How to back up multiple computers (Yahoo! News)

It's very easy to back up just one computer — for the most part, you just plug in a portable hard drive and click a few buttons — but it's another thing entirely to back up an entire household or small office. In today's world, it's a rare house indeed that has just one PC, and all of them contain at least some data that needs to be backed up.

The same, but different
Of course, one option is simply to back up every computer to its own portable hard drive; it's costly, but it works. Better yet, if you use a cloud-based solution like SugarSync, you can do away with portable hard drives completely. Backing up multiple computers to the cloud is time-consuming, though — it would take weeks to upload the entire contents of a few computers — and cloud storage isn't cheap, either.

A cheaper, faster, and easier solution is to grab a big storage device for a couple of hundred dollars, and then back up every computer to it.

Mac, Windows, or both?
In essence, the process of backing up multiple computers to the same portable hard drive is the same as doing it with a single computer, but you need to make sure you have the right software to do it correctly. Unfortunately, if you have a mix of Windows and Apple computers in your household, the process is both more complex and costly.

If you only have Windows computers
Grab a large portable hard drive — the bigger the better! You should be able to find a 2TB portable hard drive for around $100.

Download EASEUS Todo Backup and install it on every computer. It's free for home use, but business use will require a (reasonably priced) license.

Plug your external drive into the first Windows computer and open Todo Backup. Select Backup from the list, and press Next. Select "Disk and partition backup" from the next screen, and press Next. You'll then be asked to enter a "Task/plan name." Each computer must have a unique name in the application; give them obvious and logical designations like "Office" and "Home Theater" to keep things sorted out.

Once you've given the backup a name, click Next, and choose which of that computer's drive(s) to back up. Most computers only have one hard drive, so just check the box next to "Disk1" and click Next. If you want to back up multiple disks, put checks next to each of them.

On the final screen, select your portable drive as the backup location. Click Next, then Next again, and the backup will begin.

When it's finished (which might take a long time, especially if there is a lot of information to be backed up), simply plug your external hard drive into the next computer and repeat the process.

If you only have Mac computers
The easiest but by far most expensive way of backing up a bunch of Mac machines is to buy an Apple Time Capsule. Once your Time Capsule is plugged in, it should simply be a matter of opening the Time Machine application on each of your computers, flipping the switch to On, and selecting the Time Capsule as the backup location. Check the Apple support site for more information and troubleshooting.

Because a Time Capsule is wireless, your Mac computers can back up to it all the time. Once Time Machine is turned on, in fact, your data will be continuously backed up whenever your computers are turned on. Apple's penchant for seamless and invisible functionality certainly comes through here.

The other, cheaper option is to buy a large hard drive that's specially formatted to work with Mac OS X. Simply plug it into each Mac in turn, and run Time Machine to back up your data. It's not as convenient as the Time Capsule, but it's quite a bit less expensive. If you're comfortable with reformatting hard drives, it's even cheaper to buy an unformatted 2TB external drive and reformat it to HFS+.

If you have a mix of machines
Because Windows and Mac computers store data in different ways, backing up to the same external hard drive can be a little tricky.

One solution is to buy a regular 2TB external hard drive for around $100, and then use the Mac OS X Disk Utility to format half the drive for Mac and half for Windows. This isn't particularly hard, but make sure you only attempt it with a new hard drive because this process will delete everything on it. Once you have your dual-format drive, you can proceed to use both methods we've described here to back up your computers.

One other option is to use a network attached storage (NAS) device, which works a lot like an Apple Time Capsule but for every computer in your house or office via your network. The only problem is, setting up a NAS can be complex. Still, if you want to dive in, grab a NAS like the Netgear Home Media device. Be sure to read all of the documentation, and be aware that Time Machine doesn't play nicely with every NAS.

Post by Sebastian Anthony

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How to deauthorize your computers in iTunes (Yahoo! News)

Copyright laws and digital rights management regulations put strict limits on how many devices you can use to access digital products you've purchased with a single account. Apple products are no exception. iTunes allows you to share your account with up to 5 different computers. But maybe you've used up all 5 slots and need to deauthorize your older, unused computers. Perhaps you're selling your old equipment and want to deauthorize all the stuff on your account. Here's how.

