There are a wide variety of backup utilities, each with their own particular nuances, features and limitations. There is Windows own backup and those that come with a particular external backup drive such as Iomega, Western Digital and the like. But most have limitations as to what you can back up to, the sources you can back up from, or the format in which the backup files are stored in.

Power failures, no matter how brief, can cause calamity for any business with the near total dependence the modern office has on electrical devices. Any unsaved work on a computer will disappear, network connections will fail, database servers can lock records requiring technical support even after power is restored. For the small business support costs can exceed the cost of installing uninterruptible power supply [UPS] units even before consideration is given to work lost.

Windows users can be quite adept at what they do and the applications they do it with and still have little or no knowledge what Windows or their applications have done with the files they create. No matter how well you know the applications you use at some point you will need to know something about file management to retrieve, transfer, copy, replace, rename or backup your files.

Microsoft Office applications from older suites are not capable of working with the XML file formats offered in Microsoft Office 2007. For versions 2000 and later Microsoft offers the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack to handle Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.

This service pack for Windows XP is believed to be the last for the most popular operating system in the Windows family. The update deals mostly with security issues and compliance with Windows Server 2008, the replacement for Windows Server 2003, and is applicable to all versions of XP. Microsoft has released Windows XP SP3 to manufacturing. The CD will include all previous updates to the OS. It should be available via automatic updates some time next month.

Outgoing email delivery has come under increasing scrutiny as spammers consume grater internet resources. Recently, some of our customers have suddenly found they are unable to deliver email from their workstations. What we first suspected, and found to be correct, was that their Internet Service Provider [ISP] suddenly required authentication without giving them formal notice.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is finally being released to system builders a little more than a year after the operating system was released to the general public on January 31, 2007. Despite the longest development cycle of any Windows product Vista came to market with an intolerable level of issues. Major vendors persuaded Microsoft to issue a reversion disk to allow business customers to revert to Windows XP from Vista.

Setting up Wi-Fi for your small business or home office is a straight forward process once you have the right tools. Here we'll be expanding the local area network [LAN] in our Small Office Network article.

I got into graphic design kind of accidentally.

Basically, I'm a part of the Internet Generation. My parents are and were very tech-savvy, and my whole family shares the same view of new programs that allow you to manipulate images, sound, and other media: we go "ooh!" and treat them like new toys. So, essentially, I was brought up playing with my own digital creations, and kind of learned Photoshop and other programs like it as a matter of course.

Desktop Security is available from an array of vendors with many supplying venerable virus and firewall protection. Comparing Desktop Security Suites we found big differences in how other elements such as spam blocking and parental controls are implemented.