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5 Essential Steps to Avoid Overwork in 2017

In his book REWORK, David Heinemeier Hanson, creator of Ruby on Rails, makes a bold statement: “fire the workaholics.”

Contrary to virtually everything today’s startup culture would tell us about the recipe for success and what it takes to get to the top, DHH stands firm in the belief that being a workaholic isn’t the key to cash-flow woes or success.

Is he right?

Today, most small business owners and founders are familiar with overwork: that awful sensation when the responsibilities, to-do lists, and meetings start to stretch into eternity.  All your brain wants to do is shut off, and all your body wants to do is get up and move, but you can’t because you have too much to do. You’re chained to your computer.

This is overwork, and it’s the bane of most self-employed people I know.

If you’ve experienced overwork yourself, you know that trying to push through it feels like sprinting through molasses. It’s frustrating and stressful. As it turns out, science has your back. According to a 2015 study by CNBC, working more than 50 hours each week harms productivity. In fact, people who work 70 hours a week are no more productive than people who work 55 hours a week.

How do you avoid overwork in a world that seems to think more is more, though? Is it even possible? The answer is yes, and it’s not as difficult as you might think.

In the Name of Your Health: 5 Steps to Avoid Overwork

Whether you’re a startup founder or an employee of a busy company, these five steps will help you maintain your sanity and prevent burnout throughout 2017 and beyond.

 1. Train the People Around You to Prioritize

In an office environment, one of the biggest culprits of overwork is wasted time and unproductive meetings (middle-managers spend 35% of their working hours in meetings), which distract people from focusing on more critical things.

As such, one of the most productive things you can do is train the people around you to prioritize and work smarter, not harder. Harvard Business Review recommends doing this with an approach called “psychological distance.” Psychological distance is the act of stepping back and evaluating the big picture. Instead of attacking an entire to-do list like it’s all critical, focus on breaking it down so you and your team can prioritize the real emergencies, and then go from there.

2. Learn to Delegate

For outcome-driven, Type-A personalities, delegating can feel like an impossible task. If you’re serious about avoiding overwork, though, it’s essential. Look at your daily workload and determine your top 3-5 “pain points.” Whether these are answering email or creating content, there’s likely a way to delegate those things.

Emails can be addressed with auto-responders that offer other contact points and FAQ pages, for example, while the burden of content creation can be offset by hiring a freelancer or on-staff writer. By reducing the pain points, you free up more time to do what you’re good, which helps you prevent burnout and keep your work (and stress levels) in check.

3. Stop Glorifying “Busy”

How many times have you asked someone how they were only for them to respond, “Good – busy!” Today, some people confuse “busy” with “successful,” or “productive,” although the two aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, Derek Sivers, the creator of CD Baby (which sold for $22 million) has said, “To me, ‘busy’ implies that a person is out of control of their life.”

In the coming year, stop glorifying “busy.”  Most founders work as hard as they do because it gives them a sense of meaning. Despite that, however, there’s typically a way to do more with less. Find that way and capitalize on it for a healthier 2017.

4. Break Tasks into Manageable Chunks

If you’re going to eat an elephant, you do it bite by bite. When you begin big jobs early, you’ll find yourself less stressed than if you left them to the last minute. Breaking down your workload also helps you create higher-quality material and enjoy the process more.

5. Take Responsibility for Your Overwork, Then Change it

The best way to put an end to overwork is to see what you do to nurture it, and then change your habits. Set boundaries where you need to, work harder for four days, then take Friday off, or develop a daily schedule that works better for your life and happiness. While it’s easy to come up with excuses, avoiding overwork is that simple.

Overwork no More

We live in a time that glamorizes overwork, but it’s not as sexy as it seems. When you banish overwork from your life, you give yourself the freedom to put out a better-quality product and be happier doing it. That’s a win-win for everyone.

 

Ten ways to protect your business from ransomware

If you run a business and want to avoid having to pay out to recover your data here are ten ways to protect your business from ransomware.

Ransomware is a particular insidious way hackers try to attack your business and extort money from you. It is becoming so popular that ransomware attacks now outnumber malware attacks.

