Back it up

[ Music ]^M00:00:04 >> All right. Good afternoon. Welcome to Editor's Office Hours. I'm here joined with Dong Ngo, Senior Associate Technology Editor, right? >> Sounds serious, sounds very serious. >> SATE? Anyways, he's here. We're going to talk about backups, backing up stuff, tips for backing up stuff, when you should backup, what you should use to backup, anything you want to do to back that thing up, which >> Back it up! >> Dong knows a lot about, from what I hear. Okay. Now, if you guys want to be involved in the chat, all you got to do is come down here in the bottom. We have a lot of people interacting, you can talk there. Also, if you want to send us questions, whatever you guys want, >> Ask questions in the box up there. >> Ask in the right-hand box. You just need a CNET account. It will ask you to create a username, a password and your e-mail. If you don't have it, send us your questions and we will answer them right away. So what we're going to first do is kind of start off and talk about what people should know about backup. First question, should someone backup? >> Of course, yes. >> Yes? Why? >> Because the thing is -- because I, you know, you have the stuff on your computer, right? And you think everything is working beautifully, but the problem is, like all devices, the computer or the hard drive, especially the hard dive, may die. And is a time, it's a matter of when, not if. It will die at some point. And I have so many friends, you know, they learn this the very hard way. Like they lost, you know, the whole essay or the, you know, whole collection of photos of babies. And the baby >> They lost their collection of babies? >> No, no. The photos of babies. >> Oh, okay. >> Probably the baby could never get younger for you to take photo of them again. >> Yes. >> And then, you know, so it's important that you back the data up and backup as often as you can. >> Okay. >> There's no, there's no when something as being too careful in backing up. >> Now, I would guess if you took a room of ten of your friends, maybe only one or two of those ten people actually backup. Do you think that's pretty accurate? >> I think that's accurate, yes. >> Yeah. Because, oh man >> And even some of the people have said I do backing up and say back it up, back it up now. They never do it. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. >> Until it's too late. >> And, yeah, you at first think I don't want to buy a hundred dollar external drive or anything. But then, once it hits you, you're going to be crying like a little baby. >> And, the problem is that, you know, it seems like there's a lot of work to back something up. But it's not, not, not, not really, you know, it is pretty easy these days and is also very cheap to buy, you know, external hard drive. And sometimes, even if you e-mail yourself, you have a G-mail account or Yahoo account to e-mail yourself the document. It is a kind of backup. So there are many ways to back stuff up, you know. >> Yeah, without a doubt. Now, let's start because we both have experience with PC's and Macs. I know you probably use a few Windows utilities. For people that are watching, what are some that you recommend and why? >> I recommend, seriously, I recommend first just a few ways to back things up. Just, you know, you can backup with kind of static media, like the optical drive, so CD, DVD, now Blue Ray. >> So just burn directly? >> Burn them directly and with this with this type of backing up is very, it's sort of not like very dynamic. Something that you would keep for a long time stuck in a place and leave it there for a long time, and you would not kind of look at them for a while and so do that. And, second way to backup kind of daily, you would get some sort of like an external hard dive and copy stuff over. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Just copy stuff over. And you can also use, you know, the software to do it for you or, if you remember, just, you know, when you are done just copy it over. Or you got some software. Most of the hard drive you buy >> Yeah. >> You know, external hard drive, it comes with the backup software and there are better one and, you know, than other, but they all do the same thing. >> Yeah. >> Backing up. So, if you use any of them, is better than not using any at all. >> Is there any specific software program that you personal like to use? >>Personally, I use the Acronis True Image. >> Yeah. >> Which, you know, backup the entire hard drive onto image and put it on the external hard drive. And it can also backup, like, make, you know, the kind of differential backups. >> Incremental ones, like, when you take, change a file it will do the backup of that too? >> Yes. And you can backup, basically, like the version of that hard drive, you know, daily. >> Okay. >> So it's very good. If you