FrugalNoggin

Backup to the Cloud

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Data protection is a hot topic today in both Corporate and personal computer arenas. The data you place on your personal computer gets more and more valuable to you everyday as you come up with more and more ways to use your computer. The proliferation of devices to create and manipulate content only makes the data more valuable. The mobility that we have with our new laptop and tablet devices only serves to make the data more exposed.

In the past, we might have been threatened by physical theft of data if someone were to break into our house and steal our PC. Most of us probably thought the PC was worth more than the data on it back then. Now that we’re using our PC’s for personal banking and finance, as the repository for our family photos and videos and the hub for our media collections, the content on these devices is becoming quite valuable and irreplaceable.

A 2007 study revealed that hard drive failures may reach as high as 13% in certain circumstances. While third party data recovery services exist that might be able to recover your data in the event of a hard drive crash, these services are not inexpensive. These services could cost over $1,000 per use with no guarantee of what will be recovered. Other loss vectors, such as theft, virus, or operator error are obviously not going to be helped via a third party disk recovery service such as this.

External hard drives have been the most common solution so far for this problem. This presents a minor annoyance of yet another piece of hardware to drag around and potentially break and yet another point for data to be stolen. The latest solution is Cloud Based Backup. These services use Cloud Computing, ie computing on the internet, to backup your data securely using your internet connection. You load a piece of software on your PC, identify which files you want backed up, and each night the software will backup any changed files to the Cloud. The programs use an encrypted SSL connection while copying the files, so the communications channel is secure, and they are stored in an encrypted fashion on the remote server, so they are meaningless to anyone else.

I’ve been using a program called Mozy Home Free, which allows for 2GB of data to be backed up at no charge. The paid model starts a $5.99/month for 50GB. They have versions of their client for Windows and Mac, both of which are pretty easy to use. I just checked off which files I wanted to backup, and every night they are being backed up. Mozy has a simple restore wizard when you need to recover a file as well.

Another well known player in this space is Carbonite. They’re running a lot of ads on TV lately, and although they don’t have a completely free tier of service, they do offer a 2 week free trial.

Related articles

• Do You Need to use an Online Backup Service? (lockergnome.com)
• Carbonite launches flat-rate online backup for small businesses (infoworld.com)
• LaCie offers hybrid cloud storage service (infoworld.com)

New Light Bulb Requirements

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Back in 2007, congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. One of the sections of that bill concerned the efficiency of  “General service incandescent light bulbs“. The efficiency guidelines of this section are due to start phasing in in 2012.

In 2012, the existing standard 100watt light bulb must somehow be 30% more efficient in order to comply with this act. The act doesn’t really say anything else about the 100watt light bulb. Some people have implied that the 100watt incandescent lamp will be banned from the stores and we’ll all be somehow “forced” to migrate to CFL (Compact Fluorescent) or some other type of more costly and/or less desirable light form. While you certainly COULD switch, the bill only mandates that manufacturers create more efficient lamps.

In 2013, the 75 watt bulb will follow suit, and in 2014 so will the 60 and 40 watt bulb. If you feel like reading the bill, click on the link above and find Title 3. There are a whole raft of lamp types that are exempt from this act, including three-way bulbs, colored bulbs, bulbs less than 40watts, “plant lights” and many more. The bill is targeted at improving the energy efficiency of the typical home lighting bulb, which is reported to account for some 22% of US electrical energy generating capacity per year. Improving energy efficiency of these light bulbs is expected to have profound impact on the requirements for electricity generation and the consequent creation of pollutants, according to government sources.

