Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Data Recovery Training & Preparation: An Ounce of Preparation

I stumbled upon a website dedicated to training data recovery technicians and computer repair specialists called “ReclaiMe Data Recovery Training.” The best part is the training is not only very comprehensive, but totally free.

Companies who offer data recovery services would benefit from this free training by learning the latest techniques, tools and tips available. Even for beginners, the content is easy to follow, with short and digestible lessons containing videos and other materials to follow along with. I contend that all businesses with an IT department would benefit from educating their staff in the procedures and challenges covered in ReclaiMe’s training courses. Use it as a way to get your IT department engaged and prepared, as your own reference, or as a refresher course if you’ve ever endured the hassle of having to recover data from a hard drive before.


Understanding Data Recovery Will Save Your Company Money

It will inevitably happen. Your hard drives will fail and you will not be able to access your data, so if you own your own business with multiple computers, you would also benefit from the information you could learn from these free training guides if for no other reason than to avoid being swindled by some unscrupulous IT company that may try to take advantage of your naiveté and over charge you.
After all, sending out your hard drives with your sensitive company data comes with its own risks, but a data recovery company who is aware that you are more technically astute will be less likely to try to pull the wool over your eyes and charge you unfairly. Think of it as free insurance for your company data systems.


ReclaiMe Free Data Recovery Training Courses

As mentioned, besides companies that actually provide data recovery services, any business with a respectable IT department should require at least one person to “train up” with these materials. There are multiple training courses that ReclaiMe offers for free: “NAS – Network Attached Storage”, “RAID Recovery”, and “Partition Recovery”.

Each course provides data recovery videos in an informal training whiteboard/instructor setting, PDF summaries, tips provided by experts, practice exercises to reinforce the material, and even online tests with immediate results. The videos don’t waste anytime getting into the subject matter and are designed and presented as a pyramid of information where they first lay the basic foundation broadly then build upwards with more specific procedures and insights.

The experts at ReclaiMe obviously have a lot of experience and knowledge in data recovery and they present the information in the videos so it’s all easy to follow, akin to an informal TED talk.


Recommendation

Though the ReclaiMe training courses are designed primarily for data recovery technicians and computer repair specialists, many companies that rely on their internal IT departments to set up and take care of their own hardware needs would benefit from this free training. ReclaiMe’s Data Recovery Training website is an extensive and free resource for all types of different hard drive storage setups that provide valuable information and insights about how to restore vital data from failed hard drives.

Many companies never think about this until it happens then data recovery is all they think about until they recover their lost data, projects, and creative masterpieces locked mysteriously inside the corrupt hard drives. Understanding data recovery processes and techniques while picking up useful tips could save your business thousands of dollars in lost revenue or worst, in lost future business. No customer wants to hear that you lost their project and the work they paid for or you missed a critical deadline they were relying on you for because your hard drives crashed at the 11th hour.
Protecting your business and customers means you need to be prepared and be informed. For a free resource, ReclaiMe is providing a lot of information and training basically as a public service.
They obviously are in the business to sell their data recovery software, but they deserve praise for providing such comprehensive training for free. So many companies would really benefit investing some time in studying these materials and staying prepared in case of a data system failure.
It’s good business because protecting your data and understanding how to get it back in case of system failure is itself an insurance policy against potential business interruptions in the future. The only investment required is the time you need to take the courses. An ounce of prevention now could save your company thousands later.

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Movie Review: "Paddington" a must see family film, now let me digress and bash Hollywood for a moment...

One of the best movies I have seen in a long time came to me as a surprise because the previews made it seem like just another movie pandering to kids to get them to nag their parents to go see another fictional children's character come to life so the big studios could cash in on our kids, using them as agents of extortion to buy movie candy and toy merchandise.

I guess I've just become more cynical of the blockbuster Hollywood money machine.  I wonder why.  I wish Hollywood would aspire to make more films like "Paddington"...

