Is online storage of TMs confidential?
Thread poster: Astrid Elke Witte
Astrid Elke Witte
Astrid Elke Witte  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:28
Member (2002)
German to English
+ ...
Jun 15, 2005

I wondered if anyone has any experience of subscribing to an online storage service for storing TMs, so that they can be retrieved from that site in the event of a full computer crash/virus, etc.?

I am beginning to build up substantial TMs, and would not like to entirely lose them if anything went wrong with my computer. At the moment I have no possibility to save anything on storage media, except on a floppy. I bought some CDs to save TMs and other documents on, but it would not
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I wondered if anyone has any experience of subscribing to an online storage service for storing TMs, so that they can be retrieved from that site in the event of a full computer crash/virus, etc.?

I am beginning to build up substantial TMs, and would not like to entirely lose them if anything went wrong with my computer. At the moment I have no possibility to save anything on storage media, except on a floppy. I bought some CDs to save TMs and other documents on, but it would not work. Now I find out that these CD-Rs are "read only" in any case, and also that some sort of burning tool is required. I have found out that other things exist, such as Zip diskettes, but they need a special drive, which I do not have.

Next, I found out that online storage services exist, and I would be happy to subscribe to one, in order to back up everything on my computer online. However, the only concern remaining now is whether my documents and TMs would definitely be confidentiality-protected if I were to do this. I work mostly for lawyers, and cannot take any risks with regard to confidentiality. Does anyone have any experience in this regard?

Astrid
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Marc P (X)
Marc P (X)  Identity Verified
Local time: 21:28
German to English
+ ...
Is online storage of TMs confidential? Jun 15, 2005

New CD-RW drives can be had for about 20 euro.

Marc


 
Ken Cox
Ken Cox  Identity Verified
Local time: 21:28
German to English
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Agree with Marc Jun 15, 2005

As a general comment, it's hard enough to guarantee the security of your own computer if you're online, and if you use someone else's computer (online storage service) you can only take their word for the security they provide. The other issue is how long they will be around; 5 years (or less) is probably a good bet for a small startup company.

Just about any decent CD-RW drive should come with a 'Light' version of a CD burning program, which should be fully adequate for your purpos
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As a general comment, it's hard enough to guarantee the security of your own computer if you're online, and if you use someone else's computer (online storage service) you can only take their word for the security they provide. The other issue is how long they will be around; 5 years (or less) is probably a good bet for a small startup company.

Just about any decent CD-RW drive should come with a 'Light' version of a CD burning program, which should be fully adequate for your purposes. If you don't feel up to installing an internal drive and you don't know any friendly nerds, you can spend a bit more for an external drive. Look for one with a USB 2.0 interface (or FireWire if your computer has a FireWire port).
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Astrid Elke Witte
Astrid Elke Witte  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:28
Member (2002)
German to English
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TOPIC STARTER
External drive Jun 15, 2005

Thanks very much for the information, Kenneth, but what is an external drive? What does one look like, and will there definitely be somewhere on the computer to plug it into (given that the computer is under a year old)?

Astrid


 
Piotr Sawiec
Piotr Sawiec  Identity Verified
Local time: 21:28
English to Polish
+ ...
external drives Jun 15, 2005

Hello

Normally what you have in your computer (like hard discs, CD drives) are hidden inside and connected to appropriate slots in the mainboard. However, you can use external drives that act in an identical manner but are not hidden inside the case but can be removed and carried wherever you wish. Usually you connect them to the computer via a USB port (one year old computer surely has USB 2.0). USB ports are these narrow slots, usually in the back of the case but in many cases als
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Hello

Normally what you have in your computer (like hard discs, CD drives) are hidden inside and connected to appropriate slots in the mainboard. However, you can use external drives that act in an identical manner but are not hidden inside the case but can be removed and carried wherever you wish. Usually you connect them to the computer via a USB port (one year old computer surely has USB 2.0). USB ports are these narrow slots, usually in the back of the case but in many cases also in the front or sides of the case for easier access. I bet that your mouse or printer connect to the computer via such ports.

So what to do? Buy a drive, it virtually always comes with software , and if not, there are some freeware programmes that will work well. And every couple of days make a copy of your important documents, including TMs. The CD-burning software is quite user friendly. Even a better solution would be buying a DVD drive, which has much greater capacity. In fact you should do it with all your vital files, because if you lose the hard disc, you will lose all data.

good luck

Piotr
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Sonja Tomaskovic (X)
Sonja Tomaskovic (X)  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:28
English to German
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USB ports Jun 16, 2005

Hi,

if you don't know if your PC has a USB port, here is what you have to look for:

http://www.hardware-bastelkiste.de/pict/logo/icon_usb.gif

Look if your computer has a port with that sign on.

HTH.

