What are Circuit Breakers?

Circuit Breakers are devices that stop the electrical current of a circuit in the event of excess or very high voltage. Circuit breakers are handy, not only because they can protect against electrical fires but also because they can be reset. When a fuse blows out, it must be replaced each time, whereas circuit breakers are easily reset when tripped.

Each appliance in your home receives electrical currents by way of electrical circuit breakers. Circuit breakers are considered to be either main or individual. The main circuit breaker controls power to the entire house while individual circuit breakers transmit power to individual appliances.

Electrical circuit breakers are probably the most important safety feature in a building. A circuit breaker measures the amount of heat produced by the current or by the magnetic field created by the small coil inside the breaker. When the current becomes too high, the breaker will cut off the circuit to stop it. Fuses serve the same function but can only be used once. Anyone who has blown a fuse can tell you it is much easier to have circuit breakers.

Electrical circuit breakers are also useful for shutting down power to the entire house. If you need to do some electrical maintenance, either for the entire structure or individual electrical wires, shutting down the main breaker can be a safety tool. Although electrical waves are invisible, we all know they have great potential danger. You should label each individual electrical circuit breaker so it is easily accessible for future use.

Direct current, or DC circuit breakers, are commonly used in automobiles. DC circuit breakers, unlike alternate current (AC) breakers, only deliver currents in one direction. These types of circuit breakers are a renewable energy delivery source, and special precautions should be taken when using them.

Since all batteries have the capability of producing enormous amounts of energy when short-circuited, care should be taken to properly install the breaker, fuse and disconnects in a vehicle. Autos should have additional protection against over current for the battery and each of the branch circuits. Vehicle fires sometimes result when the owner does not take proper precautions.

DC circuit breakers often have plastic beads inside of the fuse. When the current becomes too heavy, these plastic beads can melt and fill the void inside the fuse and prevent an arc from forming. If the current is very heavy this can cause electrical fires. While DC circuit breakers are effective in preventing damage from an overload of current, they are only effective to a certain degree. Any power source using DC technology should have a backup master fuse to protect the vehicle against total short-circuit.

by Elizabeth Morgan

About author:

Circuit Breakers Info provides detailed information about circuit breaker panels, circuit breaker manufacturers, plus advice on how to replace and install circuit breakers and where to buy used and surplus circuit breakers. Circuit Breakers Info is the sister site of Electricians Web.

The Importance Of Email Backup

Viruses, software failures, power failures, human errors, hard drive failures are only a few examples of what could destroy the data on a hard drive, including all documents, pictures, emails and other files!

Most home computer users don't need an expensive backup solution; as they only need to burn the folders with important documents and pictures to a CD-RW from time to time; this ensuring that in case of a disaster they can easily get them back.

Togeder with documents and pictures, it's a critical operation to save the emails, attachments, address book and other important data from within the email client; otherwise in case of a computer problem the user will find himself in the impossibility to get them back, and this can be a really unwanted situation especially for webmasters or people who rely on their emails. Unfortunately many people actually start to do backup copies only after they lose data.

This article will explain how one can create a Outlook Express Backup copy ( as Outlook Express lacks a backup function ) This email program is usually installed with the Windows operating system and is probably among the most commonly used email programs today. While using Outlook Express is fairly easy, finding and backing up the emails can be a little more complicated. Since there are a large number of files and folders on a computer running Windows, the first problem is to find the files containing the emails. Outlook Express stores emails in .dbx files and there might be several different dbx files depending on how many email folders you have created in Outlook Express. If you are using Windows 98, you can probably locate your emails somewhere in the Windows directory. In Windows 2000 and XP, emails are usually stored somewhere in the user data or application data folder.

The easiest way to find out exactly where your emails are stored is to start Outlook Express, go to the Tools menu, and open the Options dialog box. In the Options dialog box, select the Maintenance page and click the Store Folder button. Here you can find the path to the folder containing your emails. To open the folder, copy the path and paste in the address field of the Windows File Manager. You should see a number of .dbx files and possibly some other files, too.

After locating the email folder, you can simply select all the files and press Ctrl-C. Then open the folder where you want to keep the backup copies (on another hard disk, a DVD or a network drive, for example) in Windows Explorer, and press Ctrl-V.

To backup the Address Book, you can follow these steps:

• Select Tools Address Book... from the menu in Outlook Express.