Deauthorizing one computer
First, it's important to deauthorize any computer on which you have authorized iTunes before doing any upgrades on RAM, hard drives, or other system hardware. You should also deauthorize prior to reinstalling or upgrading Windows. If you don't, iTunes may see the upgraded system as a new computer; when this happens, the computer will actually take up 2 of your 5 computer allotments. There have been many, many criticisms of this poor iTunes functionality, but the behavior remains.

To deauthorize a single computer, open iTunes on that computer. From the menu bar, select Store and then Deauthorize Computer. Enter your Apple ID and password in order to complete the process; you'll see a confirmation message indicating your computer has been deauthorized. If you don't get this message, close iTunes and re-open it to confirm whether or not the deauthorization is complete.

Deauthorizing all your computers
If you hit the maximum of 5 computers authorized with iTunes, another option becomes available that allows you to deauthorize all the computers on your account at once. This can be done from any computer that is associated with the account, allowing you to reset the authorizations completely and start over.

The process is similar to deauthorizing a single computer. Open iTunes on any computer attached to your Apple account. From the menu, select Store. If you're not logged in, you'll be asked to do so. Click on Account, and you'll be prompted for your Apple ID and password again. Next, select the option from the menu to View Account. In the Account Information popup window, you will see the option to Deauthorize All. Simply click on this button and wait for the confirmation.

Limitations and cautions
The option to deauthorize all computers will only appear if you've reached the maximum limit of 5 computers on your account. (No, we don't know why Apple insists that you have to run up against the 5-computer limit before you can reset to zero, either.) What's more, you are only allowed to do this once every 12 months. Deauthorizing all your computers will prevent this option from appearing in your menu for the next 12 months.

Remember to deauthorize any computer you plan to upgrade or sell beforehand, along with any computers you don't use. Then you can keep tabs on which computers are authorized and add new computers without having to clear off older ones cluttering up your iTunes account.

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Government targets thieves infecting computers

taking control of several of the malicious computer servers and sending commands to make them stop transferring pirated data.

Millions of dollars were stolen from U.S. computer users, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

STORY: Data thieves target e-mail addressesThe investigators were trying to contain a malware program called Coreflood, which has been around for at least a decade and can record key strokes, allowing cyber criminals to take over unsuspecting computers and steal passwords, banking and credit card information.

Investigators seized five major computer servers that were controlling hundreds of thousands of infected computers, and also seized 29 domain names used by the botnet to communicate with those servers. A botnet is a network of infected computers.

Describing the operation, FBI officials said they essentially broke the link between the cyber thieves and the infected computers. When the malware sent a message back to the Coreflood control sites asking what to do with all the data it had gathered from a computer, investigators responded with their own message: Send nothing. Shut down.

As a result, FBI officials said they are comfortable that a significant portion of the Coreflood botnet has been disabled, but the program is still running on the infected computers.

Officials said they did not notify computer owners that they had been compromised, and no personal information was gathered by U.S. officials during the digital communications.

The malware exploits a vulnerability in computers running Windows operating systems and allows those that are infected to be controlled remotely. And some 1.8 million of the infected computers are in the United States; the remainder in countries around the world.

Thirteen defendants, identified only as John Does, were accused in a civil complaint of engaging in wire fraud, bank fraud and illegal interception of electronic communications. Officials would not say what country the attack came from, but agreed it was consistent with cybercrime activity from Eastern Europe.

The court order authorized the government to respond to signals sent from infected computers in the U.S., a move designed to stop the Coreflood software from running. The purpose is to prevent further harm to hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting users of infected computers.

The thieves engaged in wire transfers from the infected computers to steal $115,000 from a Michigan real estate company; $78,000 from a law firm in South Carolina; $151,000 from an investment company in North Carolina; and $241,000 from a defense contractor in Tennessee.

The exact extent of the financial loss caused by the Coreflood botnet is not known, because of the large number of computers infected and the quantity of data stolen.

Computer users can go to the Microsoft website to learn how to clean the malware from their computers.

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