great.

· Internet Browser – If you are into Facebook and the like, check out Flock. Otherwise try them all and see which you like best. Safari, IE, Firefox, Opera or Chrome.

· Antivirus Software – We recommend nothing but ESET NOD32 antivirus. It’s small and fast, and claims to have never missed an “in-the-wild” virus.

· Wireless Network Security – At least WPA or WPA2 with strong passwords.
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How did I do on the survey? Actually, pretty well . . .as far as you know.

As Aesop probably said, “Honest, people of Delphi, I don’t know how that Bowl got in my footlocker!”

Be safe and be smart. Remember: Your computer should work for you, not the other way around.  Contact us at https://www.available-tech.net/ for more information.