Sonja

[Edited at 2005-06-16 07:06]


 
Astrid Elke Witte
Astrid Elke Witte  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:28
Member (2002)
German to English
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TOPIC STARTER
DVD drive Jun 16, 2005

The computer has two drives that seem to be in place of the former CD-ROM drive, however they seem to be designed to take CD discs. They are labelled "DVD-ROM" and "DVD R/RW, RW, Compact Disc", but I don't know what to put in or how to make them work like normal diskettes to store information. I went back to the shop after I bought the computer and had a normal diskette drive put in as well, but I don't think that is going to be a lot of use for saving copies of large TMs".

The on
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The computer has two drives that seem to be in place of the former CD-ROM drive, however they seem to be designed to take CD discs. They are labelled "DVD-ROM" and "DVD R/RW, RW, Compact Disc", but I don't know what to put in or how to make them work like normal diskettes to store information. I went back to the shop after I bought the computer and had a normal diskette drive put in as well, but I don't think that is going to be a lot of use for saving copies of large TMs".

The only thing I bought so far was some CDs labelled "CD-R" and they don't work at all - I can't even find out the right drive letter in order to persuade the computer to put anything onto them - but now I also found out that it seems data can only be put onto them and not retrieved from them again.

Is there a way to use the existing drives - and with what?
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Williamson
Williamson  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:28
Flemish to English
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Nero burning Jun 16, 2005

That piece of software to burn Cds is not that exceptional. You can download a trial-version at http://www.nero.com/eng/nero-prog.php

 
Ken Cox
Ken Cox  Identity Verified
Local time: 21:28
German to English
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Using a DVD drive Jun 16, 2005

If you have a drive labelled 'DVD-ROM...' as you say, it should be able to write CDs as well as DVDs (my computer has a DVD-ROM / RWcombo drive, and it works fine for writing CDs.) As Piotr suggested, you can put a lot more data on a DVD than on a CD, and the prices of writable DVDs have dropped to an affordable level. You should check the documentation of your drive to find out which format(s) it supports and buy suitable DVD-R disks for it.

Since it sounds like you're a good cust
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If you have a drive labelled 'DVD-ROM...' as you say, it should be able to write CDs as well as DVDs (my computer has a DVD-ROM / RWcombo drive, and it works fine for writing CDs.) As Piotr suggested, you can put a lot more data on a DVD than on a CD, and the prices of writable DVDs have dropped to an affordable level. You should check the documentation of your drive to find out which format(s) it supports and buy suitable DVD-R disks for it.

Since it sounds like you're a good customer of your computer shop, maybe you can find someone there who can help explain how to use the drive and the writing software.

The -R of CD-R means 'recordable'. That means you can write data to it, but you can't erase any data that has already been written to the disc (for that you need a 'RW' disc). Discs that only support writing data but not retrieving it would of course be practically useless (they exist only as jokes among IT types).
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Astrid Elke Witte
Astrid Elke Witte  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:28
Member (2002)
German to English
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TOPIC STARTER
Thanks for the info Jun 16, 2005

Hi Kenneth,

Thanks for the info, and the explanation about CD-R and CD-RW. I had misunderstood about the CD-R and thought that the data could be viewed on the computer again, if taken off the CD-R, but not changed, which would not be very practical for a TM.

I think I am slightly better informed now, and will see if I can succeed in backing up my data.

Astrid


 
Astrid Elke Witte
Astrid Elke Witte  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:28
Member (2002)
German to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
No access to F drive Jun 16, 2005

I finally nearly got it working (right type of disks in right drive), but now my computer says that I am not authorised to use the F: drive and I should contact my administrator for access. However, I am already logged on as the administrator. Is there any way to overcome this little hitch?

Astrid


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 21:28
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Double zip it with password Jun 17, 2005

Astrid Elke Johnson wrote:
I found out that online storage services exist, and I would be happy to subscribe to one, in order to back up everything on my computer online. However, the only concern remaining now is whether my documents and TMs would definitely be confidentiality-protected if I were to do this.


Zip the documents using a password. The zip password is virtually uncrackable unless the contents of at least one of the files in the zip file is known. If you're concerned that the file names might give hackers a clue as to what the file contains, zip up the zip file into a second zip file, also with a password (some zip utilities might refuse to zip a zipped file... if that happens, simply copy the first zip file into a folder and then zip the folder). Don't forget the password (you can use the same password on all files).


 
jas_tech06
jas_tech06
English to Malayalam
online storage form IBackup Apr 18, 2006

I understand your concern for security of your stored data in the online backup space and for this reason would like to recommend this online storage service - IBackup (http://www.ibackup.com). The data stored in IBackup servers are compressed in zip format and then encrypted with a unique key which is known only to you. Only you can decrypt this data and not even IBackup personal have any access to this unique ... See more
I understand your concern for security of your stored data in the online backup space and for this reason would like to recommend this online storage service - IBackup (http://www.ibackup.com). The data stored in IBackup servers are compressed in zip format and then encrypted with a unique key which is known only to you. Only you can decrypt this data and not even IBackup personal have any access to this unique key. The data transferred from your local computer to IBackup is also encrypted while the transfer is in progress using SSL encryption. These features make this service highly secure for critical data.Collapse


 


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Is online storage of TMs confidential?






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