The days of trudging round the supermarkets fighting for the best-looking tomatoes are over. More and more of us are relying on our computers to bring home the groceries.

Britain is streets ahead of the rest of Europe in terms of shopping online, with internet sales topping £1billion a month, a report reveals.

Online sales in Britain were worth £12.8billion last year, compared with £10.3billion for Germany, the next most enthusiastic nation of e-shoppers, said researchers Mintel.

France came in third, raking in £5.5billion through online sales, while Italy and Spain were slower to catch on to the digital shopping revolution with annual internet revenues of just £870million and £790million, respectively.

The figures are perhaps not surprising given that Britain also has the highest rate of growth in online shopping – a 75 per cent increase in revenue between 2005 and 2007. And further growth of 199 per cent is predicted by 2012.

Mintel retail research head Richard Perks said Britain had ‘the most developed online market in Europe’ thanks to the ‘sophisticated offerings’ of British food retailers.

Mr Perks said the rise in Britons using the internet for weekly shopping and consumer boom in recent years had also played a part. Tesco is the biggest online food retailer in Europe, with most of its turnover coming from groceries. Its website enjoyed revenues more than twice as high as its closest European rival, French retailer Carrefour.

(Taken from metro.co.uk (http://www NULL.metro NULL.co NULL.uk/news/article NULL.html?in_article_id=130005&in_page_id=34) March 30th 2008)

Now who wouldn’t want a peice of that pie?

What would happen if your web designer disappeared tomorrow? or if someone managed to hack into your web site? Things have been known to go wrong, and if they go, it can make your life agony.

Why would anyone want to hack my web site?

Chances are they don’t, however your website is probably on a server or network which holds tens, hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of other websites. If any of those become a target, yours could be affected.

… to make your life easier in any eventuality, you only need to take a few steps…

There are four parts to your site: Domain name, Hosting, Website files, and Database (optional).

You need to make sure that you and/or your future designer can take over quickly with the minimum of hassle.

Website files – When your website is complete, either ask your current designer for the files on CD or have them zipped and emailed to you for backup. If you know how to FTP, get the ftp details so you can do it yourself at regular intervals if necessary. Or there is sometimes a ‘backup’ option if you can gain access to the control panel for your site.

Database – Not all sites, but most now have databases. These need to be accessed separately. If you have access to your control panel, the ‘backup’ option usually backs up the database with the files so you should be OK. If not, use a MySQL or SQL export to do so. (Get your designer to walk you through the steps)

Hosting – Is your site hosting with a major company or directly with the web designer? If the latter, this could disappear with them if things go wrong. It’s easily replaceable however so don’t worry about keeping hold of it.

Domain name – If your domain name is a .co.uk, goto nic.uk (http://nic NULL.uk) (or nic.com (http://nic NULL.com) for .com/.net/.org) Make sure that your name is listed by the registrant details and not your designer. This means if worse comes to the worse, you have easy access to moving it with you, if it’s not. Ask your web designer if it can be changed. (If you’ve opted out, it may look blank although you will still be assigned to it)

If you make regular updates to the site, make sure you keep regular backups of both the site files and database. If you run an online shop, just the database should suffice. Just double-check with your designer for specific information.

Ultimately you should now have a CD of files and database, control panel login and password and/or ftp login and password. This means if things go wrong, everything can be restored relatively quickly.

If necessary, this disk and password can go to your current designer or a new one and you should be back up and running with the minimum amount of data loss.

Remember, insurance can replace your equipment but it can’t replace your data.

I’m going to help others share this information, it’s not secretive, yet so few know about it.

Assuming you have an office, or a student computer, you want to kit it out with some useful software. It can be costly, your options are: Buy the software outright (costing thousands), Obtain illegal copies of the software (Illegal and often very awkward), or find an alternative.

What would you do?