Today’s 100watt incandescent bulb is pretty inefficient as a light source. Only 2.6% of the power provided to the bulb  actually produces visible light, the rest is lost to heat and ultraviolet radiation. The light output is measured in “lumens” and the typical 100watt bulb produces 17.5 lumens/watt. Newer Halogen lamps encased in traditional screw-base sockets would allow a direct replacement of a Halogen lamp for an incandescent lamp. (You might be familiar with tubular Halogen lamps from “torch” lights or some desk lamps.) These Halogen lamps have an efficiency of 3.5% and produce 24 lumen/watt, so such a lamp already meets the new federal guidelines for a 100watt lamp (same lumen output  at 30% less energy). You should be able to find these type lamps at your home center today under such brand names as Halogen SuperSaver.

So light bulbs aren’t “banned”, they just need to be more efficient. What’s not to like about that?

Related articles

• Phase Out of Incandescents Inspires Hoarding (livingworkinggreen.wordpress.com)
• It has come to this (thedaleygator.wordpress.com)
• FTC Materials Will Help Shoppers Understand New Light Bulb Labels Coming in 2012 (ftc.gov)

Penny Auctions – Big savings???

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A penny auction is an auction where bidders pay-per-bid for an item, but unlike an auction at a site you may be used to  like e-bay, every time a bid is placed, the end time of the auction is extended. The auction is not won until the clock hits zero, meaning no one placed a bid during the time that was added after the last bid (hopefully your bid). How much time gets added varies per site, so make sure you understand how this works if you decide to engage in this activity.

1. You must pre-pay for your bids. Unlike sites such as e-bay where you pay when (and if) you win, at penny auction sites you buy “paks” of bids up front, usually 100 at a time.
2. Despite being called “penny auctions” the bids cost more than a penny. Typically the bids cost more like $0.40-$0.60 each. That 100 bid pak I just mentioned can cost $60.00. That’s your minimum entry into the world of penny auctions.
3. Those bids you just purchased have an expiration date. You must use them within a certain period as defined by the auction site or they expire and you have to purchase new ones.
4. The price of the item may indeed start at 1 penny (or a nickel or a dime) and increase per bid in those increments, but you are using bid units you paid $0.60 to bid up the price. Don’t lose track of that.
5. You pay for every bid you place even if you don’t win the auction, not just the final one. If you place 20 bids, that cost you $12.00.
6. Your “final price” is the closing price of the auction plus the total price of all of your bids plus shipping. So if you were bidding on an item that “sold” for $10 and you placed 20 bids and there is $5.00 shipping, your final price is $10.00 for the closing price plus the $12.00 you spent on bids plus $5.00 in shipping = $27.00. Good deal on an Apple iPad, not so good for a $15.00 Home Depot gift card.
7. If you don’t win, you still pay for any bids you placed while trying to win. See what options the site you are using has for applying those bids to “buying” the item.
8. Be careful of the automated “bid robot”. On e-bay or similar sites, the bid robot is mostly harmless as you can set an upper bound on what you are willing to spend and it will place free bids for you up to that limit. On these sites, every bid costs you money, so letting the bid robot “bid up” the competition is only costing you money and extending the auction. Understand what you’re getting into and read some strategy guides before going after the big ticket items.
9. There usually are no refunds on unused bids. If you wanted to bid on a camera for example, and you won the camera you wanted the first time out then had $40.00 of bids left but nothing else interested you. There’s usually no refunds on your unused bids, so you’d just have to add the $40.00 to the cost of your camera and hope it was still a good deal or hope something did catch your eye before your bids expired (6 months usually).
10. Sites may place limits on how often you can win in a given time period. Know the rules for the particular site you are using.

[This] isn’t your basic online auction model.  It’s a unique, fun, exciting way to take the traditional auction model that’s been around for 100’s of years and spice it up a bit.

Penny auctions might be fun, you might score some deals, but get educated and don’t go in with more than you can afford to lose. Hmm, I’ve heard casinos described the exact same way.

Related articles

• The Tech-pert: Are Penny Auction Sites Worth the Price? (savings.com)
• Penny Auctions Strategies (hotauctionsonline.wordpress.com)
• How To Win at QuiBids Auctions – Which Might Just Mean Stay Away (businessinsider.com)