want to see, let's say you make a change to a file, let's say a word file, and then you change the content of that particular file and then you save it. And now, oh my God, I need to go back to the version. >> Oh my God. >> Yeah. Yesterday. So can go back there and, you know, check that version you saved yesterday. Which is a very nice thing if you do a lot of, like, editing, you know, changing or, let's say you do an essay for example and you need to go back to the yesterday version when you not drunk, you know, or something like that. >> So, you are saying that you are drunk at your computer a lot when you are backing up? >> No, not me. I'm just saying. >> Oh, you're just saying in general. >>In case, in case. >> In general. >> Okay. Now, on the Mac side there's a few utilities you can use. Obviously, you've heard about their Time Machine utility that's built into it. You actually had your own thoughts about Time Machine. What do you think about it personally? >> I think, like, most of the thing I think about Apple really, I think it's overrated. I really, I think that's the coolest thing about. >> There's a lot of things about Apple that are overrated. >> The coolest thing about that application is the name. >> Yeah. >> I think they spent so much time, you know, thinking of the name. >> Making it all pretty. >> And now it's just that I think it's overrated. >> Yeah. We've mentioned it a few times. The Time Machine, I personally, I do actually use two things for my backups. I'll use Time Machine just because, essentially, it's there. But it has come in handy. I used to never think I'd use it. Basically, you can, you know, let's say you have a folder and you want to find files, or files that are changed previously, you simply hit this Time Machine button. That folder now appears with this space-like background and you can go back in time. >> Exactly. >> Back in time and pull out those files that maybe. >> You can go back in time. >> Like that, like, >> Way back. >> You can go way back. >> So, you can, you know, go back in time and find files that you might have deleted or changed and pull them up. And it actually has worked. Want me to use a pretty funny example? So, there's this person that I deleted from my address book and then I felt like getting back in touch with her, and so I used Time Machine. >> Okay. >> Because I totally. >> That sound so romantic now. >> Whatever. I'm just. >> He actually used that one. What was that Time Machine? I remember my college-town friend and at that time I was so nerdy I couldn't talk to her. And I got the machine, you back in time and I talk to her now, look at me. >> Okay. Okay. That's not what it is. It's not a Time Machine. Anyways, the other tool or utility that I use is Carbon Copy Cloner. It is a free utility. It works really easy. Essentially, you just take your hard, it's a software application where you can say okay I want my hard drive, point it to another hard drive, you know, an external one and it will make an exact clone, carbon copy clone, file for file, directly there. So I'll do that once a month and then I'll have my Time Machine. Just because sometimes it's also I'd just rather have a physical image of it, essentially. >> I think basically, you know, it's good to use any kind of backup software. It's better than nothing, that's for sure. >> Okay. Now, here's a question from Jemons [assumed spelling] and Jemons is asking what options should you look for in getting backup software? I'm assuming he might be asking what type of features are key or specific in backup software. >> Okay. I think the main options that the main thing that you want from a backup software is that it have to function to do it by itself. Like, you can schedule so you can leave it there and it do it by a certain time. The second important thing is that it allows you to backup any location you want, like any folder on the hard drive, any, you know, it can pick up what you wanted to backup. Some of them, they allow us to backup only the My Document folder or the desktop. And that's very limited because, you know, you cannot backup, basically, anything you put outside of that, those folders. >> Yeah. >> That would include the archive of Outlook. And so, make sure that you look for, you know, number one, it allows you to do scheduling, you know, and second thing is that allows you to backup multiple, different, the place you choose. And the third thing it allows you to backup, you know, a differential backup or increment backup. And the second, the next one would be fast, if it's fast. Do it fast. >> I know some that are just really slow. >> Some pretty slow. And some, also there's two kind of backup, you know, if you want the backup you can access right away, you want it to backup, like, copy the same exact thing over the same place, the second thing is you can