TechEase Computer Solutions Offers Free Internet, Data Recovery for Tea Fire Victims

By Evan Asher November 14th in Community, News

In response to the Tea Fire, TechEase Computer Solutions announces it is offering free internet access and data recovery services for victims affected by the fire.  The Santa Barbara computer support company will also provide three months of online backups for free to new clients wishing to protect their important data from loss due to fire or the surrounding fall-out.

Wifi, as well as workstations with internet access, will be provided to residents in the Tea Fire evacuation area free of charge in the TechEase office, located at 511 East Gutierrez Street in Santa Barbara.  Residents whose computers have been damaged by the fire may bring them to the TechEase office for complimentary on-site data recovery work.

“We can see a clear view of the fires from our office, and it’s evident how devastating this will be for many of our neighbors.  We wanted to come up with some ways to help people get their feet back under them during a catastrophe like this.  These days, having internet access is key to keeping in touch with family, and getting work done,” says Evan Asher, co-founder of TechEase.

“The amount of important data stored on computers has been steadily growing.  Much of it is irreplaceable and emotionally significant.  As the only tech support company in town that specializes in forensic data recovery for criminal cases, we have tools to help us recover data that may seem to be lost forever.”

Asher explained that not all data loss during this event will occur on computers that are burned in the fire.  Only 3% of data loss occurs in catastrophes, while 44% occur from electrical or hardware failure.  The electrical outages caused by the fire have potential to cause far more data loss than the fire itself.

“Computer users should be aware that each time the power surges or you experience a brown-out or outage, there is potential for data loss.  If you don’t need to use your computer during the fire, unplug it from the wall.  Eventually, though, all computers will experience data loss of some sort, due to power fluctuations or part failure.  There are simple ways to reduce the impact of data loss, and the easiest is to install an online backup program like Mozy.”

Mozy (www.mozy.com) is a program which automatically backs up all of your data to secure servers every day.  For $4.95/month, unlimited documents, photos, e-mail and any other important data can be backed up and stored for 30 days.  Should a fire, theft or other damage occur, data can be downloaded again from Mozy’s website.

TechEase is offering a special to encourage computer users to backup their data with Mozy.  “We will pay for your first 3 months of Mozy to try it out.  Nobody ever expects that they’ll need backups, but as we’ve seen, catastrophes happen when we least expect it.  Having this simple, inexpensive solution in place will save a lot of heartache,” says Asher.

Displaced residents are encouraged to stop by the TechEase office to say hello, use free internet access and discuss plans for recovery.