A Birthday and a Computer Resolution

By Wayne Maruna

TabMail Turns Two

The Taberna Email List, which has come to be known as TabMail, turned two years old in December.  I started the list in December, 2004 with an initial subscription group of a dozen people, and it has grown slowly but steadily since. We now have over 260 subscribers to the list, which has grown primarily through favorable word of mouth, since we seldom advertise the service.   Yet there are more homes in our development with potential subscribers than currently are represented on the list.  If you’re unfamiliar with TabMail, here is some background.

            TabMail is essentially an email distribution list that is closed to the general public.  You must be a subscriber to either post or receive messages.  This insures a complete lack of unsolicited commercial email, known as spam.  To subscribe, you must be a property owner or resident of Taberna, have access to a computer, and have an established email account.  That’s about it.  There is no cost to being subscribed to the list.  A local ISP, Esisnet.com, hosts the list on a pro bono basis, and I administer it as a labor of love – my wife would say obsession.  The way it works is that by sending a message to one email address, your message is distributed to all the subscribers.  They in turn may, if they desire, respond directly to you or to the entire list.  The list is basically a vehicle for communication.  It is commonly used to announce events, deal with lost pets, offer items for sale, solicit opinions or advice, or discuss of issues in the neighborhood.  Traffic on the list is surprisingly light.  I haven’t done a scientific count, but I suspect we average no more than around a message or two a day, if that.

Community email lists can be problematic at times, especially un-moderated ones like ours (meaning no one screens emails before they are posted), but for the most part our subscribers have been well-behaved.  We went through a period of a couple weeks this summer where I thought I was directing episodes of ‘As Taberna Turns’, but things have settled down nicely.

            If you are interested in obtaining more information or joining the list, send an inquiry to me at Wayne@Maruna.name (yes, there is such a domain as ‘name’.)

Resolution Suggestion

            January is the time of year when people talk of New Year resolutions.  From my little computer-centric corner of the world, let me offer a resolution suggestion for you to consider.  Over the years I have helped many people rebuild their systems after they have suffered a hard drive crash and lost all their data files, pictures, genealogy records, recipes, and so forth.  But I don’t think anyone has ever asked me the obvious question:  how can I prevent this from happening again?  The answer is simple; you have to have a back-up strategy.  If you don’t have one, promise yourself to devise one soon.  I wrote about this back in the March, 2004 Taberna Tribune.  You can re-read the article here: http://pages.suddenlink.net/wamaruna/gotbackup.html.

By far the most popular method today of backing up a computer is with an external hard drive that connects to the PC via its USB port.  While I prefer to build my own USB hard drive units, they are available in package form with backup software from most office supply and electronics stores.  My backup software of choice for the past year or so has been Acronis True Image Home (http://www.acronis.com).  The product is also sold at substantial discount through http://www.ugr.com. The local New Bern Computer Users’ Group belongs to UGR (which stands for User Group Relations), so if you decide to buy through UGR you can get the discount code off the bottom of the NBCUG website home page at http://www.nbcug.com.  If you have the time, go to the UGR website and click on the link to ‘Tutorials’, and then click on the link to ‘The Perfect Backup Approach’, in which UGR’s Gene Barlow gives an excellent narrated slide show on backing up your hard drive.  Like me, Gene favors not just copying off your data files, but instead doing a full ‘image’ backup of your drive to simplify the whole restoration process should the worst happen.  Note, though, that there is no single best approach to backing up your computer, since everyone’s hardware situation differs.  You’d do well to get some expert advice before plunking your money down on any backup hardware or software.  But do, please, resolve to establish some sort of backup regimen.  We wish you health in this coming New Year, and we want your computer to stay healthy too.