A couple of points on the discussion! It really is best to separate the business and ham functions with different computers. After all, who can have too many computers?
If you need to do business and hobby on the same computer, use different accounts. Just go to Start->Control Panel->User Accounts and define one account for business and one for hobby. This creates different storage areas for visible and invisible files and keeps things clean. Install the relevant programs from the relevant account (as the business user, install Microsoft Office; as the ham user, install DXBase, etc). Then, from the start menu, you can log in as either one or the other. Mike has a point about hard drives but the flooding in Thailand means they are not quite the bargain they once were. Regardless, compared with 5 years ago, storage is still cheap. Avoid USB/Firewire/eSATA disk drive software however. The programs that come with these drives are PSDR killers unless you have a very "Fast Computer" as they wake up and continually look for any file that has changed so it can write it to the hard drive. Avoid Acronis Real-Time backup as it can really kill a system in the same way. Don't use Carbonite unless you can set it to sync up after you stop playing radio. Better yet, see if you can avoid using these packages on the Ham radio account but allow it on the business account. That is the best of both worlds! 73 On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 4:41 PM, Mike Schlamp <[email protected]> wrote: > Bill, > > I completely understand what you are saying, and you're not being > argumentative. It is a valid concern when using one PC for work and play. > But here are a couple of solutions to the concern. > > The price of Terabyte Hard Drives today has come down drastically such > that one could easily justify adding one to a system just as a backup > medium for that system, or even purchasing an external model to be used on > several machines. There is software out there, such as Acronis, that can > make a complete image backup of your system that includes your boot sector > as well, just be sure to point it's drop to your spare terabyte drive. And > restoring a PC is as easy as booting from the Acronis CD and pointing it to > the Terabyte Backup drive. That is what I did for > several years, and it did save me a few times. The only issue I had with > the whole process is that is a manual process that has to be performed on a > regular basis if you want to minimize the inherent loss of data. > > Now I use a Home Server that goes out, wakes up each PC one at a time and > backs them up, then puts them back to sleep. This is done nightly while I > am asleep and it is incremental, so if the PC crashes the loss of data is > extremely minimal. That is not its only purpose in its life, but it is the > most notable. > > So Bill, I would agree with you if you're not running some kind of back up > routine and your constantly changing the state of the toys on your play > machine. Better to have the play machine crash than having a play/work > machine crash. But then again, manually backing up one machine over two is > just a little less time spent on maintenance, and a whole lot less time on > manually > rebuilding. > > 73, > > Mike > W5CUL > > --- On Wed, 12/7/11, Bill <[email protected]> wrote: > > From: Bill <[email protected]> > Subject: [FlexEdge] Fast PC's > To: [email protected] > Date: Wednesday, December 7, 2011, 1:19 PM > > I'm not wishing to be argumentative. > but in my doddering old age.....(ask my 7 children, & 18 grandchildren) > but I did learn these things > > never date your best friends sister > never go into business with friends > don't put all your eggs in one business > and > > if you use your computer for fun and for personal business > a disaster will be twice as expensive > > -- > Arachnophobia - Fear of spiders. > --------------------------- > Bill H. in Chicagoland > Doing my best to annoy nearly everyone since 1945. > webcams at > http://w9ol-towercam.webhop.org:8080 > weather at http://hhweather.webhop.org:8080 > > > _______________________________________________ > Flexedge mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexedge_flex-radio.biz > This is the FlexRadio Systems e-mail Reflector called FlexEdge. It is > used for posting topics related to SDR software development and > experimentalist who are using beta versions of the software. > _______________________________________________ > Flexedge mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexedge_flex-radio.biz > This is the FlexRadio Systems e-mail Reflector called FlexEdge. It is > used for posting topics related to SDR software development and > experimentalist who are using beta versions of the software. > -- Neal Campbell Owner Abroham Neal LLC Work: +1 540 645 5394 Mobile: +1 540 645 8171 Save $100, $85 or $50 during our Holiday Computer Sale _______________________________________________ Flexedge mailing list [email protected] http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexedge_flex-radio.biz This is the FlexRadio Systems e-mail Reflector called FlexEdge. It is used for posting topics related to SDR software development and experimentalist who are using beta versions of the software.