• Choose File Export Other Address Book... from the address book's menu.

• Select Text File (Comma Separated Values) as the export format.

• Click Export.

• Select the location you want to export your address book to using the Browse... button.

• Give your backup copy a meaningful name.

• Click Next.

• Select the fields you want to include in your backup.

• Finally, select Finish.

• Click OK.

• Click Close to end the process (successfully, I hope).

Additionally, there are several email backup utilities which can make the backup operation much easier. Outlook Express Backup Genie is one piece of software that can offer peace of mind by creating compact backup copies of emails, attachments, address book, signatures, blocked list, mail rules and settings periodically. The difference between using a automatic email backup utility and manual backups, is that the first can be scheduled to create backups quiet in the background at specified time intervals, and that it will include all email information ( signatures, blocked list, etc ) which otherwise would be more difficult to save. Also if ever the backup is needed, the application will ensure that the restore process is made smoothly. And, it works with top 9 popular email clients. The downside of using a automatic email backup utility is that it costs money, usually about 20-30 USD as one time payment, while the manual backups are ofcourse, free.

The conclusion is that either manual or automatic, backing up emails is a critical operation for every computer user that would regret losing them.

A trial copy of Outlook Express Backup Genie can be found at: http://www.amicutilities.com/outlook-express-backup/

About The Author Alexandru Marias http://www.amicutilities.com

Can You Restore Your Data From Your Backup?

Making backup is vital!

For small business people the value of their business is
often stored on their computers.

Emails, contracts, PowerPoint presentations, business
contacts, text documents and client databases are all
vital information.

Accidents do happen and data can be lost!
Are you sure you can restore your data back to what it was?
Can you be back in business without losing to much time?

To be on the safe side you should adopt a working backup
strategy! Let's look at what can happen!

There are three different cases to consider.

1. Specific files or folders have been corrupted or deleted
by accident.

2. The data on your hard disk have been lost. This can be
caused by a virus or by hard disk failure.

3. Your computer have been lost. This can be caused by a
natural disaster, a fire or by theft.

Your preparation and action should to be different in each
different case.

It will also depend on how valuable the data are for you
and how much you are willing to spend on protection.

Here are your action plans for each case.

1. These are files which you are working with on a daily
basis. It is vital data to your business and you should
make backup of these files on a regular basis.

You should therefore identify them in advance.
It can be files in folders like MyDocument, your emails
or database files where you store your business
information.

To do this you need to find a backup product from which
you can easily make backup of these vital files on a
regular basis.

Store the backup you make in a safe place.

For extra security you can backup files online to a web
server or you can hire space from companies that offer
online backup services. If you use this option you
should encrypt your data.

2. When you have a hard disk data loss you have to format
the disk, maybe with the help from a person with
experience.

The work involved reconfiguring the computer by
installing Windows can be extensive.

First after that Windows and the backup program have been
installed are you able to restore the data from your
backup.

To avoid this extra work you may consider making a full
backup of your hard disk image. From an image backup you
are able to restore directly your complete data back to
your hard disk and avoid extra installation work.

3. You have lost your computer.
But, because you already have backup of your vital data
which you are working with on a daily basis, you are able
to restore your business to any configuration on a
new computer.

You just have to have your application products and your
working data restored to be back in business.

The problem you face is that in order to restore all your
hard disk data you need to have the same or a similar
configuration for everything to work out as before.
Maybe the operating system you used is not available
anymore or hard to find.

In any case you probably want the newest and latest
version.

This is where you have problems!

You can install the old operating system if you have the
installation CDs available.

When you install the backup program and install the data
from the backup you can run into problem. If it is a new
operating system then you do run into problem.

This is because program modules and also settings stored
in the registration file becomes mixed up and the
computer stops working.

It is often not enough to use the same Windows version in
the installation. Your backup you can still have a
different version as a result of different bug fixes.
This is what Microsoft calls Service Packs and your deep
level data can get mixed up.

As a result you may be losing software you have installed
from the Internet or bought from a supplier and you have
to purchase the products again.

There are two actions to take to solve this depending on
how important this is to your business.

One: You find that the products you have downloaded or
the application products you have bought are not of
high enough value. Or you can afford to purchase
the software again.

Two: You keep record of all software you have downloaded
and purchased on the Internet so that you can
contact the vendor for a new version.