Let me suggest the alternatives and the answer should be obvious:

Software comparisons

Microsoft Office 2007 (http://www NULL.amazon NULL.co NULL.uk/Microsoft-Office-2007-Professional-PC/dp/B000HEV6ES/ref=pd_bbs_sr_6?ie=UTF8&s=gateway&qid=1201353926&sr=8-6)
(Containing: Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint, Publisher and Access)

Openoffice Any version (http://www NULL.openoffice NULL.org/)
(Containing: Write, Math, Draw, Impress, Calc and Base)

Both have the same basic functions, word processor, spreadsheet, presentation and database software. Open office is missing it’s version of outlook, but you can use Thunderbird and Lightening.

Openoffice can open and save Microsoft Office documents and most other formats with ease. Microsoft Office can open MS Office documents but not most of Openoffice’s formats.

Microsoft office offer updates for a few years after sale, once this time is over, you need to pay for an upgrade.

Openoffice offer updates and upgrades for life, all included in the cost.

Microsoft office 2003 costs £280 through Amazon (http://www NULL.amazon NULL.co NULL.uk)
Openoffice costs nothing… ever…

Antivirus

I’ll keep this one simple as I’ve covered this on another blog. My personal experiences are as follows

Norton

£17.99 through Amazon. Seems to have a habit of slowing down PCs. It has also let through the odd virus on my machine. The first thing I, and my IT professional friends and colleagues remove when they arrive at a call-out. You do need a good antivirus, but I wouldn’t recommend this one.

McAffee

£9.99 from Amazon. Works much faster than Norton, but I have had the odd virus get through it’s scanning process.

AVG

Free from Grisoft (http://free NULL.grisoft NULL.com/). (Free for personal non-commercial, around £25 for commercial) If this is going on your home computer, download the free one. If on work, unfortunately you do technically need to pay, however you get your money’s worth. Easy to setup and then just ignore. It runs itself, updates itself and doesn’t slow down computers very much at all. (Except during a scan, but this can be stopped) It’s very good at preventing virus attacks and has never let a virus onto my computer! My other article about virus scanning is here.

For web based solutions, see Joomla (http://www NULL.joomla NULL.org/), WordPress (http://wordpress NULL.org/)(this blog uses it), osCommerce (http://www NULL.oscommerce NULL.org).

For other ideas for software replacements, do a web search for the software name followed by the words ‘open-source’.

You should see some great recommendations from people using this same method of obtaining free software legally.

If you are UK based and really don’t know where to start, speak to Alan Lord at The Open Learning Centre (http://www NULL.theopenlearningcentre NULL.com/) for training and advice. The cost for one of his seminars is around the cost of one virus scanner. Don’t buy it, use AVG and use the money you saved to get some more great information from the Open Learning Centre. Say I sent you

I run my business from a single Laptop. I have insurance in place to replace the laptop it it gets lost or stolen, and I have funds in place to almost instantly replace the laptop or components if for any reason it fails.

My laptop goes everywhere with me, client meetings, sales meetings, holidays, everywhere. There’s no better way to demonstrate the simplicity of my software than to have a working copy right there.

But I’m a pessimist; everytime I leave the house, I assume that someone is going to offer not to stab me in exchange for my laptop. Everytime I go to the toilet, I assume that someone is going to break into my home and steal my laptop, everytime I turn away from my laptop, I assume that the harddrive will make a loud crunching noise as it grinds my data into sawdust. Everytime I leave my hotel room for breakfast, I assume the cleaner is going to run off with my laptop.

If any of this does happen, I’ll have a maximum of three phone calls: Police, Insurance Company, PC World.

