Where PC means Personal Care® · October 2005 · No. 53
Quidnunc Celebrates 11 Years with our Anniversary Sale
From "Retail providing Service"
to "Service providing Retail"
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| The friendly Quidnunc staff |
Eleven years ago, Quidnunc began as a small retail software store with a little hardware and some repair service on the side. In the fiercely competitive realm of today's computer retail industry, we find that we are changing from being 'a retail store that provides service' to a 'service business that provides a retail outlet.' With service and hardware making up around 70% of our business, and Internet accounting for another 20%, our business is now all about RELATIONSHIPS. To stand apart from our competitors – the huge computer chain stores and Internet companies – Quidnunc focuses on providing quality customer service and building long-term relationships over many years with our valued customers. For example, nearly one-half of the Internet customers who signed up with us in 1997 are still with us.
We strive to be current, savvy, and accessible – to provide you with sensible advice, practical experience, and local neighborhood friendliness. To keep your computers running efficiently, we employ competent, trained and experienced technicians who also understand that they are working on their neighbors' computers.
We would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to our behind-the-scenes wizards – our service department staff–Danen, Dan, Devin and Austin.
Danen Romine has been with us since early 1998. He started as an Intern from the technical program at South Seattle Community College. When he found he was learning more here working on computers, he quit the college to work full time. He has since passed the CompTIA A+ and Network + exams and has become a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP). He is well on his way to earning the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, a difficult and demanding certification. He has an innate ability to detect and solve a problem and a naturally friendly demeanor that has made him popular with coworkers and customers alike.
Featured in this newsletter:
· Quidnunc Celebrates 11 Years
· The Worst Possible Scenario
· Wireless Connections
· 11th ANNIVERSARY SALE!
Also:
Coupons
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Wireless Connections
Wireless isn't new but it's certainly becoming more common. More and more people are discovering not only the convenience of taking the laptop into the coffee shop or on extended trips, but also setting up additional computers at home to share a cable or DSL Internet connection. We'll have great prices on wireless products for the sale.
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11th ANNIVERSARY SALE!
While the official date is October 29th, we couldn't resist the idea of starting the sale on 11/11. We invite you to take advantage of some great deals at our 11th Anniversary Sale, beginning on November 11, and continuing until November 19. Special sale prices include our most popular laptop computer – normally over $1200, going for $1111.11. Please check our website: http://www.quidnunc.net
for more details.
Dan Palo started part-time with us in November of 2000 and became full-time in the summer of 2001. Dan found he like working on computers more than tending bar at Sportsworld or the Doubletree Inn. Dan has also earned his A+ certification and he enjoys playing computer games when he's not playing golf.
Devin Fisher is the newest addition (sort of) although he has the longest association with the store. He was among a group of four boys who would come in and "test" computer games on our demonstration computers the first few years we were open. He also worked part-time cleaning up the store in 2000. He began working on computers as an intern through a special program in the Seattle School District and eventually worked himself into a full-time job in 2002. When they weren't smart enough to rehire in for 2005, we asked him to join us. He admits to still liking to play computer games.
Austin Wheat was lucky to be hired. We used to joke about your name needing to start with a "D" to work here (there have been 3 others who fit that criterion). I think Austin got in because he is from the big "D" (Dallas). He moved to Seattle in 2004 and says he has been working as a tech "all his life". His high school voted him most likely to become a rock musician. We're really glad they were wrong because he has become a great addition to our group in a very short time.
See pictures of these wizards here.
Quidnunc's Tech Wizards
| Quidnunc: the friendliest computer, software & Internet store in Seattle |
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The Worst Possible Scenario
The Importance of Backing Up Files
At least once a week, when someone has brought their computer in for service or repair, I hear "of course I haven't backed it up since (substitute date here, usually one year or more, or if ever,"...) I'm sure everyone has their own reason for not protecting their data, but I expect the most common ones are, (1) not having anything to back up to, (2) having some form of backup and not knowing how to use it, or (3) not even being too sure what to backup or what backup means.
