How To Safeguard Your Business Data The Easy Way More about that in just a moment...its time to cover a few other items before we get to the main topic.
Maintenance Tidbit: Do you actually know what's running on your PC? Does you PC seem likes its running slower than a snail when you clobber the Enter key? If so, take a look down at all the icons in the right-hand portion of your taskbar.
Most of us have our favorite little programs/utilities that we have loaded every time our PC starts up. They are commonly called TSRs or Terminal and Stay Resident programs.
They run "ever so often" to perform something for you - just like clockwork without any manual intervention from you - convenience as its finest! However that is where the dangers lurk taking up valuable CPU cycles AND memory.
How can you tell... Just fire up your fine friend - Task Manager. On a Windows XP machine, pressing "Cntl + Alt + Delete" keys at the same time will display your task manager. Just press those keys down one time because if you repeat that keystroke sequence too quickly, you will reboot your machine and stand a great chance of losing important business data.
The main windows you should check are Applications, Processes and Performance.
Applications shows you just exactly that - what applications are executing on your PC and the icon/name for each should be showing in the center portion of your taskbar.
Processes is a bit more complicated as the process name is normally different than the application name but you can click 2-times on the CPU heading to sort the processes by the amount of CPU they are using at that moment (from the most to least amount of CPU).
The Performance window will show graphical images of the CPU and Memory Usage along with CPU and Memory Usage History. That same window will show you how your physical and kernel memory are being used along with System handles, threads, processes, up-time and page file usage.
At the bottom of each window, the number of Processes, CPU Usage (percentage) and Physical Memory used at that time and is real-time updated every second or so.
So beware of the amount of CPU your Windows Task Manager itself uses! Combine the usage of TSRs and Windows Task Manager will use a large percentage of your CPU and physical memory.
Recommendation: If you don't use a TSR program that often, don't have it started up each time your computer is started - save that memory and CPU for what you want your PC to do for you!
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If you have something you really like regarding maintenance of your PC or any of the other items attached to it, please submit your favorite tip and we will include a link to your webpage; here's our contact info.
QUOTE: If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience Woodrow Wilson
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GOFER's Rant - Tame That Monster! Last time, we should have hit a raw nerve with our comments about what's next after trust. You can review it right here to catch up with where we're going next.
Ok, now that you have reviewed the last rant, let's take up your silly reasons for not taming that monster you use so many times a day but fear like it contains anthrax or something similar?
That simple little device - your telephone! Learn to use it to contact your team members. Be a good listener AND take notes about your conversations with them. Those little tidbits of info will pay off in spades (money) later as you get your team to trust you more and more...there we go back to that trust issue again!
What are your excuses... I don't know what to say or other excuses - they are not reasons. How do we know that? Its rather simple actually...we've been there, done that with all the same excuses, fears and knee-knocking terror you are facing right now.
Its so easy to get a conversation going with someone. You were born with twice as many ears as you have only one tongue! Maybe there's a master plan as to why?
Only thing you have to do is think positive. Remember this is YOUR business you are trying to build on the internet, so treat it like a business! Be proud of what you are doing! If not, delete all your accounts within your online business endeavors and go watch TV 'cause you'll never make it online.
Sure there are people who try to fill you full of crap about how they never talk with anyone and are making tons of money on the Net. Beware, these are the wolves in sheep's clothing!
Featured Article:Backing Up Your Business Data In our previous issue, we showed you more of the exact coding for your cleanxp.bat file including Cleanmgr and its wierdly-named options sageset and sagerun as shown below:
echo "running clean mgr" @echo off :: cleanmgr /sagerun:99 :: The above line assumes you've previously run a "cleanmgr /sageset:99" command.
Now let's get on with the important task of creating your business data backups! First of all, you need to decide exactly which folders you want to have backed up - stop and think about this very carefully - taking a few minutes here to determine just where your business data and other important files are located. This can save you much heartache later.
This first part of the coding for your business data backup may look a bit strange but you only need to backup any data that has changed once you have an initial backup which we schedule on the 1st day of every month. BTW, you can start executing this script on any day of the month. All the data in the folders you specify will be backed up with an incremental code portion executing (its backed up nothing - so it will backup every file in the folder(s) specified. Anyway, that's the purpose of the coding to check what day of the month it is.
Here's the code for determining the day of the month: :: :: get day of month - see which backup to run (incremental or full) :: for /F "tokens=1-4 delims=/ " %%i in ('date /t') do ( set DayOfWeek=%%i set Month=%%j set Day=%%k set Year=%%l set Date=%%i %%k/%%j/%%l ) echo %Day% ::
If you would like a technical explanation of the above coding, here's our contact info. We will send you the explanation. The important thing is it always knows and displays the day of the month as 2-numbers such as 01 for 1st day of the month or 29 for the 29th day of the month.
