Business
Continuity | Computer backup plans and procedures and how how to schedule automated
backups to the Internet
From the
desk of John Davin
John Davin says, "Get xdrive today. Do whatever it takes.
Buy a used computer if necessary. Do without a DVD. Save money however you can,
but whatever you do, make sure you spend the money for a service that backs up
your important data regularly to the Internet so that the files are off-site in
case of a fire, flood or other disaster. With Xdrive or a similar solution!"
That said, I would like to ask you to review
this outline for a recent short seminar on the importance of backups, and solutions.
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Hello from John Davin and MyNewOffice. Today we will be talking about why
it is absolutely imperative that you back up the data and files on your computer
regularly, and how to do it economically.
The importance of backing up
our data came apparent to my good friend Mr. Bill Walker recently when his hard
drive crashed, losing all the data on it. Luckily for Bill, I pestered him for
weeks to get a backup of his hard drive so that in case he did have a disaster,
his important files would still be intact. Bill now has a new computer and all
his data was able to be moved to the new computer because of this simple advice.
I give this advice because of experiences
that are not so happy from a past life. As many of you know, I operated a retail
computer store for 20+ years.
During those 20 + years of working with
computers, I've seen some very ugly results from people who do not back up their
computer data regularly. Believe me, it's easier to work on preventing disasters
than recovering from them.
So today we will be discussing the importance
of computer backups and how to to perform them. That is, the backup of the critical
information on your computer. Then taking the next step of actually safely storing
that same critical information. Information that you probably know you need to
back up, but never get around to doing. I hope to change all of that today.
The reason I say this is because regular backups are another key to a successful
business in two ways.
1. Preventing disasters.
2. Disaster recovery.
Here are a few examples of reasons to back up your data regularly.
- If you are a student, can you imagine losing your thesis?
- If you
are a photographer, can you imagine losing all the pictures that you took with
your digital camera?
- If you are in business, can you imagine not knowing
who owes you money? Or how much customers owe you?
In fact, did you
know that a majority of businesses that lose their business data do not recover
and eventually go out of business?
It really makes you think, doesn't
it! Here are just a few more of the "Must have" items that you probably have stored
on your computer for your business.
- Your payroll information for next
week.
- The accounts payable for your company, due next week.
- The
names and phone numbers of all of your business contacts.
- The Inventory
list for your business, for fulfilling orders and for tax reasons.
- Additional
past and future tax records - like W2, 1099's, State sales tax and more.
Here are a few more true stories related to people losing the data on their
computers. Just for fun, I'd like to use the old "Bad news, good news, and
even back to bad news again," format to explain these items.
1.
My friend the banker.
The bad news.
A banker I worked with
20 years ago formatted his hard drive when the computer asked, "WARNING!
WARNING! Are you sure you want to format drive c:? Do you wish to continue?".
He typed in yes.
The good news: There is a command that UNFORMATS a
hard drive for you. The bad news: It did not exist before my banker friend formatted
his entire hard drive. He lost all of his banking information, his personal records
and more.
2. The college student.
The bad news: One of my
clients' computers was stolen from a lab at the University.
The good
news: They had made backups of the data - their thesis and other important lab
data.
The bad news. The thieves
stole the backup disks that were next to the computer.
3. My friend
who had to redo all of her accounting information.
The bad news:
A friend of mine inserted a diskette in her computer, and then was called
away to answer the phone. When she returned, somehow, someway, someone took the
disk out of her disk drive with her financial information. The disk literally
disappeared!
The good news: We finally found the diskette with all the
data on it. The bad news: We did not find it until 2 years later when upgrading
the computer. Somehow the 5.25 disk was pushed in-between
the floppy drive and the CD Rom drive.
The bad news: My friend had to
duplicate all the accounting work she had done. A true story.
My point
is, you never know what is going to happen to your computer or the data on your
computer. What are your solutions?
Well, you can plan regular backups on floppy, cd Rom, USB or other external hard
drive or other media. Which is good. Actually, I am very happy as long as it gets
done.
But the fact is, unless you do it automatically, and through the
Internet, then you still have to worry about:
1. Making sure it actually
gets done. Regularly.
2. Getting the backups off site, so in case of a disaster,
the backup are not stolen, burned or otherwise destroyed.
The best
solution: Backup your important files, pictures and data to the Internet! Automatically
with xdrive.
Why? Well, it's performed:
1. Automatically so
that you don't forget.
2. At night when you are not using your computer.
3. Securely because you are the only person who has access to the data.
You can also set up shared directories and share passwords to friends or business
colleagues so they can share the data.
In addition:
1. You can retrieve
the backup any time you like.
2. You can select to back up only specific
files, like new files or ones that have changed since the last time you used them.
3. This makes it easy to keep backups of your new digital pictures and accounting
records current, with no effort.
4. You can use the storage on the Internet
as your own local drive, so copying information there is fast and easy.
With Xdrive:
- You can store files on-line. Documents, music, photos,
software and more.
- You can access them anywhere, anytime. Via a web browser
or the special Xdrive desktop software. That means the drive looks like another
drive on your computer, like A, C, D, E, etc.
- You can distribute files
and folders with friends and family.
- It acts as a backup for you... so
you automatically protect your data against viruses and crashes. And the other
unusual disasters I talked about earlier.
You can even try a 500MB
X drive for free. Just test drive a full featured Xdrive for 15 days. It's
easy and you can get started immediately, as registration takes only a few minutes.
There are no hassles and no commitment. You may cancel at any time.
Now, here are a few
testimonials for the xdrive program!
ZD Net says" Xdrive dominated our lab's usability deathmatch,".
John Davin says, "Get xdrive today. Do whatever it takes. Buy a used
computer if necessary. Do without a DVD. Save money however you can, but whatever
you do, make sure you spend the money for a service that backs up your important
data regularly. With Xdrive or a similar solution!"
Please contact
me for a recorded interview with the CTO of xdrive talking about the importance
of backing up your data and how to go about it!
Best regards and happy
computing....
John Davin
Business Coach
PS: If you do decide to do your own backups, please be sure to
visit this site for a schedule you can follow.
Again, please
test drive xdrive's backup system and rest assured you have your data backed
up!
Questions? Contact me!
John Davin
jddavin@mynewoffice.com
www.freebusinessplans.info
Copyright (C) 1982, 2005 John Davin All Rights Reserved.
About the author:
John Davin is a home based author and business consultant.
You can reach him at his web site, for his books and online business seminars.
REPRINT RIGHTS: You may reprint this article in your e-zine or newsletter
if you include the bio above, include the entire article, and do not make changes
to the article.
My best business ideas to you!
Sincerely,
John E. Davin
Mr. Davin is available for speaking engagements
and offers free books and articles to business related magazines, publications
and organizations.
PS: I also give many of my books away at no charge
to groups such as schools, churches and other self help institutions. Please contact
me to learn more about how you can help support my efforts to help anyone who
needs help.
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