Off the air for a couple of days

First of all I would like to apologise for being "off the air". A couple of weeks ago my external hard drive backup decided to move onto silicon heaven, a replacement was bought and the process of re-building the backup began. Last night, after downloading the latest fire wall - thanks to an update from a large software organisation that rendered the firewall unusable last weekend - and therefore no access to the Internet - this week - the final blow. The hard drive on the laptop gave up and joined its friend in silicon heaven.

Since then of course it's been re-building time. In terms of dataloss - because of the file synchronisation earlier in the week was minimal. In terms of loss of software and time to download all the unique pieces again, plus the time spent to rebuild the mailing list from scratch - in monetary terms about a couple of thousand dollars in wasted time alone.

Because I hadn't backed up the software programs, because I hadn't backed up the mailing list to the external driver - my workload has just gone through the roof. And it could have been prevented.

My fault.

Which is ironic given my profession. I am an Information Manager, and advise on disaster planning and how to manage your information.

Don't assume it can't happen to you - it can.
Don't assume you will be able to retrieve data from a dead hard drive - you probably could, but at what cost.
Don't assume you will be able to back up your files tomorrow - you might be able to, then again - you might not.
And don't assume your backup will last the distance either.

Before the days of thumb drives and external hard drives one of the tricks to long term digital archiving I used was to back everything of importance to an email account - courtesy of the internet. Now, thanks to Yahoo and more or less Gmail - you have unlimited storage, all you need to do is send yourself a message with the relevant attachment - make the subject line meaningful, so if you need to find something in a hurry you can, and away you go. It might take some time depending on how much old stuff you have in electronic form, but you can start the process right now with the work you are doing now, and you can add your personal archive as you get 5 minutes to attach and transfer files.

Or you could do as I am going to do and that is buy a second backup, back up the back up, synchronise the files once a month and then replace the backups every 12-18 months. It may sound extravagent, but then again it depends how much value you place on your information. As a writer, my archive is priceless.

Anyway, that is the latest tale of my electronic woes - actually it isn't - in addition to these two things dying a premature death I have a broken digital camera - the back broke - it can still take pics - you just can't see what you are taking. And I have a cd stuck in my sound system - that is going to have to go off to be unscrewed to get it out.

And as usual - these things usually happen when cash flow is a bit tight - time to curb spending on "pleasure" and make way for the business purchases that I need to make.

Speak soon - I promise

Elle