You store all installation product and documentation
so that you can install the products from the
installation CD you have purchased over time.

To be on the safe side you should:

1. Make regular computer backup of the data you are working
with on a daily basis and have the computer backup stored
on a safe place. Preferably on a remote location.

2. Do make an image backup of your hard disk when you have
installed new software. This ensures that you can be back
in business in the case of corrupted hard disk or hard
disk failure.

3. Document all your purchases and passwords. Keep records
and store all software installations. Keep all this at a
remote location.

============================================================
Per Strandberg have been working with data management and
runs an information site for backup products and
data security!
GoTo ==> www.data-backup-and-storage.com and get information
on backup products and learn how to protect your data
============================================================

About the Author

Per Strandberg has been working with data management and software development.
He currently runs an information site on backup products and
data security!
www.data-backup-and-storage.com

How To Backup Your Hard Drive

We all know that we should back up our system as soon as possible. But if you're like most of us, you will get to it tomorrow. The problem is that tomorrow rarely ever comes until you experience a serious computer failure and then it’s too late.

Taking the time to backup your data or entire hard drive is not as painstaking as it may seem. And the rewards of doing so will be great should your system experience a crash.

WINDOWS AND OTHER BACKUP SOFTWARE

If you have Windows XP you will need to install the new Windows backup utility from the Windows XP cdrom. Just place the WinXP cdrom in your cdrom drive and locate the line D:VALEADDMSFTNTBACKUP.

Here you see the first letter as D but if your optical drive has a different drive letter, exchange the D with your drive's letter. To install the utility, click on the file named NTBackup.msi.

The backup utility will be installed to the system tools group. Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and Backup. There is a neat wizard that will walk you through the backup process.

WinXP's backup utility will backup your entire hard drive and will make a recovery disk to boot.

One neat third party backup software you can try is NewTech InfoSystems at http://www.ntius.com where you can download their trial version and put it to use for 30 days. And if it’s your cup of tea, the full version will run you about $79.95

INCREMENTAL OR DIFFERENTIAL BACKUPS

You should back up your entire hard drive when you perform your first backup. After that it is best to perform an Incremental backup. This type of backup only allows you to backup files that have changed since your last performed backup.

Differential Backups copy changed files that have been added since you last did your entire backup. This type of backup is more detailed than incremental backups and is easier to restore.

BACKUP STORAGE DEVICES

You can backup your files on cdroms and have the files compressed to save both space and backup time. WinXP will compress folders, subfolders, and files during backup.

You can purchase compression software that will do the same, saving you cdrom storage space. The compressed files are automatically uncompressed once they are restored onto your hard drive.

You can also use a second hard drive as your backup storage device. We use two backup hard drives to be certain Ultimate PC Repair is up and running 24/7.

You can either purchase an internal hard drive and install it to your ide cable, or you may want to purchase an external hard drive that connects to your Universal Serial Bus or USB Port.

The advantage of the external drives is that they have very large amounts of storage space, transfer data fast, and can be moved from your computer to any other computer.

We use the Western Digital 170 Gigabyte External Hard Drive and we simply bounce it around to either one of our four computers with the greatest of ease.

USING ONLINE BACKUP SERVICES

You may also consider online services for backing up your data. If you lose all your backup data, say due to a natural disaster such as a flood, your online data is right there waiting for you.

Another advantage of online backups is that you can access, upload, or download your data from any location. It is best to use high speed internet access if you're considering online data storage.

One such online backup service is Istorage located at http://www.iomega.com/istorage and charges from $2.49 a month for 50MBs to $17.95 a month for a big 1,000MBs of storage.

Or you can check out FilesAnywhere located at the url http://www.filesanywhere.com

Still another online service to try is CapSure located at http://www.capsure.com

Backup your system now in one way or another if you have not done so. If you have critical data that you simply cannot do without, take the time to invest in a backup device or one of the many online backup services.

Stop and perform those backups as soon as possible. You will be thankful you did should something go wrong with your computer. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.

by: Otis F. Cooper

About The Author Otis F. Cooper is the author of the award winning PC Super Pack, the Computer Training By Video course. For hundreds more free PC repair tips, sign up for his bi-monthly newsletter and learn the PC free at http://www.ultimatepcrepair.com

Creating a Backup Plan

Your company's data may be its most important asset. Imagine a large corporation with millions of dollars of account receivable and account payable data stored on their network. A fire causes massive data loss. How much work would be required to re-create the lost data? Without backups, the company may not survive the disaster.

