Spring Cleaning
It is finally spring time once again. The pools are opening, flowers are blooming, and baseballs are flying. With all that going on, dont forget spring cleaning. Computers need spring cleaning too. This will help them last longer and perform better.
Here are a few tips from some of our previous entries to get you started.
Cleaning Out the Inbox:
http://kotoritechnologies.com/component/content/?task=post&title=CleanOutTheInbox&pid=77&type=blog
Cleaning The Computer Inside And Out:
http://kotoritechnologies.com/component/content/?task=post&title=ComputerCleaningForTheNotSoGeek&pid=4&type=blog
Save It Before You Need It:
http://kotoritechnologies.com/component/content/?task=post&title=SaveItBeforeYouNeedIt&pid=25&type=blog
Defragment and Computer Cleanup:
http://kotoritechnologies.com/component/content/?task=post&title=HouseCleaningForTheNotSoGeekPartIII&pid=37&type=blog
Argggg.. Business Owners and their DATA!
Let me paint the visual image for you: You come in from a long day at the office and eat a really great meal, and then you decide to meet some friends for some drinks. You go out and have a great night and after a while, you come home and hit the bed to get some sleep so you can get to work tomorrow at a reasonable time. Tomorrow is just a normal day at the office, nothing really special. You wake up at 3:00 AM from your cell phone ringing. It is a call from your alarm monitoring service. They said that your burglar alarm went off and they have dispatched the police department. Youre the one with the code, so you think maybe something is up. You get dressed and head into the office. When you get there, you see 3 police cars still there and your front glass door is broken. Now your concern is a bit higher, right? I mean at first, I am sure you may have thought this was a false alarm or something. Well it wasnt. The cop said that it was a busy night and it took them about 20 minutes to respond to this break-in. You take a look around and the thief took some blank checks that were on your desk, all you computers and servers. They also took the mini-refrigerator out of your office. I am sure that your first concern is the six pack of beer in the refrigerator. No, actually you are thinking they just took some blank checks and all of my computers. What does this really mean? This means that they got away with all of your checks. Do you remember the last check number? Do you remember all the checks that were ordered? You have to call the bank and cancel all of those checks. Remember they took your computers and servers. Your accounting package is gone along with all your data. They took your customer data, your business data and some of your personal data. Oh wait; the insurance guy will get my stuff back for me right? NO. there is no customer data store to buy back your data. You cant get it back unless you have a GOOD backup. Hopefully it was offsite and you can restore it. If not then you will most likely be out of business in the next year, if not sooner. Do you trust your backup software is running every night? Do you check the reports? Do you check if there were any errors? Most business owners know how to read a P&L because their business depends on the profits. Why dont most business owners take the time to read a backup report? This report is just as important as your P&L. If you look at your P&L once a week or once a month then you should be looking at your backup logs with the same reverence. Do you have someone (that knows what they are doing) checking them for you? I ask you again, how important is your companies data to you? How important is your business to you? How important is your job to you? Anyone reading this can take action by asking the right questions. 1) How often does my company backup our data? 2) If I lost all of my equipment, how quickly could I get my data back? 3) Do I know the process to restore my data? 4) Have I checked our backup logs lately to make sure that all the data needed is being backed up and if it was successful? 5) Have I tested a file restore lately to make sure I can restore my data? 6) Have I tested a full disaster lately to make sure I can restore ALL of my data? Start with these questions and see if you know the answer to all of these. If you dont, then make sure you know who does. Then ask yourself, do you trust they will be there for you when you need to restore your business. Remember the insurance person is ONLY going to replace your equipment. They CANNOT replace the data.
Ok, so, I am going to go on a rant about small business owners and their lack of concern for their data. Let me first start off and tell you, I am a small business owner myself, but I think after reading my rant you should ask yourself one of two questions. Is this my boss, or is this me? If it is neither, then you are doing well.
Spring Cleaning
This month, as a part of spring cleaning, I thought we would revisit cleaning your computer inside and out. Even if you cleaned your computer back in October when we originally posted these tips, it may be time to clean again. Here are the tips that would be most useful:
Cleaning out the inbox:
http://kotoritechnologies.com/blog/post/2009/10/30/Clean-out-the-Inbox.aspx
Cleaning the computer inside and out:
http://kotoritechnologies.com/blog/post/2009/10/01/Computer-Cleaning-for-the-Not-So-Geek.aspx
Save it Before You Need it:
http://kotoritechnologies.com/blog/post/2009/10/02/Save-It-Before-Youe-Need-It.aspx
Defragment and Computer Cleanup:
http://kotoritechnologies.com/blog/post/2009/10/09/House-Cleaning-for-the-Not-So-Geek-Part-III.aspx
Are You Playing What If With Your Backup Recovery?