We have all heard of WannaCry, NotPetya and Cryptolocker but there are lots more types of ransomware out there. We have also heard of high profile companies suffering at the hands of such attacks. This guide will show you how to avoid hitting the headlines yourself.

What is ransomware?

Ransomware is exactly what it says it is. Malicious software that holds you to ransom. Picture the scene, you are working on a presentation for a client and are close to finishing a week’s worth of work. You go for a coffee and come back to see a warning notice on your desktop.

‘The files on your computer have been encrypted. You have 72 hours to submit payment to receive the encryption key. Otherwise your files will be permanently deleted.’

That is ransomware.

There are two main forms of ransomware with a few derivatives of each. Encryption ransomware will encrypt your hard drive and will only unlock it when you pay a set amount of Bitcoins to a given address. Locker ransomware will lock you out of your computer completely and will only accept input once a decryption key is entered.

How does ransomware infect computers?

Ransomware has a few attack vectors but the most common is via email. Those who make ransomware, or spread it use social engineering to trick users into opening the email and allowing the code to infect that computer. If the computer is part of a network, the code can then spread to other connected devices.

Ransomware can also injected into free downloadable software, hide in infected websites, arrive as drive-by downloads (secretly downloaded when visiting an infected website) or malvertising campaigns.

How to protect your business from ransomware

There are some practical measures every business can take that will protect you from ransomware. It will also help protect you from most forms of viruses or malware.

1. Take regular backups

The first thing you need to realize about IT is that there is no such thing as total security. Something will inevitably happen at some point. Having a recent backup or clone of your hard drive can allow you to quickly pick up the pieces and rebuild when it does. If you have a backup, you don’t have to pay the ransom, just wipe the drive and rebuild it.

2. Use antivirus and malware scanners

Using a good quality antivirus solution and a separate malware scanner is essential. They should be installed on all connected computers and allowed to scan and update automatically.

3. Firewalls

A firewall can be a hardware device connected directly to your internet connection or a software program installed on each device. Use at least one, preferably one of each. Firewalls filter traffic in and out of your network, can spot suspicious activity and block it quickly.

4. Keep your systems up to date

Allow operating system to update automatically and allow all installed programs to do the same. Regular security patching and bug fixes can close loopholes that malware uses to penetrate your network.

5. Train staff

Prevention is always better than cure. Train staff what to look out for and to not open emails or attachments if they don’t know the sender. Teach good internet hygiene and enforce that training regularly.

6. Have robust IT policies

IT policies work alongside education to provide the framework within which your staff can operate. Cover fair use, downloads, social media and online behavior and then enforce those policies in a firm but fair way.

7. Lock down computers

Removing admin accounts, disabling remote desktop, locking down AppData and LocalData files, using UAC, disabling cloud storage sites, USB ports and other ways users can get into trouble helps them help you.

8. Traffic filtering

Traffic filtering blocks protocols such as bit torrent, websites you don’t want users to access during work hours, chat applications, social networks and anything you specify. It is a very effective way to maintain control of your network.

9. Be aware of current risks

Knowing what the current risks are and what versions or malware or ransomware is doing the rounds is key to avoiding them. If you understand their primary attack vectors, you can take steps to bolstering your defenses.

10. Outsource your IT security if necessary

If you don’t have the time or expertise to adequately protect your business from cyber threats, find someone who does. While an operating cost, it is also an investment. Being infected with ransomware will cost you something, Bitcoins, time, data or all three.

You can never completely protect yourself against ransomware but follow these ten tips and you will minimize your chances of being infected. Good luck out there!

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Why you should let professionals recover deleted files | Dave’s Computers New Jersey

Dave’s Computers is all about empowerment. Our blog regularly posts how-tos and tutorials for you to learn new skills and manage your own computers. Sometimes though, you really should leave things to the professionals. One such task is recovering deleted files.

There is a lot of free and premium software on the internet that says it can help data recovery. Some of it even works and delivers on its promises. Trouble is, you don’t always know which works and which doesn’t.