compress it into a small, one file so you can save. Actually, you don't use that much space to use for the backup. >> So a compressed backup. >> Yes. Compressed backup. >> Is there any danger, you think, or any issues with compressed backups? Like, if the file gets corrupt, is that a problem? >> It could be a problem if the file get corrupted. Because then if you want, nobody compress a whole backup into one single file. If that file is corrupt >> For some reason. >> Then the whole backup is gone. >>Which would suck. >> Well, of course, yes. >> Okay. That's cool. Now, do you have any horror backup stories that have happened to you personally? >> Actually, I don't have any that happened to me personally, but it happened to my friend. And I told the story, you know, in some of my podcasts already. But I have a friend, he has a laptop and it crashed, very bad laptop by the way, and it crashed. >> What kind of a laptop was it? >> I don't want to say the name, but it's really kind of, you know, crappy laptop. >> Okay. >> You know I would never recommend that one. So it crashed and he came to me and the machine crashed. The hard drive didn't crash. So I was able to copy all of his photos, by the way the photos of his baby, new born baby, onto my desktop. And then we got him a new laptop and put it over. And, I said, listen. You bringing this home and make sure you back this up because it will happen again. He said Fine, I'll do it. I'll do it. Two months later he called me. Hey Dong, my house got broken in and now I lost my laptop. >> Oh, man. >> I said, did you back the thing up? He said, no I didn't do it. The guy thought a new laptop, it wasn't going to happen again. >> Yeah. >> So, the thing is, I told him, this is crazy. Because I just spent so much time trying to recover for him and put it back for him and now it totally lost. So I actually went into my computer and I recovered from my computer his hard drive. >> Yeah. >> But I was recover from my own hard drive and got it back for him. >> So you had actually deleted the files from your hard drive, but then you used a recovery tool? >> Yes. >> So let's kind of talk about that. Recovery tools that pool, basically, files that essentially the OS doesn't show you anymore. How long can you, you know, really get access to files like that? >> I think it's forever. As long as, you know, the space in which the data was written was not overwritten by other data. >> Yes. Correct. >> So, actually, all that time I was copying to another hard drive, the D hard drive, of my computer which I hardly use for anything else. So, even there had been two months, but because I didn't erase it from my hard dive, didn't do anything else to the hard drive, so the information is still in there. I was able to recover it pretty easily. But, if the information has been overwritten, it pretty much impossible to recover it. >> Now, are there any, I guess, products that you've worked with that you really like? When we were talking about backing up, like, a lot of times we were talking about people getting a hard drive, or an external one. Are there any ones, specifically brands, or, you know, we have the old Drobo setup that gets a lot of, you know, positive attention? >> The Drobo actually is very good an idea. >> An idea? >> Yes. It's great. It should be a great product. But I would be, I would, you know, personally I would guess limit the cost about it, because it kind of, you know, is very, is not a standard kind of backup. If something happened to it, it's really hard to recover. And another thing is when doing the review of the product, I talked to the company, I called the support. It took a long time to get to support. It took a real long time. Actually, I didn't get to the person, it took me half an hour on the phone. >> Because you called during their lunch break? >> No. I call at different time, you know, but never got to talk to anyone. So I thought, you know, maybe before you buy a product make sure you talk, make sure to have a good customer support. But I don't have any personal, like, kind of favorite. >> Yeah. >> I just want to use, I think you backup, you backup. The essential thing about backing up is you put the data at many places. >> Yeah. >> As many as possible. So I would copy to my thumb drive, copy on my external hard drive, put on different machines. Put at work, you know, the CNET former here. So no favorite kind of things. >> Yeah. I think that's actually a really good point. Because, for myself, I put my data in essentially three different places. I have a Time Machine backup, I have my carbon copy cloner backup and then some of my crucial settings may live on my, you know, remote storage online. But ultimately, you know, you keep your most. You won't have to have everything, but there's certain crucial, crucial stuff that you want to put in