NOTE: You will be using the month, year and date parms specified above. You could insert the following command to display Date:
echo %Date%
If it was 11/29/2007, it would display:
Thu 29/11/2007
Bear with us for further explanation.
Next we see if the value returned by %Day% is equal to 01 and branch to the appropriate set of instructions based on that comparison.
if %Day%==01 goto bizfbkup @echo off ::
If it is the 1st day of the month, we branch to the set of backup instructions called bizfbkup (for full backup) otherwise we go to the next set of instructions to only backup files that have changed since the last backup was created - ntbackup is that powerful!
::Incremental backup - every day except 1st day of month :: :bdlybkup echo "doing biz daily incremental backup" @echo off :: :: must execute ntbackup to create backup set; the string :: below is copied from the backup set (homebiz_bkup.bks) :: C:WINDOWSsystem32 tbackup.exe backup "@C:Documents and SettingsUserLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWindows NTNTBackupdatahomebiz_bkup.bks" /a /d "Set created 9/10/2005 at 8:37 PM" /v:yes /r:no /rs:no /hc:off /m incremental /j "homebiz_bkup" /l:s /f "F:BackupsHomeBizhomebiz_bkup.bkf" :: echo "daily biz backup saved as F:BackupsHomeBizhomebiz_bkup.bkf" @echo off goto bizend ::
We'll explain more about the above coding in the next issue.
NOTE: We have taken what Fred Langa offered a few years ago and made multiple modifications based on our experiences of doing full/incremental backups along with restores of complete partitions and or single/multiple files. This backup and restore script will work for your Windows XP PC once you have changed the backup drive designation and the folder names to the folders you want to backup.
Essential information about ntbackup.exe can be found by going to microsoft.com and doing a search for ntbackup.
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Next Time: Stay tuned for the next issue... we will show you how to easily create the backup set with ntbackup.exe - file name will end with .bks suffix. Then the above coding will make a lot more sense! Then its just a matter of cut & paste!
Live Training Conferences - Are You A Chicken? We think you must be a chicken or totally scared of success with your online business to not try one of our conferences listed here! Don't be such a fool! Just follow the instructions to download the conference software and we urge you to start your week by attending our Sunday General Conference at 9:30PM eastern time. Heck you never know what you might learn and or share with others...and YOU will be rewarded for attending your first conference!
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Your Homework: Read, understand and try executing your cleanxp batch job! That is the best way to learn just what each command is all about - explore and make your decisions only after careful consideration.
If you are having any trouble or don't understand something, we are available to assist you get it started the right way. Heck, we can even meet in one of our live, interactive conference rooms to make sure you fully understand what's happening and why!
DISCLAIMER for GJW Solutions LLC Members: We and The GJW LLC Solutions Family of Programs promote downline integrity. If you are a member of one of our programs then be sure to check with your sponsor and use that program's Follow-Me Directory or Downline Builder to join a new program. If you do not belong to any of our programs, then feel free to join us using this link and welcome to our team.
Communication is a wonderful tool especially when it is running on a two-way street! Think about it - then just do it! Reach out and touch your team members!
Maintenance Tidbit: REMINDER: If you have some information to share or questions regarding our "Maintenance Tidbit", please contact us right away! We will gladly spend additional time explaining something of interest and may even post your comments right here in our "Team Blog" with a link back to one of your web pages.
No Maintenance Tidbit this week - please submit your favorite tip and we will include a link to your webpage; here's our contact info.
GOFER's Rant - After Trust - What's Next? Last time, we think we should have hit home with the trust issue. If not, you can read it right here.
Ok, we are starting to build some trust with your team members in your downline of your favorite program. Both of you know what is expected for success with that program and its working so far; starting to yield your team the desired results...
Now - what's next?
This is the point where most people start getting greedy and thinking they are capable of doing anything with nothing! Last time we checked our math, nothing plus nothing is still nothing!
Avoid the temptation of not following downline integrity...as you probably know much discussion has taken place regarding this issue for several weeks recently.
We proudly support downline integrity and the Downline Integrity Brigade. We will be getting with you shortly with the complete list of DLIB member traffic exchanges. Go support them with your surfing efforts.
Hint: We will have a nice splash page for you in the very near future promoting this very important and honest way of multi-level marketing!
Its your choice but don't try to straddle the fence, you know what will get hurt!
Many thanks to Jon Olson at Hit Exchange News for publishing Rob Gehring's response regarding downline integrity. All should be educated now and ready to show their true color - no matter where it might lead you! Above all - be honest with yourself and just do something for a change!
Now, what the heck is cleanmgr, sageset and sagerun? Cleanmgr is an automated way of executing Disk Cleanup Tool in Windows XP. Cleanmgr has two primary commands: sageset and sagerun.