I really admire the craft and creativity for producing so many special movies for the ages, yet I find so many in Hollywood are so undeserving of such public idolatry, especially when they say things... off script.  After all, don't they read lines, recite and repeat for a living?  Acting and making movies is hard work, yes, but so is construction and thousands of other jobs.  Like being a Navy Seal or an Airborne Ranger.  You see where I'm going with this?  I think it's great they and professional athletes make so much money and our society rewards their efforts and products through our free market system  That system our men and women in uniform serve to protect.
In case these Hollywood actors, directors and producers were wondering how they got so rich, it's call capitalism, and whether they want to admit it or not, they are capitalists.  Very successful ones at that.
I guess I'm growing tired of the fat Michael Moore / Seth Rogen types who open their mouths and say things like American Sniper Chris Kyle was a coward and watch as their benign and American-hating opinions spread across the webosphere like so much misinformed stupidity spreads like mold spores online.  Thankfully, the news their remarks generate usually not only extinguish themselves, crushed by the content's own futile idiocy, they usually receive more backlash from the public, leaving these geniuses baffled at how stupid we Americans must be to not see things from their privileged, skewed, perverted, and narrow point of view.

These same Hollywood "limousine liberals" who bash big business, Republicans and the Koch brothers don't seem to notice the hypocrisy of them earning $10 million for a few month's of "work."  These are a strange lot of conflicted souls, indeed, many of these Hollywood actors.  At least the ones who criticize corporations and espouse their narrow-minded views on politics and social issues based on the glossy Cosmopolitan headlines someone from their entourage recites to them as sources of their naive and generalized information.

All I can say is God bless Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper, they may not have intended to, but American Sniper's success came partially from them wielding the power of Hollywood against itself, much like Hollywood uses our free market capitalist system against us.  Hollywood could really use some retrospective and look itself in the mirror and admit they're a money-making business.
I can't help but admire most people who work hard for a living doing real jobs than those who claim to be working by pretending to be somebody else while in front of a recording contraption called a camera.

Wow, so this started out as a "Paddington" review, how easily I can digress when it's on my own review blog!  I can't say enough good things about this movie.

I know what you're thinking if you've read this far -- where is this guy going?!  It doesn't matter, hardly anyone reads my movie reviews peppered with my Libertarian politics anyway.

Back to "Paddington"....

Director Paul King is a master.  Every camera angle and composite shot of Paddington placed in post production in his every deserving scene is worthy of praise.  The cast is exceptional throughout.  The acting is perfect.  The little playful touches of the street side Jazz band accentuating the mood throughout is fun.  The little visual touches and lighting are perfect in every scene.

This is a movie any budding movie maker should buy, just to study the scenes, the cuts, the camera motion, the lighting, and the pace.  Paddington is full of charm and humanity without being sappy.  In many scenes, it's sometimes sweet and sarcastic at the same time.

I really think it was so well produced, so well written, that it is deserving of the best film of the year.  The special effects were so seamless, Paddington, 3D generated throughout the movie, moves effortlessly and naturally across the screen.  It's amazing only a few years after Harry Potter and Avatar how much better and realistic these 3D special effects have become.

Emma Thompson had a part in writing it, as there is a noticeable touch of the charm a la Nanny McPhee with the kids.  Hugh Bonneville, from Downton Abbey fame, is perfect in the role as the overly protective patriarch, and Sally Hawkins is the perfectly quirky wife with the big heart.

Go see Paddington with  your kids, and if you don't have kids, go see Paddington.

-  Aaron Belchamber

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Just Published: Technical Review of "Skipper ORM" for Symfony framework and Doctrine ORM

Visit my technical blog at Tools.Belchamber.us to read about my latest experience with Sensio Labs' Symfony framework, Doctrine ORM and how I used Skipper to help streamline database design, ORM definitions, and mappings for a large e-commerce site in order work more efficiently and be more productive.


Aaron Belchamber has over 20 years experience in marketing, business systems, web development and media production.  He brings practical and creative solutions to help grow many different kinds of businesses.  Please contact him for a free consultation at 605-858-5145.