multiple places. >> I have a question about the Time Machine. >> Oh, God. Here we go. Okay. >> So how do you backup your Time Machine? Because Time Machine is actually backup onto the >> Another drive. >> Okay. >> So, what it does is, let's say on your very first initial backup, it backs up the entire hard drive. And then, after that point, it does kind of, like, incremental backup settings it can refer to, or incremental Time Machine backups. And then, from that point, it essentially looks into them. But again, like you said, what happens if your Time Machine backup dies? Well, I've had some problems where my external hard drive that was my backup died. But, I at least, I still have my data on my regularly working functioning hard drive. But then I would have to go and buy another hard drive. That happens a lot though, right? Where even although you may not want it, your actual backup drive dies before your primary drive. >> Yes. >> And what it just comes down to is, sure that sucks, but ultimately you just have to have a backup drive to cover your butt. Especially if you are working with tons of multimedia files and things like that. Now, we finally, it looks like everyone has woken up and are starting to ask us some questions. So, what we are going to do is, we're going to take a peek at these. But, before that, we're going to go and jump into one of our videos about a little backup device. >> Sure. >> Sure? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Let's do it. We'll be back in a few minutes and then we'll get your questions. All right? >> See ya. ^M00:14:19 [ Music ]^M00:14:21 >> Hello. This is Dong Ngo for CNET.com. I have with me today the NSA-220 NAS sever from ZyXEL. This is a little unusual NAS server I have ever seen. First, on the front is a big LCD that turns out to be just a decoration. It's actually not an LCD but just a piece of shiny plastic. Secondly, the drive base access from behind of the device. This means you would have to first unplug it from the power and the network before you can install, replace the hard drives. Obviously, this prevent the NAS server from being able to offer [inaudible] for future. Other than that, the NSA-220, the two-bay NAS server, that can support two SATA hard drives up to one terabyte each. You then can configure these hard drive into a two terabyte, red zero configuration or one terabyte with one configuration, J bar. The NSA-220 has two USB ports that can be used to support external storage or a printer. You can also copy entire content of a USB thumb drive onto the internal storage just by pressing on the copy button on the front. The best thing about the NSA-220 are those I can't show you here. First, it comes with a very robust easy to use web management. Probably one of the best I've ever seen. The NSA-220 also has a new feature called podcaching [assumed spelling]. Where it keeps track of RSS feeds, such as podcast or news. You then can share the downloaded materials with other computers in your network via the media or iTunes servers. For more information and the performance of the NSA, check back at CNET.com soon for our full review of the product. If you can't wait, the NSA-220 is available now for about $220 without the hard drives, which is a good price. Once again, this is Dong Ngo, and this has been the first look at the NSA-220 NS server from ZyXEL. [ Music ]^M00:16:10 >> Okay. Guys, we are back from the video. Welcome back. >> In black and white. >> And maroon and pinstripes. >> And white, yeah. >> Okay. So we're going jump to some of your questions. First thing, we just watched a video about network attached storage. What are your thoughts on that? We didn't really talk about network attached storage yet. Or NOS or NAS or whatever you pronounce. >> NAS. >> NAS, I know, but some people pronounce NOS something like >> NOS, whatever. I think it's, you know, very interesting. But problem with them is that they are never friendly enough. Even the most friendly one, they are not friendly enough for novice to use. >> So, just like, configuring it and just the software that talks to networks, that device a little. >> Some of the them, now is the one I'm reviewing right now actually the Iomega StorCenter ix2, it is one of the most friendly one. >> User friendly one for a novice? >> Yes, user friendly one. And it's also, second thing, slow. Because the speed, you know, that you can trust for data to a depending on speed of the network. In the network, the top half is big, but even that speed is still a slower than used to be 2.0. So, number one, it is not user friendly and, number two, is it's slow. So it's good for, like, casual kind of backing up, but not a huge amount of backup. Another thing is feasible or it's a good solution. Unless if you want to backup overnight, then it's fine. But, generally, it's more like, you