Choosing a backup media is important, but in this article I'll focus on creating a plan for the type and frequency of backups. Let's assume you will use some type of tape backup media.

If your company has only a small amount of data, you may be able to perform a full backup every night. You would need two tapes which you would alternate in case the most recent full backup turns out defective. At least you have a previous one to go back to. You would store the tapes in a secure off-site location to avoid being destroyed in the same disaster that might destroy the original data.

When you perform a full backup, each file that gets baked up has the "archive" attribute in its file properties set to zero.

The archive attribute is a flag stored for each file that has been created or modified. It indicates that the file needs to be archived. Backup programs can reduce the size of backups by saving only files which have been modified since the previous backup. When the file is saved in a full or incremental backup, the archive bit is set to one.

In Windows, you can view the archive attribute for any file by right-clicking the file in Windows Explorer and selecting "Properties" in the popup menu. In the "Properties" dialog box, click on the "Advanced..." button.

If your company has a large amount of data, it would be too time consuming to perform a full backup every night. Instead, you would perform a full backup only on Friday nights, and perform a "differential" backup on other weekday night. This backup plan would require six tapes.

- A differential backup saves all files that have been created or modified since the last FULL backup.

- Restoring with differential backups is easy. You need just use two tapes. First restore the last full backup. Then restore the last differential backup.

A differential backup doesn't reset the archive attribute. The next time you perform a differential backup, it will again save all the files that have changed since the last full backup. So each night, the differential backup will get progressively larger until the next you perfrom a full backup.

If your company has a great amount of data that changes every day, it would be too time consuming to perform a differential backup every night. Instead, you might perform a full backup on Friday nights, and an "incremental" backup on other weekday night.

- An incremental backup saves only the files that have changed since the last full or incremental backup.

An incremental backup checks the archive attribute to determine if the file has changed and needs to be backed up. Then it resets the archive attribute. An incremental backup stays small because it includes only files that have changed since the last full or incremental backup.

- Restoring with incremental backups is more time consuming. First, restore the last full backup. Then restore all the incremental backups made since the full backup, in the order they were made. The only reason to use an incremental backup scheme is if differential backups become too large, requiring more than one tape.

Many company networks continue to opperate on Saturday and even Sunday. In this case, you would need to add the required additional tapes to the plan.

If during the day your company creates a large volume of data, or a small amount of data that is too critical to wait for the standard night time backup, you can perform a copy backup. To do this, you just copy the selected files to a backup media.

Copyright(C) 2004 Bucaro TecHelp.

Permission is granted for the below article to forward, reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website, offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as long as no changes are made and the byline, copyright, and the resource box below is included.

About The Author Stephen Bucaro To learn how to maintain your computer and use it more effectively to design a Web site and make money on the Web visit bucarotechelp.com. To subscribe to Bucaro TecHelp Newsletter visit http://bucarotechelp.com/search/000800.asp.

How to make a DVD backup

Whether you want to transfer your pics to DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) or you want to backup a DVD to another DVD, I know you need some clarification about the whole process.

Their are quite a few DVD formats to choose from but which one is right for you in this rather confusing world of dvd formats? Shall I store my photo's on a DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-R or DVD+R DL? What about just copying a DVD to DVD?

DVD Writers

To get down to basics you will first of all need a DVD drive that will be able to write your data (music, film, pictures, etc) to a disc. Most modern computers have at least a DVD-ROM drive which stands for Read Only Memory meaning it will only read (play) your DVD but it cannot write the data to a disc.

In order to write your data to disc you will have to have a DVD writer which will write (burn) your data directly onto the disc. A laser burns your info to disc which is why the terms DVD burning or burn to disc are frequently used. Disc Formats

A normal single layered DVD disc (DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RW) will hold upto 4.37GB of information on a single side of a DVD. There are also Dual layer discs (DVD+R DL) which have twice the capacity of a normal DVD (8.5GB). These discs have two layers on a single side which are read by a special laser which switches it frequencies depending on which layer it is reading on the same side of a disc. Although you will need an upto date dvd-writer in order to burn dual layered discs.

