Computer Disasters Can Happen To Anyone

We had a disturbing experience the other night. Sound asleep, I awoke to the growl and bark of my trusty Lab. The time was 03:30 hrs. The neighbors house across the street was fully engulfed in flames.

As I stood outside and watched the fireman work, confident that all the occupants were safely out, my thoughts began to wander to all the things, both personal and sentimental that are lost when a house is destroyed by fire.

I looked back at my house and after considering the wife and animals, I wondered what was it that would put me at a considerable loss?

My computer of course.

On my home computer resides my livelihood. All the data and files I use daily to operate my online business. I asked myself the question:

What would I do if I lost my computer or all of its data?

Besides the inconvenience of reloading data, I can honestly say I would still be in business if I lost my computer or files.

Would you?

No matter if you own a top of the line pentinum or an old 286, they are man made machines and subject to malfunction. Make sure you back up your computer files! I put a tape drive, internal back up system in my computer, The Tape-Stor from Seagate. http://www.seagate.com There are many brands available so the four things you need to compare are price, features, compatibility and ease of installation.

There is also such a thing as a ZIP drive, found online at: http://www.iomega.com/zip/ This is a great little system that includes a high compression disk for storing your data.

If you can not afford the $200-$500 dollars a backup system may cost you, there is a web site that will do your backups for you. @Backup is an automatic and extremely secure backup service. Your first month is free. The @Backup Service is $29.95 per month. At this time there is no limit on the amount of data you can backup. I have not used them but the concept is fantastic. http://www.netsales.net/pk.wcgi/zap/prod/1183583-1

Here are a couple more backup tips and tricks:

1) It is great to backup your system, but if you leave the disk lying next to the computer, and then have it all stolen, it will not do you much good. Store your backup disk away from your computer and even outside the home if concerned about fire.

2) Back up your system regularly. Can you afford to lose a months data since your last backup? A weeks data? The backup system is only as good as its owners memory so use it often and on a regular schedule.

3) Remember that backups are machines also, and if your data is so important that you could not do without it, consider the old fashion way, printing.

I can not count the number of people who email me saying they have lost their data. It pays to plan ahead.

About the Author

Kevin Needham Publisher of Active Internet Marketing. inetexchange.com/inet-mailer.htm Business Intelligence for Successful On-line Marketers Subscribe today to the free A.I.M Ezine. subscribe-Inet-Mailer@send.memail.com

kevin@inetexchange.com
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