If you maintain an online presence, data protection is something that you cannot afford to ignore. There are many people who might want to take a look at your system or even install malicious bots and software on your computer. In the interests of protecting yourself and your business, you must have some information on the concept of basic data protection.

The first question is to consider who might be interested in your data. The answer is more people than you think! The people who are looking for data are doing it for a wide variety of reasons. Most commonly, you’ll be dealing with adware and spyware, which are devices that will attach themselves to your computer and keep track of your traffic. Adware especially can get very aggressive and actually set your browser to hit websites that you would not otherwise have gone to, all in the interest of getting you to look at advertising for their services.

The thing to remember is that the more connected to the outside world you are, the higher your level of risk. One way to think about this is that when you touch the world, it touches you back. A single computer that is not connected to anything but a power cord is the very lowest risk. When you put that computer into a network, it is exposed to every other computer on that network in terms of sharing information. When you put that system on the internet, your connectivity has gone up and your data protection should as well! There are many ways to protect your system, and whether you are a small business or an end user who has a strong web presence, there are things that you should look at.

Firewalls are devices that are meant to protect your system from outside threats. While they are not perfect, they can prevent things like viruses, protect you from security loopholes. There are free firewalls that you can download from the internet, or you can purchase one at any store that sells computer equipment. Having a router can also serve as having a firewall, but this is something that you want to check the router for when you purchase it. Programs like Adaware and Spybot Search and Destroy are free programs that can help you deal with spyware and adware issues.

You can also get better data protection by making sure that access to your system is limited. Most practically, don’t give away your passwords and make sure that they are difficult to guess. While this is mostly common sense, there are a few things to keep in mind. Change your passwords routinely (most companies demand that their employees do so every few months) and make sure that you use a combination of numbers and letters.

Data protection is an important aspect of your work, especially if you have an online presence, so be sure to take it seriously!

By: Linda J Bruton

Far too many new and small businesses are making the horrific mistake of not only not making a data centre disaster recovery plan a priority, but in some cases neglecting data centre disaster recovery plans altogether.

There are many reasons why a company may hold this opinion of data centre disaster recovery plans; perhaps they believe that a disaster is one of those things that will never happen to them, or maybe they feel that their business does not rely that much on soft data, and that a data centre disaster recovery plan is not practical. However, no matter what the reason, developing a quality data centre disaster recovery plan is always a warranted endeavour, and here’s why:

1. Assurance: You can be sure that customer as well as employees will greatly appreciate the peace of mind they will obtain by knowing that they and their information is protected against any sort of disaster. Your customers will rest easy knowing that the company they are loyal too plans ahead and can deal with any sort of contingency and that it is prepared for any problems that may arise. Besides giving your current customers a reason to remain loyal, your data centre disaster recovery plan will be a major selling point to new clients, helping to expand your business.

2. Documentation: While a computer back up system is a staple in a data centre disaster recovery plan, excellent documentation is going to be a fringe benefit that any business will enjoy. Most systems are capable of organizing and sorting data for backups easily, which is an extremely useful feature in the case that you need to restore or refer to the original files and programs that have been, overtime, deleted or misplaced as a result of human errors.

3. File Security: With the risk of corruption being as high as it is nowadays, it is not that far fetched of a scenario of having worms or viruses wreaking havoc on a data centre. These attacks can not only slow your business to a standstill but also affect the quality of your companies output. By having a computer back up system in place, you will not need to worry as it is a simple fix to dislodge the traffic jam and restore any corrupted files, quickly allowing your business to resume as normal and keeping up with your quality of production.

4. Efficiency: Similar in concept to #3, computer backup systems help greatly in work efficiency by quickly restoring damaged or deleted files, allowing the problem to barely be detected as opposed to having major delays. Besides being able to tackle full-blown disasters, data centre disaster recovery plans are also great in sorting out minor problem, which themselves can cause significant delays in production.

5. Savings: That’s right! Investing in a data centre disaster recovery plan can save your company a lot of money. By preventing and solving problems of many different sizes from slowing down business and productivity, a data centre disaster recovery plan will amass major savings over the long term. It will also prevent a major financial loss, such as that discussed in scenario #6.

6. Worst-case Scenario: In the natural or otherwise case that a disaster strikes and destroys invaluable data, the business it devastated will be extremely happy they had online computer backups that can quickly restore all the data that they lost. For the companies without online computer backups, there will not be much going on besides a lot of wishing that they had of planned ahead and created a data disaster recovery plan. Hopefully this time after starting their business back over from scratch they will make the right decision and develop a data centre disaster recovery plan.

By: Brian I Park

Being a reviewer of online money making programs, I was a bit shocked at the discovery that Clickbank had mysteriously removed all of its data entry products without warning. I am sure that to many affiliate marketers, this unannounced removal not only was a shock, but cost this niche a whole lot of money. First understand this: Data Entry and Type at Home programs were some of the highest converting products of the Clickbank line-up. So why would Clickbank pull the plug on these lucrative products?

One theory is the change of management and vision of Clickbank itself. In the last month, Clickbank has redeveloped their website and in doing so, may have chosen to revisit the types of products they sell. But again, why would a company drop such a high money making group of products?

Another more telling tale of the whole type-at-home and D E program is it is estimated that over 25% of those who purchase the product return the product. Clickbank does offer a 60-day money back guarantee on all of their products. Getting a refund is a fairly simple thing to do. This high return rate not only hurts the revenue of the product, but type-classes the Clickbank product selection as sketchy.

So what is the problem with D E programs and why are they being classified as scams and being returned at such a high rate? Recently, I have spent a lot of time reading up on a few “Data Entry” programs (such as DataEntryBank and Type-at-Home.com) and the answer is very simple: The name is very misleading! These data entry programs are nothing more than affiliate marketing programs. These programs themselves are actually pretty good for affiliate marketing programs, but you would not tell that from their ad-copy. It describes “Just fill out a few Google Ads and make money today…” I suppose you are “entering data”, but there is a whole lot more to this to be successful. (The eBooks go into the “more”, as well, but this is not what the ad-copy told you!).

I think people go into D E programs and Type-At-Home programs with the thinking that they will just need to “type” or “enter data” and presto!, I will make money. When they finally join the program and learn that it is a lot more than that, they become frustrated or disappointed. This leads to high returns and the word “Scam” labeled all over the product.

Data Entry Programs themselves are not scams. The way they are presented is what the scam is all about. These “Type-at-home” programs can profitable, but understand that they are affiliate marketing programs, not simple data entry. If you are truly looking for “data entry” kinds of programs, Paid Surveys are one option (Survey Scout, for example). There are
also “true” data entry programs that fit the criteria of typing data in for a price (the biggest and best site for this is: Freelance Work Exchange.

At the end of the day, it is kind of a shame that these so called “data entry” and “type-at-home” programs have marketed themselves into the “Scam” stigma; not because of the quality of their product, but because of the way they represent and sell their product to the public.

By: Matthew Bredel