Disaster preparation 101 — Data backup

In this one I will talk about Disaster, it happens to all of us from time to time. A fire, a earthquake, a stolen laptop or any number of ways. So what happens to your data, is it stored on the laptop? Is it important very sensitive data? Could you get fired if you lost that data?

[ad#ad2-right]These are all questions you must ask yourself when you have laptop. How do you backup your data or even do you have a backup? Having seen this with my own clients, I must wonder if there are people out there who just don’t care. I had a client the other day who gotten a virus and this was a really mean virus. Deleted some very important files when you tried to clean the virus out. She called me in a panic because she couldn’t load up windows? I asked if she had any backups, she said “what’s a backup” . So I sat there discussing this with the client for over 20 minutes. Finally she started to understand, she said she had the OEM Backup DVD but nothing else. She also said she needed help with getting data off the computer. I told her that I would be able to come the next day and I was lucky the virus didn’t do anything else to her data. We were able to retrieve the data from her system. That is where I start my rant , Why would anyone not have backup of there most important data?

So How do you backup your data? This is controversial and somewhat depends on how much people want to spend to keep there data safe and not loose pictures or music. There are several ways to do it, each way has it’s pitfalls or short comings and requires a little more effort:

Kinds of Backup

Hard Medium – DVD, CD, External Hard drive

Although,  The hard medium is usually used that doesn’t mean you can have a backup other than hard.   Here are some ways to back up on the internet.

Internet Medium:

  • Jungle Disk — Provides online storage through the Amazon s3 service.   Only pay for what you use.   It works well with most Operating system.  I’ve used it on Vista so it is really nice.
  • Carbonite Online backup –Another good Online storage.
  • Some Other Online backup — Here a list from Amazon to better help you find the type of software that you might need.

These are just a few options, if you want to look for other you can.  The important thing to do is BACKUP because if you need some data that gets wiped or destroyed.  You will be kicking yourself for not backing up.

Bank of America Slashes 35,000 Jobs in 3 Years

This one hit me hard in the chest.  I must say this was a big surprise to me and others but it looks like Bank of America is going to cut 30,000 to 35, 000 Jobs in the next 3 Years.   I’ll will quote Huffinton Post:

NEW YORK — Bank of America Corp. said Thursday it expects to cut 30,000 to 35,000 jobs over the next three years, as it faces a deteriorating economic environment and tries to absorb Merrill Lynch & Co.

[Via Huffinton Post]

[ad#ad2-right]Now this one will affect the Whole US and some other International in the coming years. It is based on the Economic Stresses we are getting hit with right now. I am saddened and disturbed by how many people have loss there jobs. I have lost count as to how many people have losed their jobs over this economic downward spiral as Jason Calicanis once said. I can only hope that we can get up after this and fix what went wrong in the first place. I also know that it is quite hard to get hired in this day and age. So what is to become of the hard working men and women? Will the Government have to pay for housing for even more people? These are all questions we must answer soon in order to prevent a disastrous depression.