I promised myself that I wasn't going to dis the DOT again this week. I promised myself that I wasn't going to complain about potential lost revenue because I couldn't get off Oak Island on Monday. I promised myself that I wouldn't write about all my friends and neighbors who were so inconvenienced. So I am not going to do it - I'm glad I keep my promises!
I want to follow up on last week's column about web applications and to continue the discussion into backups and knowing where your data is. I actually haven't harped about backups in a while now - not because the situation is any better, but because sometimes I just get tired of beating the same old drum.
It is critical to have backups of your data. PCs fail, hard drives fail, lightning strikes - and when your PC fails you will need backups to restore your data. Some people do this, some think they do it but are not really sure, and some just seem to be risk takers. You would be surprised at how many people still give me blank stares (or worse) when I tell them that their data is gone.
The most important aspect of good backups is knowing where your stuff is. By that I mean which files on your hard drive contain the data. You need to know the names of the files and the folders that they reside in, or at least the latter. Only then can you be sure that you are backing up your data and can restore it if need be. The new wrinkle thrown into the process is caused by web aps. When you run a traditional application on your PC, the data almost always resides somewhere on your PC. With a web application, however, that may not be the case, clouding the issue of where your stuff is.
Let's take the case of online email, which is probably the most common web application that people use today. Online mail systems, such as AOL, Google Mail or Yahoo Mail work very well and have the added advantage of being able to be accessed from any web connected PC. But in order to do this (I hope this isn't too obvious here) your email "stuff" can't be stored on your individual PC. It is stored at their servers. Assuming that they do a good job of backing things up at their end (and they do), your email is safe.
On the other hand, one of the issues with web-based email is that the amount of storage you get is limited and you have to manage it by deleting old email, especially those with large attachments such as photos.
When the new web aps, such as word processing, become available it is not entirely obvious as to where you stuff will be kept. The point is that your stuff could be in either place - on their servers or on your PC. Again, if it is kept at their servers then your data is well protected. But in the case of this type of application, it is much more probable that they would store your data back on your C drive just as the older applications did. If so, you again need to know where it is and how to back it up.
For local backups, external USB hard drives have become very inexpensive and very capacious. I would recommend that everyone have one of these attached to their PC, and to use automatic backup or synchronization programs to constantly backup. That is the easiest and best method today, in my estimation. But I would also occasionally backup to CDs or DVDs to make more permanent copies.
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport - Oak Island area. You can visit his Website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail questions or column ideas to him at bsc@bobseidel.com. For specific inquiries, please call Bob Seidel Consulting, LLC at 278-1007.)