We won't concern ourselves with dual layers in this article. Its enough to know they exist and we have to have a more advanced dvd-writer for that.

So the label on the box says DVD-R. What does that mean?
Well, the R bit on any DVD stands for recordable which means you can write your data directly onto the disc using your basic everyday DVD writer.

DVD-R was the first format that was developed by Pioneer and is used by most computer users today. These discs will work with most DVD players on the market at the time of writing.

DVD-RW is pretty much the same as above but the 'W' bit means the disc is re-writeable. You can over-write existing data over and over again. You can usually write the disc as much as upto a 1000 times! I would suggest practise writing to DVD-RW to stop wasting DVD's and then write to a DVD-R when you want a more permanent copy.

Then we have DVD+R DVD+RW. These discs will do the same job as DVD-R and DVD-RW but tend to cost just a little more to buy. There is actually little difference between +R and -R. They are slightly more expensive but in most respects have the same longevity and reliability as DVD-R.

Need for speed

Different DVD writers have different write speeds as well. DVD+R will burn faster than there counterparts DVD-R. The old write speed was 4x but now DVD writers can burn at 16x speeds. So if your dvd writer burns at 8x just make sure you buy discs that burn at 8x or whatever speed your drive is. Easy!

Creating That First Disc

You will find information regarding your DVD writer on the box or in the instructions like:

Recording Formats
DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW

Recording Speeds
8x, 4x, 2.4x,

Connections
USB, Firewire

Now you know that you can burn a DVD+R at 8x speed on your burner. Thats all you need to know in order to burn that first disc. What are you waiting for? Go and impress someone with your new found burning skills!

If you would like to get started with DVD copying then go now to http://www.dvd-burning.org to discover how you can make your first dvd backup!

by Steve Bishop

How to Backup a PC

Everyone thinks, ‘it won’t happen to me’. But what if it does? All your files, pictures and documents gone, in an instant. Sure, you can reach for the disks that came with your computer to reinstall the applications but what about the most important component, your data? Data backup is something too many computer owners ignore.

There are a number of things that can bring down your computer, some of which include a power surge, hard drive crash, careless mistakes, viruses, a fire or theft.
If your system did not come with a recovery disc, you should consider making a backup disc as soon as possible. This is important should you ever need to rebuild your system to its “as bought” condition.

How often you back up your data varies from person to person. It depends on the volume of data input, frequency of change, and the nature of your data. A general rule of thumb would be to back up anything that would be difficult and time-consuming to re-create.
How to backup data:

If you have Windows XP, it includes backup software; however, if you’re running on Home Edition, it isn’t installed by default. Once the software is installed, go to the Start menu and choose “accessories”, then “system tools”, then “backup” in order to run the backup wizard. On the final screen, you can press the “advanced” button which will allow you to automatically schedule recurring backups. The wizard also allows you to create a system recovery disc which will enable you to boot and rescue your data should Windows get damaged. At the end of this article, you will find a list of programs and software that can do the data backup for you.
You may think you’d like to back up everything you have in your computer. However, there is no need to back up software and applications since these can be reinstalled with the original discs. Most Windows programs now have a default for storing data within your user profile.
Backup programs:

There are a number of programs that perform data backup for you, some of which are described here. Ghost 9.0 creates full drive images, IBackup copies files to remote databases, and Dantz’s Retrospect Professional 6.5 is a traditional backup tool. There is also free software available for data backup. For instance, Backup4 protects your data and features an easy backup wizard that allows you to schedule backups whenever you like. Disk Tools Image Maker is an easy-to-use disk imaging tool which allows you to create exact images of your entire drive. It works directly from within Windows so there is no need to boot from a floppy. Handy Backup is another software which makes an automatic backup of critical data to any type of storage medium.

Backup Tips:
Here are a few tips to keep in mind regarding data backup:
Don’t procrastinate. Most people decide to back up their data only after they’ve experienced a loss!

Try to find a backup software that can hold twice as much as your hard disk so that you’re able to schedule backups when you’re not there.
Back up only what is necessary. However, if you’re not sure, back it up ... better safe than sorry!
About The Author
Marisa Pellegrino is a freelance writer from Montreal and is the head researcher and content manager for RAID RECOVERY (www.raidrecoveryguide.com) and other sites.
info@raidrecoveryguide.com