The nice thing about sageset you only have to execute it one time to setup its action items until you need to make some changes, additions or deletions of cleanmgr options.
The format of this command is: cleanmgr /sageset:n where n is a number from 0 to 65535.
Then to execute, the format of the sagerun command is: cleanmgr /sagerun:n where n is the number you specified with the sageset command previously executed; example: we use 99 for the value of n as shown in the format above. So we use cleanmgr /segeset:99 to setup our options for disk cleanup; then in our cleanxp.bat file we execute early every morning, we use cleanmgr /sagerun:99
Depending on the amount of data disk cleanup deletes, the first time you run your cleanxp.bat batch job, it could run for several minutes and in some cases up to 30 minutes.
Below we wanted to show you the many options for the files that you can specify for Disk Cleanup by using /sageset and /sagerun including:
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Temporary Setup Files - These are files that were created by a Setup program that is no longer running.
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Temporary Internet Files - The Temporary Internet Files folder contains Web pages that are stored on your hard disk for quick viewing. Disk Cleanup removes these page but leaves your personalized settings for Web pages intact. This option also includes a View Files button, which opens the C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5 folder.
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Old Chkdsk Files - When Chkdsk checks a disk for errors, Chkdsk might save lost file fragments as files in the root folder on the disk. These files are unnecessary.
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Recycle Bin - The Recycle Bin contains files that you have deleted from the computer. These files are not permanently removed until you empty the Recycle Bin. This option includes a View Files button that opens the Recycle Bin.
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Temporary Files - Programs sometimes store temporary information in a Temp folder. Before a program quits, the program usually deletes this information. You can safely delete temporary files that have not been modified within the last week.
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Temporary Offline Files - Temporary offline files are local copies of recently used network files. These files are automatically cached so that you can use them after you disconnect from the network. A View Files button opens the Offline Files folder.
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Offline Files - Offline files are local copies of network files that you specifically want to have available offline so that you can use them after you disconnect from the network. A View Files button opens the Offline Files folder.
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Compress Old Files - Windows can compress files that you have not used recently. Compressing files saves disk space, but you can still use the files. No files are deleted. Because files are compressed at different rates, the displayed amount of disk space that you will gain is approximate. An Options button permits you to specify the number of days to wait before Disk Cleanup compresses an unused file.
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Catalog Files for the Content Indexer - The Indexing service speeds up and improves file searches by maintaining an index of the files that are on the disk. These Catalog files remain from a previous indexing operation and can be deleted safely.
NOTE: If you specify cleaning up the drive that contains the Windows installation, all of these options are available on the Disk Cleanup tab. If you specify any other drive, only the Recycle Bin and the Catalog files for content index options are available on the Disk Cleanup tab.
The More Options tab contains options for cleaning up Windows components or installed programs.
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The Windows Components option creates free space by removing optional Windows components that you do not use. Clicking Clean Up starts the Windows Components Wizard.
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The Installed Programs option frees more disk space by removing programs that you do not use. Clicking Clean Up starts the Change or Remove Programs option in the Add/Remove Programs tool. CAUTION: Be careful when specifying this option as it is NOT automated and you can delete some program you really didn't want to get rid of!
The only options we use on the sageset command are shown above in the same color as the text in this sentence.
Next Time: Stay tuned for the next issue... we will show you how to easily backup data files which are so critical to your business along with the other important data you may have in your "My Documents" folder. Protect yourself! We forgot about the cleanmgr command we have in our cleanxp batch job or we would have covered data file backups this issue.
Live Training Conferences - Are You A Chicken? We think you must be a chicken or scaredy-cat to try one of our conferences listed here! Don't be such a fool! Just follow the instructions to download the conference software and we urge you to start your week by attending our Sunday General Conference at 9:30PM eastern time. Heck you never know what you might learn and or share with others...and YOU could win a great prize as well!
Your Homework: Read, understand and execute your cleanxp batch job to use some of the different options of the sageset and sagerun commands. That is the best way to learn just what each option is all about - explore and make your decisions only after careful consideration.
If you are having any trouble or don't understand something, we are available to assist you get it started the right way. Heck, we can even meet in one of our live, interactive conference rooms to make sure you fully understand what's happening and why!
DISCLAIMER for GJW Solutions LLC Members: We and The GJW LLC Solutions Family of Programs promote downline integrity. If you are a member of one of our programs then be sure to check with your sponsor and use that program's Follow-Me Directory or Downline Builder to join a new program. If you do not belong to any of our programs, then feel free to join us using this link and welcome to our team.
Communication is a wonderful tool especially when it is running on a two-way street! Think about it - then just do it! Reach out and touch your team members!
