In continuing with my talk on backups I thought I’d list out some common things you should think about backing up.
- Accounting Software
- Quicken
- Quickbooks
- Turbotax
- My Documents Continue Reading →
I have been wanting to include the word “redux” in a title for quite some time now. I am not sure why, but it just seems to make my blog truly a blog. What does redux mean? It means to revisit a topic. So “backups redux” means that we are going to take a retrospective look at backups. Continue Reading →
Ok, so we saved our data. It is safe now, right? Sure, until one of the following happens:
- Your hard drive crashes.
- Microsoft strikes again (and you have to reformat).
- Another part in your computer breaks and you send it in to be worked on and find that they wiped your hard drive clean when you get it back.
- The Wind Changes Direction (added for dramatic effect.) Continue Reading →
The first method to combat data loss is quite simple. Save! Saving your data will protect you against:
- Power Loss
- Program Crashes
- Accidental erasures of data
- Edits you made that you dislike
- Yourself (added for dramatic effect) Continue Reading →
Get In The Mindset That Data Is Not Immortal
The ancient world learned this lesson the hard way when the library of Alexandria burned to the ground taking a millennium of culture and history with it. Information is very fragile. It will be there one moment and gone the next. In fact, just while writing this post I accidentally hit the wrong key combination and lost a small portion of this post!
If Data Is So Frail, What Do You Suggest I Do About It?
There are three key procedures that help to protect you from the beast known as Data Loss.
- Save
- Backup
- Redundancy
I will go over all three of these topics in separate posts. What I would like you to chew on right now is the mortality of your data. Murphy’s law applies to your data all of the time. If something can go wrong with your data, then it will.
This makes for a paranoid life, doesn’t it? Unfortunately this is something of a status quo in computers. The techniques I cover in the following articles will give you a clearer picture of ways you can combat this problem but always remember that your data is mortal and just like any person walking down the street it is prone to being hit by some random bus and being carried off into the afterlife.
God Bless,
-Dan
“Because technology works for you, not the other way around.”