Beginning with the last point, backing up merely means making a copy of something and putting it in a DIFFERENT PLACE so that if something happens to the original data, you can get it back. A different place could be a different folder on your hard drive or something that can be removed from your computer like a floppy disk, CD or external drive.
What 'THAT DATA' constitutes is completely different for many people. Some people do their home finances on their computer, others have created historic records of their family tree, many people have pictures or music files they have spent a lot of time or money collecting. Things you might want to protect might be as old as your grandmother's recipe for meatloaf or as recent as the term paper you're working on that's due tomorrow.
Imagine what it would mean to you if you lost all of the data that is on your computer.
How much time, energy and money you devote to backup should be directly related to what it might cost you in time, energy or money to replace it or lose it. While you might be able to reenter a years' worth of checks or stock transactions, how would you replace digital photographs you have stored on your computer?
Contrary to when I opened in 1994, there are many inexpensive choices today for the home computer user who wants to safeguard important data. Among the most popular right now are Zip drives, CD burners and flash drives.
Archives vs. Backup
'Archiving' is what you would do with data that you don't intend to alter or change. A good example are the photographs that you want to keep but don't want them sitting on your hard drive all the time. In order to make space available on your hard drive, you can copy your archive files to CD or DVD. CDR's and DVDR's are good choices for data you're not going to change. You also might want to archive your Quicken data and your Turbo Tax for the end of each year.
'Backup' on the other hand, is what you do with files that are constantly CHANGING. Consequently, it is a good idea to have more than one backup of important data. There has been more than one time when I have had to restore our point of sale software to a state from a previous week.
Generally speaking you back things up to guard against one of three things:
- Protecting yourself from yourself (changing or erasing something by mistake, writing over an important file with the wrong information, etc)
- Equipment failure – anything from your computer shutting down because the power supply isn't working to a hard drive failure where all the data is really gone; and
- Disaster (the one most of us never think about) – from a stolen computer, to your house and everything in it being destroyed. If you have data that is so important that you can't afford to lose it, you need to have it backed up off site, such as at a neighbor's or friend's house, or in a bank vault. The important thing is it needs to be some place else.
Backup Choices
A flash drive (also known as a jump drive or thumb drive) is a device that is about the size of your thumb, frequently with a hole on it so you can carry it on your key chain. It plugs into the USB port on your computer and will be seen by your computer as a removable disk drive. Flash drives come in sizes between 128 MB (over 100 floppy disks) and 4 GB of data with 512MB and 1GB being the most popular sizes right now. The advantage to flash drives is that they are convenient to carry and easy to use. However, because of the relative cost, they are best used for temporary storage or transporting data from one computer to another. Some have the additional advantage being able to assign a password to protect the data in case you use the drive.
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Flash drives make GREAT holiday gifts!!!!! |
CDs are probably the most popular right now because of their low cost. You can buy large quantities of CDRs (write once only) for $.25 to $.50 each. These come in 650MB and 700MB capacities. Individual CDR's with jewel cases are little more than $1 for something that holds more than 500 floppy disks. CDRW's (these you can erase and reuse over and over) are slightly more expensive. CDRs are an excellent choice for archiving data. The disadvantage to CDR's and CDRW's is that they are slow and usually require a bit more work to use the software that needs to "burn" the image.
DVDs are becoming more popular as the price of the media and the DVD writers drop in price. However, they are slower than CDs and are not as transportable because many people do not have DVD readers on their computers.
Zip drives (a cartridge disk system from Iomega) are still popular because they are durable, transportable and much faster than CDs. While the cost of Zip disks has dropped dramatically in the last few years (750 MB disks cost what 100MB cost two years ago), they are still considerably more expensive per MB than CDs
An external hard drive is certainly the fastest, and possibly the easiest form of backup to use. It is used just like any other drive. The biggest disadvantage is that it typically will not protect you from "disaster."
Whatever your choice, begin backing up your important files today. And, while you're at it, make sure you know how to restore them when necessary.
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