Maintenance Tidbit: Last time, we mentioned using Windows Explorer and doing a search on your computer for "*.tmp" files. If this is the first time you have ran this, bet you had a huge list of files and some were actually several meg in size! Our featured article will continue to add more directories and files for your cleanxp batch job along with some explanations as needed.
NOTE: If you have some information to share or questions regarding our "Maintenance Tidbit", please contact us right away! We will gladly spend additional time explaining something of interest and may even post your comments right here in our "Team Blog" with a link back to one of your web pages.
This issue our tidbit will save you hours of frustration and heartache as you get back to the basics regarding cables and connectors attached to your computer. The best way to explain this is by example yours truly went through just last week. The scenario goes like this:
All of sudden after a daily reboot of one of our computers, the first thing we noticed was there was no networks or connections showing in our Network folder! The first thought was that a virus had struck and wiped out our entries. So we did a complete virus scan again and found nothing more than some tracking cookies which were no real threat. Next we checked our Windows Update history just to make sure of what had been installed during the reboot process. It showed an update to our video and network controller program; so we thought that was the issue. We backed out the changes thanks to a good restore point being created before the updates were applied.
Still had the problem...next we thought we should make sure we had the latest driver updates from the vendor. Using another computer, we downloaded those files and copied to a shared external drive. Using the "no network" computer, we updated its video and network drivers and rebooted again (probably for the what seemed like the 200th time)! Still no network connections showing and no connection even to our router??? After verifying the drivers were installed correctly and still no network connections, we thoughts what the heck, lets make sure all the connections and cables were OK. We checked all those and they all were tight and nothing loose anywhere.
Then a "lightbulb" moment came over me. Why not try using the cable from the router to the other computer on this computer and seeing if it will work? Sure enough, the switch was made and after another reboot, wallah - we had a connection to our router and to the outside world!
Just goes to show you, don't always expect the worse, just make it a habit to check your cables monthly visually making sure they look OK and are securely plugged in where they're supposed to be! Also, if a problem arises, follow the same principle, look for the simple stuff first before thinking the worst! It will save you untold amounts of frustration and time.
GOFER's Rant-Why No Trust? WOW - make sure you have read our last rant - it should have hit home right in the gut like a ton of bricks!
Trust - such a powerful word! According to Dictionary.com one of the meanings of trust is: to rely upon or place confidence in someone.
That's a pretty bold statement in itself! But have you lost trust in everything related to online business? Here's how you take care of that issue...
If someone has been communicating with you and showing you results of what they are accomplishing, why are you such a doubter? You have got to communicate with each other and in doing so, you build that trust. That is what online business is all about for us - relationship building.
So get off your butt and start building relationships and be honest with people! That's what you would like in return - correct? So just go do it right now!!!
Featured Article:Getting Rid of Junk and Temporary Files In our last issue, we started showing you the exact coding for your cleanxp.bat file. Here's a piece of that code to delete all temp files from your Local Settings\Temp folder (without the comments): cd "C:Documents and Settings\[username]\Local Settings\Temp" del /p /s /f *.*
Refer to our last issue if you need to review this coding. By the way...we left out the back slashes ("\") in that last issue - sorry!
Another folder where lots of temp files with a different suffix or extension is located is your Windows\prefetch folder. Here's the coding and comments to delete those pesky little worthless files. Notice the suffix is ".pf" :
:: change to next folder where you want to delete files cd "C:\windows\prefetch" :: del /q /s /f *.pf :: :: For each additional folder/directory you wish to clean out, repeat the above pattern: :: Add a CD "FULL PATH TO FOLDER WITH FILES TO DELETE" followed by the :: DEL command (as shown above).
That's all there is to getting rid of trash and temporary files you don't need cluttering up your hard drive nor affecting your computer performance!
Once you read and understand what's happening, it becomes such a simple process AND make it a habit!
Live Training Conferences -Do You Give A Dang? We dare you to try one of our conferences listed here! Just follow the instructions to download the conference software and we urge you to start your week by attending our Sunday General Conference at 9:30PM eastern time. Heck you never know what you might learn and or share with others...and YOU could win a great prize as well!
Your Homework: Read, understand and execute your cleanxp batch job to get rid of a lot of the tmp and and pf files that have accumulated on your computer.
If you are having any trouble or don't understand something, we are available to assist you get it started the right way. Heck, we can even meet in one of our live, interactive conference rooms to make sure you fully understand what's happening and why!
DISCLAIMER for GJW Solutions LLC Members: We and The GJW LLC Solutions Family of Programs promote downline integrity. If you are a member of one of our programs then be sure to check with your sponsor and use that program's Follow-Me Directory or Downline Builder to join a new program. If you do not belong to any of our programs, then feel free to join us using this link and welcome to our team.