Yes data recovery costs money, but how much is your data worth? If it is truly important, don’t risk it to some random piece of software you find on the internet. Let the experts work their magic. I guarantee our chances of success are many times higher than that software!

Don’t use data recovery software

Some data recovery software is probably very good at what it does. It might even recover the data you lost. But how do you know whether it works or not? You don’t until you try it. Then, if something goes wrong it is often too late and no amount of data recovery expertise can recover your files.

One key aspect of successful data recovery is leaving the drive intact and not using it. If the data is overwritten it is irretrievable. That’s why we always say, if you accidentally delete a file or something happens to your hard drive to stop what you are doing immediately and bring us the drive. If you continue working or try to recover the file yourself, you risk overwriting the data or damaging it further.

Secondly, using data recovery software often means working on the same computer and even the same drive. This also risks further damage or overwriting the data on that drive. Once it is overwritten, it is gone forever.

Here at Dave’s Computers, our data recovery team uses a test bench to work on hard drives. We attach your drive as an additional drive. We then make a true copy of that drive just in case and then recover the data from it. The advantage with this approach is that no data is touched on your drive at all. All the work is done on the test machine on the bench. This leaves your data 100% intact which increases our chances of success significantly.

Don’t try to fix a hard drive yourself

Even if you’re not interested in saving the data, repairing a hard drive yourself is almost impossible. Some websites will tell you to freeze the drive, to knock it with a rubber mallet or open it up to assess any physical damage yourself. Don’t.

Freezing the hard drive is a myth that still does the rounds some 20 years after first being suggested. The theory was that if the read/write head was stuck, freezing it would cause the metal to contract and free the head. You could then attach the drive, copy your data and either use the hard drive again or put it in the trash when you had copied your data. It doesn’t work.

Not only is a freezer full of moisture, freezing metal makes it incredibly brittle, which isn’t good for any moving part. Finally, condensation forms when the drive returns to room temperature which is often terminal.

Impact mechanics has been known to work but has failed more times than it has been successful. How do you know how hard to hit it? How do you know the drive is stuck at all and not just broken? How do you know whether you are hitting it in the right place to free a stuck mechanism? You don’t.

Opening a hard drive is something we don’t like doing so certainly don’t suggest a home user does it. If you have ever seen the inside of a hard drive, it is made up of a circuit board, several round disks (platters) and a read/write head for each platter. The platters spin at high speed and the needles read or write the data. It is a very complex device and delicate too. The platters are very fragile and covered in a magnetic material. Any damage, no matter how miniscule, can stop the platter working completely.

While you can do whatever you like to your own computer equipment, if you want to recover data from it, you should leave it alone. Bring it to Dave’s Computers and we will recover your data for you. We cannot promise to fix the hard drive but in most circumstances we can at least recover your files.

Rebuilding your hard drive risks overwriting the data you want to save. Even a simple rebuild of a boot sector or index can overwrite critical data that prevents us recovering it. Windows has built in error recovery and many software tools are available that offer to fix the Master Boot Record or file system on a disk to return it to working order. If all you want is your drive working again, these often work fine. If you want to recover your data, they will often render that data unrecoverable.

I’m not saying all this to scare you into inaction. It is your hard drive and your data. Do what you like with your own equipment. But, if you want to recover your data, you should be mindful of the risks.

Dave’s Computers specializes in data recovery. It doesn’t cost that much, can be done in a hurry if you need it and has a very high success rate. Bring your computer or the drive (carefully) into our store and we can assess the issue and tell you what we can do to help!

RAID array data recovery | Dave’s Computers New Jersey

The RAID array data recovery service at Dave’s Computers in New Jersey is busier than it should be. RAID arrays are usually used by business or enterprise to provide robust storage solutions that prevent data loss or deliver fast storage. As any IT admin will tell you, RAID isn’t infallible and can still lose data despite every attempt to mitigate against it.

While RAID does offer fault tolerance, the main focus is performance and then data security, in that order. As you will see in a second, some RAID types have no fault tolerance at all and you will have to mitigate against data loss in the usual ways.

