Carbonite is Great for Multiple Computers

I probably should be getting a kickback from Carbonite since I talk about it so much, but I pay for it just like everyone should.

Because I teach computer science classes at Austin Community College, I get a ton of computer-related questions from friends as well as people I barely know. Today, it happened on the trail where I walk. I ran into my friend Ron who I hadn't seen in about a year. He's a retired chaplain with homes in Hawaii, Colorado, and Texas. He'd just arrived here in Texas from Hawaii last week and was having problems reading a flash disk he brought with him. He said he had all his data on the flash disk, including documents and photos. He was especially concerned about a tax form he needs before he goes back to Hawaii where his desktop computer is.

The problem is his laptop says the flash disk is bad and must be reformatted. He knows that a reformat will cause all the data to be lost. He said he'd talked to the computer club here and tried the flash disk on other computers, but nothing has worked. Some there was some talk about a recovery software package, but it didn't sound hopeful.

I suggested he find someone in Hawaii to access his desktop computer and send the files to him here, but he'd already thought of that. The only friend there who could do that for him is in the hospital.

Since I couldn't think of anything else to do, I told him about my experience with Carbonite in hopes that he could prevent this from happening again. I tried to do it in a non-critical way.

I have three computers with the online backup system Carbonite. It is so easy to use I sometimes forget it is there. The other day I wanted to move a file from my laptop computer to my desktop computer. Often, I use a flash disk to do this. Sometimes, I'll email it to myself. But on this day, the laptop was turned off, so, while sitting at my desktop computer, I logged into Carbonite.com, opened the file from my laptop and saved it on my desktop computer. Simple, huh?

When I told Ron about that, he said he'd check it out. I know it's too late for the problem he's having now and perhaps we'll find a solution for that yet, but using Carbonite is an ideal solution for transferring data from computer to another, across the country or within the same home.

For more information, click: Carbonite.

Tooting Your Own Horn 101

In yesterday's post about my experience at the book signing, my friend Jimmy Clark made this observation:

Good start Sid. I'm sure when word about your book gets out you will sell more copies. I am sure that publicity is the most important thing in selling books.

That made me think about publicity. I used to know something about it, but with the Internet, the rules have changed. CreateSpace sent out more than five-thousand press releases, but no one has been calling or writing me about review copies or books. The only activity I saw on the Internet was in the press release sites. I put an ad in the local paper about the book signing, but only a couple of people noticed it.

The profit margin on a book is small so you can't do too much advertising without losing money. So what's the answer?

I've been reading about selling on the Internet. One of the suggestions was to review books similar to your own, especially those of authors who are well known and selling. That way your name is out there and there is a link back to you. I've only done 20 reviews so far and I can already see an increase in my Internet search standing. Also, my blogs are being picked up in many places including a library in Canada, Carbonite's Facebook page, and even a German website for librarians.

Another suggestion is to do what are called virtual tours. That means I find blogs that have followers who might be interested in my book and talk to the blogger about posting a review and/or interview of me and my book. I've done some of this already and have some reviews and interviews scheduled. I need to do more.

I learned today how to check the competition. The article said to use your favorite search engine and type in link:competitor.com where competitor.com is the website for someone with a similar book. Doing so will list all websites that link to the competitor's site. The idea being to get some of those sites to link to mine as well.

I also found a place on the web where you can post articles that can be used free by bloggers and ezines needing content. Within the article, you include information about your book and links to your website.

So, there is much to be done. And these marketing techniques are necessary for books published in the traditional way or by print on demand such as mine. However, I have the advantage over traditional published books in that I can continue to market for much longer.

I Love Carbonite

I hope everyone noticed I was missing from the blogosphere last week. My hard drive finally quit. I thought the freezing up problems I’d had were due to the Texas heat, but changes to the environment didn’t help. The drive had to be replaced.
With three computers in a house of two people, one computer being in the shop shouldn’t have been cause to cancel a week of blog posts. But, it was. My notebook computer is old and slow. Besides the screen is too small for my aging eyes.
Being a computer short and having to rely on my old notebook was just the excuse I’d been looking for to buy a new notebook. Or, should I say netbook. I’m not sure what all the names are and I teach computers at Austin Community College.
While my desktop was in the shop getting a new disk drive, I bought another very small system with the CD drive separate since I only use it to load new software occasionally. It’s small, but the screen is more readable than my old one. And, it is fast. I don’t have to start Microsoft Word and go get a cup of coffee while it loads.
Laptops, notebooks, netbooks, that’s a story for another day. What I wanted to tell you today was about my experience with restoring my files. Since I have been using Carbonite for several years, everything I had on the desktop was backed up online.
When I brought the computer home from the shop, all I had to do was log in to Carbonite and tell it to restore. Thirty-six hours later my 79,000 plus files were all back into place.
Let me know if you've had experience with other online backup systems and we'll spread the word.