know, kind of in the sharing, file sharing, network file sharing solution than of backup. >> Okay. Okay. Excellent. Okay. We'll get to this question. We kind of answered it earlier, but there weren't as many people in the chat, so we'll kind of go over this quickly. This is from Matt Burly [assumed spelling]. What's up Dong and Brian? >> What's up, Matt? >> What is up, Matt? What is your favorite backup software for PC? I have both internal and external hard discs and would like to backup to those simultaneously? >> Like I said before, just use Acronis True Image. I think that would be the best for your situation. You can do, you can, but it's the thing about Acronis is that it does not copy files over, it backup and it put the backup in one single file. >> One single contained file. >> But you can actually mount that file and make the separate volume. >> Okay. >> So that volume you can actually >> Drag and drop. >> Drag and drop. So it's really convenient and I think you'll love it. >> Okay. Excellent. Let's go to a question here that's a little different. This question is from TM underscore thirteen. Is there an online service that allows automatic backup for your computer? >> There's online service but I not sure about, you know, the thing that use for performance by itself. You have to setup to work it, to make it work. But there is a NAS drive, it's called DATTO, D-A-T-T-O. Yes. It does, it's a NAS device you can store your data on it. But then it sync itself to a server. >> Okay. >> By itself. >> Okay. >> And it works really well. It works really well. The problem is that when it sync itself to the server, it takes a lot of bandwidth. >> Yeah, of course. >> Take a lot of your upload bandwidth. And, during that time, you cannot do anything else. Seriously, if you have a DSL or cable at home. >> You're screwed. >> Totally. It's bogged down so bad. So you can do it overnight, but still. I think it's a great idea, though. It's great because you, anything you put on a NAS device it sync up to its server and if it fail, the service could send you another one. >> Okay. >> With your whole data on it. >> That's nice. >> So you have, like, a backup here at home and then a backup somewhere else. >> Online, yeah. Yeah. What was the name of the product again? >>DATTO, D-A-T-T-O. >> D-A-T-T-O. Now, I'm assuming that also for that online storage space they offer, you pay incrementally. >> Yes. >> For larger amounts of storage. >> You have to pay. I think there's a few plans. One of them, one hundred gigabyte. Another one is, like, five hundred gigabyte. And they have even larger plans for enterprise. But you have to pay kind of monthly or some sort of plan for that service. So it's not just the NAS, but also the service. >> For me, if I was, files are crucial to me I would use that as a command. And we talked about it a little earlier, backing up your data in multiple places. You know, I do a lot of multimedia stuff. I would have a physical hard drive, but if you wanted to, I wouldn't use that online storage space as your primary backup. Personally I wouldn't recommend that. >> And, seriously, you should not. Because, you know, I just wrote about this online kind of archive service for the photos and they went down. They went under. >> Oh, like they went out of business? >> Yes. So it's called Ditto Red Road. It's just went under like this now. If you go to DRR.net you will see it. >> DRR.net. >> And when is it's, you know, left the user only twenty-four hours to download. >> And save whatever they can get. >> Yes. Whatever they can get from the server. And it actually ended up giving them, like, less than twenty-four hours. Later on they extend it to another twenty-four hours, but there's no way all of them can get all of it off. >> And, at the same time, I'm sure the servers were hit once they told people. Oh, yeah, we're going out of business come and get our photos. >> So do not put all eggs in one basket, is what I'm saying. >> Oh, yes. >> That's how it is, you know. Backing up make sure that you have eggs everywhere. Okay? >> Okay. >> Make sure that you put your files in multiple places, not one place. Yes? >> Okay. >> At least two copies. At least two copies. But three or four or five, better. >> Okay. Awesome. Now, let's take this question from Jemans [assumed spelling]. He or she asks, I have a Dell where the HDD, the hard drive sorry, where the hard drive has a partition with the installation media that allows going back to factory -- what? I can't. >> Yes. >> What is? >> Who is get this partition. Yes. >> Okay. Basically, he's trying to get access to the partition. >> Yes. So basically, I know the hard drive. The hard drive have two partition. One of them is the main partition where the OS is and the other one is smaller. Is where they store the, you know, the factory configuration