Have you ever played the What If game? What if your house caught fire? What would be the first nonliving thing you would grab? Majority of people will say their pictures. Pictures capture a moment in time that you will never get back. They capture emotions and tell stories of our lives that may not be remembered until you see the picture.
Now, lets play the What if game for your business. What is your most prized possession in your office? Is it the building? Nope, you have insurance. Your equipment? Nope, its insured too. Your employees? Nope, it is the middle of the night and everyone is at home sleeping. Is it your data? Probably so, because if you are like most, you dont have data insurance. You have never heard of data insurance? Data insurance is your Disaster Recovery.
So, what type of backup recovery are you using? A cd and hoping it didnt get scratched up in the fire, or the office managers purse, if it made it out of the office. A hard drive hoping it very carefully made it out of the office and back in working order. A tape backup, hoping that the last weeks worth of data is recoverable. (Tapes fail up to 70% of the time). Another question is, how long before you can actually get your business back on track? Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or sometimes longer. How quickly can you replace the server? What about all the software programs?
If you are second guessing your disaster preparedness, check out http://optix.onlinebackupsolution.com or http://optixdatavault.com.
Statistics show that after a major loss of computer records, 43% of businesses never reopened, 51% closed within two years, and a mere 6% survived long term.
You are probably still thinking this is all a what if situation, but it WILL be a reality before you know it. And it probably wont be a fire. It will most likely be a human error. I am not comfortable playing the what if game. I am not the owner of this company, but I know that if we lost our computers and servers, I would still have a job to come to, because our data is safe.
Save It Before You Need It
Ok, this week we are continuing with House Cleaning for the Not So Geek. Our topic today is Save It Before You Need It. I dont know about you, but I have my daughters life chronicled on my home computer. She is six years old, and I have thousands of pictures of her. Everything from the baby showers, birthdays, vacations, to playing around with the camera. If my computer were wiped out for any reason, I would be devastated.
There are different options out there for the home user, we will discuss a few.
1.CD/DVD ROMs most computers have a DVD-ROM drive that can write large amounts of information rather quickly to either a DVD-R or CD-R disc. The discs are relatively inexpensive and they are a good form of back up data, as long as they are labeled and tested for consistency. You dont want to find out too late, that it didnt copy over. Also, with these, you may want to swap out with a friends back up, so that it is off-site, just in case of fire.
2.Flash drives/USB thumb drives of you dont have a lot of data to back up, the flash drive is an option for you. Flash drives are usually hard to break, reliable, and usually hold 1 to 6 GB of information. Again, you may want to store off-site.
3.External Hard Drives They are reliable and simple for the home user. They are increasing in size and now come with software that can be used to backup your data regularly. With the software, you can set up a nightly back up to take place. As with the others, it is important to check the backups regularly for accuracy.
4.Remote Data Storage via the Internet Many companies, like Kotori Technologies, http://kotoritechnologies.com are offering an offsite data storage for a small monthly fee. Your data is encrypted so that it is safe. And since it is off-site, often in two different states, your files are fine and no matter what happens, youre never far away from recovering your data.
Now that you have decided on which method, you are probably asking how to go about it, so here you go:
1.Choose a backup program. For personal computers, there are many options. If you are using Microsoft Windows, there is a back-up program built in (Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Backup). You can also use third party back-up managers, ranging from small programs to full online backup services. If you use a flavor of Linux, there are many open source options available in repositories for all of the major distributions.
2.Prepare your back-up device of choice. If you are using a hard drive, it's best to use it just for back-up purposes. Make sure whatever you are using is ready to accept the back-up.
3.Open your choice of programs, select the files you wish to keep, select the media where you will be saving the back-up, and start it up. Make sure that you verify your backups. This typically takes longer to backup, but the verification insures that what you wanted to backup actually got backed up.
Just remember, even backup is not 100%. Keeping multiple copies of your backups will help insure recoverability. So now, you have a clean computer and your data is safe, next week we will discuss defragging your computer.