I won’t have to change my client’s passwords
I won’t have to report my credit card or anyone elses card as stolen
I won’t have to phone my clients to notify them of the loss
I won’t have to inform my clients to change the passwords they have entrusted me with
I won’t have to scare my clients into changing their bank accounts
I won’t have to ask for copy invoices from suppliers
I won’t have to look up my suppliers and clients details anywhere
I won’t have to inform my bank of the loss
I won’t have to change my internet banking details
I won’t have to scrutinise every transaction in my future bank statements for 6 months
I won’t have to lose the trust and faith my contacts have in me
I won’t have to worry about getting family photos back
I won’t have to find my iTunes invoices and re-download all my tracks
I won’t have to worry about losing days of work, or even hours.
I won’t have to worry about who has access to the data on the laptop and what they can do with it.
I won’t have to worry about lost phone numbers or emails of my biggest clients, or even my smallest ones

In fact if my home and office burn down tonight and I narrowly escape with a single pair of jeans, T-shirt and naturally my wife. I can have my business backup and running as if nothing happened in a couple of hours.

I am entrusted with very sensitive data, I regularly have enough information about my clients to take loans out in their names, open bank accounts or on some occasions even obtain a passport.

But I can live without worrying? And I don’t resort to ignorance like so many [government officials]

Everything I value is backed up.
It is backed up on an external harddrive (£60) in my office, encrypted, secured and locked in a safe.
It is backed up on an external harddrive (£60) at home, encrypted, secured, and locked in a safe.
It is backed up online (£40pcm, part of my reseller web hosting, but can be bought through any good IT or backup company, I can recommend a few)
I make it a policy to not store sensitive information I don’t need.
If I do need it, I use a simple encryption software and hide the encrypted volume so noone even knows to look for it, let alone how to get into it. Once finished, all information is deleted. (open-source software truecrypt £free)
I have £1000 stored in a completely separate bank account for instant laptop replacement (will increase to cover other office-related costs)

This system is simple, reliable, it takes me 10 minutes a day waiting while it updates my Hard drive backups, and costs me £600 per year + £1000 replacement fees (variable for what you need to replace to operate.)

When I go to bed, my laptop stays downstairs packed and ready for the office tomorrow. It’s easy to pick up as I run through the door, not hidden, not locked in a safe, and yet I can sleep soundly.

I don’t offer this as a service, but if you haven’t got something setup, talk to your IT contact, I can recommend a few, it will be one of the most relaxing phone calls you’ll make.

How much information can you afford to lose and where is it going?

(http://free NULL.grisoft NULL.com/)

We’ve all had them at one point or another, and they’re so easy to get hold of. When you do get them, they can be a nightmare to remove and could destroy months, years or all your data.

What steps should you take to avoid them completely?

1. Backup your data regularly and often. If you can’t afford to lose a full day’s worth of data, then arrange some automated backup procedures to go on throughout the day. Don’t know how? Give me a call and I’ll put you in touch with a backup and IT security specialist
2. Install an antivirus. Personally, I don’t recommend the commercial ones, Norton tends to slow my machine right down and McAfee has let virus’s through. The best anti-virus I have ever used is AVG (http://free.grisoft.com/ (http://free NULL.grisoft NULL.com/)) It’s free for personal use (and a small fee for business) but has never let me down in the years of use.
3. Don’t download programs from the internet. Even trusted sites can be hacked discretely.
4. Don’t run software from free magazine CD’s. Though checked, they can be replaced with malicious code between the distributor and the store.
5. Don’t run programs or open attachments in emails unless you know EXACTLY what is in them. If friends send you pictures, ask them to send them as images not as ZIP files. DEFINITELY AVOID FILES ENDING WITH .EXE, .BAT, .COM, .SCR even if embedded within a ZIP file.
6. When opening files downloaded or unzipped. Right click the file and force a virus check. Usually this is done automatically but this is just to make sure.
7. When you run a program from any of these sources, if nothing seems to happen, or the file disappears, consult your IT specialist as soon as possible.

Always keep your virus scan updated, most do this automatically, do not disable it.

Always allow scheduled full system scans to run. If they set to an awkward time, change it to something more helpful, again don’t disable it.

If you follow all of the above steps, you too should be happy and virus-free.