So with a major power outage in full swing, we gathered around a big patio table at a restaurant on Baldwin St. with its gas grill, and servers crafty enough to use the ancient art of "arithmetic" to figure out the tab. As the night arrived, there was virtually no cell phone service, nor any of the noise that typically makes the city, well... the city. Curiously, no one had much cash (ever notice how much we rely on Credit and Debit Cards?), but that didn't stop us from enjoying the dark summer night in a sea of candle light.

The power outage also did something pretty miraculous - it let the stars come out. With a nearly full moon, Mars off to one side, comets, and a full galaxy over head, this is the first time anyone in the city can remember seeing the nights sky... ever.

This week we have a few articles that keep in step with the "what happens when the power goes out" theme. To start with, Mike has an excellent Guide about Hard Drive Data Recovery. In his case it was accidentally formatting the wrong partition, but it could be just as useful if the power blackout corrupted your HDD. Preventing this kind of damage is what Uninterruptable Power Supplies (UPS) are good for, and so we also have a review of a 800VA UPS from Belkin which is good for about 45 min of use. And finally, we have a slightly more advanced guide dealing with VPNs and Internet connection security measures. The information in this Guide goes along with our Remote Access Guide, but is slightly more advanced in nature as Virtual Private Networks are a little more complicated.

Beginners Guides: Hard Drive Data Recovery

If you've been using computers for a decent amount of time there is a good chance someone has told you that data stored on a hard drive is not exactly safe. I'm here to assure you that this is indeed true. Never mind the fact that unlike tapes or CDs or other methods of storage, hard drives are mechanical, active devices and are thus subject to comparatively rapid breakdown. No, the real threat to hard drives are the people that use them, by which I mean you and me. Hard drives, being the dynamic storage devices that they are, are extremely easy to erase in any number of amusing and simple to achieve ways. Working as a computer tech during the glory days of Windows 98, you get rather used to using FDISK and other hard drive utilities to prepare and repair customer's drives, which leads to a certain over confidence. That attitude can lead straight to disaster... and in this case I restarted WinXP and waited for it to boot, and waited... and waited... Oops.

Belkin Universal UPS 800VA Review

Advanced Guides: VPNs and Internet Connection Security

Keep a velvet rope around your data as it travels through the vastness of the internet
The Internet can be a dangerous place for your information. Sure, you are only one of hundreds of millions of users online at any given time, so why would your particular data be in any danger? Well, why not? Take this analogy for example. I could leave the windows open in my house when I leave for work every day, and for years nothing could happen. One day though, someone may choose to enter through that open window and I might just get burned. Nice analogy, that windows idea actually... given the easy availability of freeware software that can capture internet bound traffic on both wired and wireless networks, the idea that someone may at this very moment be sniffing around your Windows installation to see what they can get is not as remote as we'd all like to think.This article is intended to deal with creating Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to connect a home network with the outside world. In the course of this slightly more advanced PCstats guide we will discuss the nature of VPNs, the dangers of the Internet, and the encryption methods involved in securing yourself from them. At it's simplest, a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, is an extension of a given private network (say your home network) that uses public network space (the internet) to allow remote users or networks to connect. A VPN incorporates two features, encryption and tunneling, to ensure that the data is delivered safely and privately across the public space. Continue -- Click Here>>