of the other partition. >> Okay. >> The thing, yes. Acronis can use that partition, but that partition is kind of always small, like, part two gig or five gig. >> Yeah. Very small. >> So you want, if you doesn't want it, you probably you want to increase it. You use a software. If you use Window Vista, you actually can use Window Vista partition kind of tool. If you right-click on My Computer, choose manage. You can go there, you can actually shrink the main partition smaller and increase the second one. >> So on the fly, just >> On the fly, yes. >> Change the partition size, yes. >> And you don't even have to restart the machine. >> Yeah. >> So once that's done you can use Acronis or any other backup software, to use the second partition to use as backup. However, don't do it. Because the reason is, because they are on the same one physical hard drive. It mean if that hard drive is dead or something happened to it, both partition is going to be gone. >> Yeah. >> So you're going to backup to a second hard drive, separate physical hard drive. >> Yeah. >> So. >> Which is a good point. Don't backup to a partition on the same hard drive. >> On the same hard drive, yes. >> That's a no, no. >> You can actually, it's better to backup anyway because that's use of, you accidentally erase the stuff on the first one, that works. But, in case of disaster or something, the more serious problem like the hard drive got broken or you lost a laptop or you drop a machine, that doesn't work. So I would recommend buying an external hard drive. >> And realistically, it's about if they really just want to get access to all of the storage space. And it sounds like they might be trying to get access to the partition. They should just do a restore and, you know, just do a clean install to get the whole full availability of the hard drive. >> Yeah. >> If that's what they want. >> Yeah. >> Okay. I'm just, you know, we're only doing one way communication, so I'm just trying to look out for them, right? >> You're right, you're right. >> What was that? >> Looking at them. >> Okay. This is, okay, here we go. This is regarding Dong's answer to my question. So how many eggs have you got so far for your backup? >> Well, I honestly, haven't had time to count, but I can be sure it's within my number of toes and fingers. >> Okay. Let's let me just ask you directly. >> Okay. >> You do physical backup. So is that hard drives, optical media? >> Yeah. I do mostly kind of, you know, dynamic backup. Which means I don't use stuff like you know, like optical media. >> Yeah. >> Because I don't have anything that backup for 20 years from now. Really, I just mostly use external hard drive and I use, I use, also I use online. I e-mail myself. When it's something that's important, I e-mail. >> Is that just to send a note to yourself to say, hi Dong. How are you doing? Or what? >> Yeah. I just. No, I look awesome. Something like that. But if, seriously, if you are to backup mostly important thing document. Document, they do not take that much space. You can compress them. You can compress, like, you know, twenty megabyte into one megabyte and send that e-mail to yourself. Leave it there. But I also use thumb drive. So I copy stuff between my work computer and my home computer or I have external hard drive, copies back and forth. And for work stuff I leave my stuff on the CNET server. >> Oh, so you use our servers to backup your stuff? >> It's work stuff. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. >> That's not my own egg. Okay? That's CNET egg. >> So multiple, you have a CNET egg basket, huh? >> Yeah. It's very clear what eggs is what. >> Now, you touched upon it really quickly about optical media and you don't, you personally don't backup on optical media. And I think it's good for specific cases, but more and more do you think that's kind of a dead art of backing up on optical media or >> I don't think it's dead, I think it's great. >> Yeah? >> It's great because, you know, it means that, one, you have written something on it. You will not have a chance to mess with it. You not going to change it. It's going to stay there the same, you know, until you read it, you know, again. So it's a good way to backup something that you want to make sure that you want to keep this and nobody going to change it. If you put it on a hard drive there's a chance that people going to look at it and they change it. >> Yeah. >> Or change something the content of it. So it's a little bit kind of inconvenience to use. You got to open the drive, put it in and wait for it to spin and open it. And these day we just too, you know, we so used to >> We don't want that, right. >> Used to something happen like that. >> Yeah. >> So for a long term I would recommend using that. >> Yeah. >>However, not for too long. Because maybe 20 years from now you can't