Fortunately, the data recovery team here at Dave’s Computers can help. We can help you configure the most suitable RAID array for your needs or help recover data should something happen to the one you have. Call us or come into the store and we can discuss your requirements.

RAID explained

RAID comes in several flavors, RAID 0, 1, 5, 6 and 10. RAID arrays can include many hard drives in many types of configuration. To explain how each works, imagine two hard drives connected to a single RAID controller. Many RAID arrays use multiple hard drives or even multiple arrays but the principle is the same.

RAID 0 uses striping which means data is stored alternately over the two disks. It offers performance advantages but does not prevent data loss as there is no fault tolerance. If something happens to one disk, only half the data remains.

RAID 1 uses mirroring which stores data on each drive. This does not improve performance that much but offers fault tolerance and can help prevent data loss. If a disk fails, you still have a complete copy of the data. The downside is that you use twice the storage media for the same amount of data.

RAID 5 requires a minimum of three hard drives to work properly and can include up to 16 drives in a single array. Information is striped similarly to RAID 0 but also includes a parity bit which is written across all drives. This parity bit can rebuild data should one drive fail. Performance is fast which is why it is the most popular RAID version and the parity bit offers fault tolerance. It can take a long time to rebuild data if a drive does fail though.

RAID 6 uses striping with double parity. RAID 6 uses the same principle as RAID 5 but with two parity bits. This means the array could theoretically survive the loss of two drives without data loss. The downside is that read/write is slower due to having to write two parity bits as well as the core data and rebuilding can take a while.

RAID 10 combines RAID 1 and RAID 0 and requires a minimum of four drives. It stripes data across a pair of drives like RAID 0 but then copies both of those drives in a mirror like RAID 1. This allows data to survive the loss of a drive and to be rebuilt quickly. The downside is that you use twice the storage media for the same amount of data.

RAID and data loss

As you can see from my brief description of what each RAID type does, there is an element of fault tolerance but it isn’t a get out of jail free card. RAID can help operations by keeping data stored and flowing but it is no substitute for good backups. It also doesn’t prevent data loss.

RAID 0 offers no fault tolerance and concentrates on performance over preventing data loss. RAID 1 and 5 can survive the loss of one drive but no more. RAID 6 can survive two drives going down but will slow down a lot while it rebuilds. RAID 10 can survive multiple drive losses but is very complicated to run and expensive to build.

You can still experience data loss with RAID through:

  • System crashes or critical errors
  • Power outages or improper shutdown
  • Hardware issues
  • Viruses and malware
  • Human error
  • Data corruption

How to prevent data loss when using RAID

If you are considering using a RAID array in your business, as well as deciding what level to use, you should introduce policies to help prevent data loss. These policies can form the backbone of your IT administration and create the kind of environment where data loss is the exception not the rule.

There are several things you can do to prevent data loss when using RAID:

Invest in UPS

Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) help prevent power surges, power outages and fluctuating current. They can be expensive but should be regarded as an essential part of any data center. They can drastically reduce the risk of data loss while keeping your systems running long enough to shut down properly in the event of power loss.

Enforce good IT practices

Good IT practices include proper shutdowns and reboots of RAID and storage devices, the 3-2-1 backup regimen and attention to detail whenever you are moving, deleting or changing stored data. Making sure everyone is on the ball before touching your data will also help reduce the risk of data loss.

Enforce good IT security

IT security comes in many forms. You will obviously need a good hardware firewall to protect your network and a good antivirus solution to keep malicious code out. Good IT security also includes responsible behavior from staff, sensible internet use, good email hygiene and awareness of risk.

Even if you implement a RAID 5, 6 or 10 solution, enforce good IT practice and take every precaution you can think of, Murphy’s Law still applies. If something can go wrong, it will go wrong. That’s where Dave’s Computers comes in. Our RAID array data recovery service can help rebuild your data and our expertise in business IT can help stop it happening again.

Contact Dave’s Computers in New Jersey for RAID array data recovery, consultation, repair and anything IT. We can help!