I totally believe it, too. Here's a tip for students and writers- free off-site storage. get a free email account from hotmail or yahoo or somebody, and email your work to yourself, then just leave it in your inbox. All those accounts allow enormous storage, because they expect you to be sending pictures; when it's just text, you'll never hit the limit.
Joel, the problem is that backing up takes thought (mental energy) and time.
The hard part is remembering to do it.
Hell it would be easier and as certain to back up onto a flash drive that you keep with you (no requirement for getting online, wherever you are, to email it to yourself).
The problem is that the habit of backing up (archiving... whatever, however you do it) is hard to get into and easy to let slide. Students, swamped with class demands, jobs, lives... it's a bad mix.
Oh, I know backing up is a habit that takes time and discipline, and too easy to let slide... I learned the hard way by losing 65,000 words of a novel. Luckily, I had a recent hard copy, so it was just (just-HAH!)a matter of re-typing.
I'll admit to not thinking in terms of a flash drive because I'm too old-fashioned; the computer that ate the novel was an older one that didn't have USB ports, as was it's replacement... now that I have a current notebook, I should probably get some flash drives!
We're using Mozy for backup. It's all online and automatic, absolutely nothing you have to do. You just install the client and it backs you up automatically. Even works well on laptops, which quite a few backup services don't.
It's Mac and PC, $5/month for "unlimited" space or free for 2GB. And it Just Plain Works.. I have several hundred users at work with this service and it really is hassle-free. This is what backup's supposed to be, something you forget is even on your computer until you need it, and then there it is.
Plus, they're no longer a startup (EMC bought them up) so I'm more comfortable with their long-term viability. The restores work really well - at home, we've only had to use it for individual files so far, but at work I've done restores of ALL of someone's documents after a hard drive failure.. we were able to send them out a replacement laptop with all their data on it that same day.
5 comments:
I totally believe it, too. Here's a tip for students and writers- free off-site storage. get a free email account from hotmail or yahoo or somebody, and email your work to yourself, then just leave it in your inbox. All those accounts allow enormous storage, because they expect you to be sending pictures; when it's just text, you'll never hit the limit.
Joel, the problem is that backing up takes thought (mental energy) and time.
The hard part is remembering to do it.
Hell it would be easier and as certain to back up onto a flash drive that you keep with you (no requirement for getting online, wherever you are, to email it to yourself).
The problem is that the habit of backing up (archiving... whatever, however you do it) is hard to get into and easy to let slide. Students, swamped with class demands, jobs, lives... it's a bad mix.
Oh, I know backing up is a habit that takes time and discipline, and too easy to let slide... I learned the hard way by losing 65,000 words of a novel. Luckily, I had a recent hard copy, so it was just (just-HAH!)a matter of re-typing.
I'll admit to not thinking in terms of a flash drive because I'm too old-fashioned; the computer that ate the novel was an older one that didn't have USB ports, as was it's replacement... now that I have a current notebook, I should probably get some flash drives!
@Joel. Just don't make a habit of backing up your client's information onto hotmail or gmail after you start working for real....
Get a real backup solution that maintains the integrity and security of your, and your client's, data.
We're using Mozy for backup. It's all online and automatic, absolutely nothing you have to do. You just install the client and it backs you up automatically. Even works well on laptops, which quite a few backup services don't.
It's Mac and PC, $5/month for "unlimited" space or free for 2GB. And it Just Plain Works.. I have several hundred users at work with this service and it really is hassle-free. This is what backup's supposed to be, something you forget is even on your computer until you need it, and then there it is.
Plus, they're no longer a startup (EMC bought them up) so I'm more comfortable with their long-term viability. The restores work really well - at home, we've only had to use it for individual files so far, but at work I've done restores of ALL of someone's documents after a hard drive failure.. we were able to send them out a replacement laptop with all their data on it that same day.
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