find something that we see anymore. That's a possibility, you know, same as a floppy and zip drive. >> Yeah. Yeah. Oh, geez, yeah. Zip drive, man. Okay. Here's another question from Matt Burly 1993. Mr. Matt asked, this time he says, yo, guys, instead of what's up guys. >> Oh, okay. >> Do you want to say yo back to him? >> Yo, what's up, Joe? >> Okay. >> Good English. >> Okay. You talked about an offsite backup system, but what's your favorite offsite backup system? Matt Burly, I'm not familiar with this, but he says, I hear Mozy's good, but I don't want my house to get robbed and my offsite backup doesn't work. Thanks for helping. >> Offsite basically means that you carry a copy of the data somewhere else from where the first copy is. So, like I said, I using between home and work. So my favorite one for home is work and my favorite one for work is home. So that's my favorite. No matter what I use. >> Yeah. Okay. Now, it's 11:57, you guys. You're going to ask us a few more questions. I'm going to get into a final one here because that's what we like to do here. So this question is from Allen Iceman [assumed spelling]. He was reading the Crave Blog, which you contribute to frequently with great insight and great articles, right? >> Yeah. >> And Allen Iceman is wondering if the LaserComb is working for you. Now, first tell people what the LaserComb is. >> So, basically, I have this company sending me this and they insist on that it works. >> It's a product. >> It's a product, it's a comb, like, you comb your hair. I don't have much hair, so >> To help you grow hair, right? >> So the thing this comb is called LaserComb and where it have nine laser beam on it. >> Yeah. >> It's very serious looking. So turn it on, it go like this in your hair, on the hair, and supposedly if you do that like, you know, five minutes a day or three times a week >> Yeah. >> Then your hair after, like, two months or three months you start kind of seeing a difference. >> Yeah. >> So I said: Okay, I'm going to do this. >> And because they sent it to you? >> Yeah. And they said. >> For free? >> Basically, yes, for free. It cost five hundred dollars, by the way. >> Yeah. >> And they said that, you know, you can restore your confidence. So, of course, I was so inconfident, so I going to do this. >> Obviously. >> I'm going to do this. Hopefully going to help. So I tried that for two months and, literally, I sit there in my office and every time I do the phone, or this, I could do this, you know, become a kind of happy. And my colleagues, you know, are making fun of me, you know. >> You say, like, yes, I got to work. Don't miss work. >> No. Just, like, are you crazy? Are you crazy? You know, what you going to do? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, after two months, I do it almost everyday. So way more than three times a week and look at me, it's the same. >> Is it? You are positive it's the same? Did you take pictures or anything? >> Yes. And I talked to my friend, hey, do I look any different, you know? And I realize it's the same. >> So what lessons can be learned? >> So the lesson is that >> What life lessons can be learned from this? >> Is that if there was inconfident before, he's still inconfident now. That's all. And >> And if >> No. And the truth is that his inconfident has nothing to do with how good his hair look. >> Okay. But Dong is confident. So, whether he has a LaserComb or not, it doesn't matter, right? It's all about what's in here, right? >> Seriously, it's about what in here. >> And here. >> Well, I saw you. First, don't let stuff like that kind of fool you. And, seriously, if you want your hair grow up fuller and longer I understand and that's fine. But don't let people who make the comb think, okay, this is going to restore your confidence. Because your confidence does not start with anything to do with your look. >> Man, I wish we had like a life lesson theme song. Life lessons from Dong, hear it exclusively on CNET. >> All right. Let's move on to the next question. >> Okay. Well, we're out of time. Is there, I mean, looks like, yeah. We basically covered all of these guys. So I say let's say goodbye. And you're going to be coming back when? In a few weeks or so? >> Yeah. I'll come back. We'll talk about something else. We'll talk about all-night dating maybe. Because this is one topic Brian and Dong are dying to talk about. >> All right. Guys, thanks for coming out to Editors Office Hours. Again, you can find us at 11:30 a.m. West coast time, 2:30 p.m. East coast time. I'm not sure who's going to be on tomorrow. Okay. Well, you know what? Come back tomorrow. It's going to be a surprise. A crap shoot. It could be even you again. >> It could be me again? Who knows. >> Who knows. Okay. Guys, thanks a lot and we'll see you guys tomorrow. >> Until then. ^M00:30:40[ Music ] ?? ?? ?? ??