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3-2-1 BACKUP!

Posted by Eric on April 2, 2010 | No Comments »

While not a very exciting topic, lately, I’ve been thinking about the importance of backing up our data.

Why, you ask? Well, we had a power outage at my house while our family PC was being used. Apparently, the power outage happened as the hard disk was in use and the result was that some of the files on the hard disk became corrupted.

Luckily, I had a backup and could restore the files. But, that made me think more about the importance of backing up our data.

Now, most of you know that I’m not a hardware guy. I don’t spend my time working on computer hardware. I spend my time designing web-sites and writing code for web-sites.

But, this is just too important not to take a few minutes to mention it here.

For the last year or so, I’ve been employing a backup strategy I learned from others called 3-2-1 BACKUP!

Here’s what each part means:

Have three copies of EVERY important file (the original counts as one – so you need TWO more)
Have copies on TWO DIFFERENT mediums – so if you have files on a hard drive, that counts as one. Then you need files saved on something else – perhaps a DVD or CD
Have one copy off-site – this way, if you have a physical disaster (fire, flood, etc.) you have a copy of important files available.

Before I explain each one in more detail, let me add in here a note about the importance of backing up our on-line life as well. I wrote a post a while ago talking about what I do to backup things like flickr, facebook, google docs, etc. Read the post here.

OK, here’s a brief run down on each step:

HAVE THREE COPIES OF EVERY IMPORTANT FILE

We can count the original file as copy number one. But, if we want to be safe, you need to more copies. Let’s assume that you back up your computer to an external hard drive (as I do). This now counts as copy number two. But, it only counts as copy number two if you DO NOT delete the original. If you delete the original, the “backup” now becomes copy number 1. You need three copies of every file. So you have the files on your hard drive (number 1) and copies on an external hard drive (number 2). Now, you need to figure out where you will store copy number 3 (keep reading).

HAVE TWO DIFFERENT MEDIUMS

This means you store your backups on two different things. You backup up to a hard drive (medium #1) and to a DVD (medium #2). This is important because hard drives can and do fail. So do CD’s and DVD’s. By having two different mediums you drastically lessen the risk of any one medium failing.

HAVE ONE COPY OFF SITE

In my opinion this is one of the most overlooked parts of backup. There’s a sad, but instructive story about the great movie director Francis Ford Coppola losing years and years of photos and scripts and notes when thieves stole his computer and his backup drive (read the story here). If he had backed up his data off site, he still would have lost his computer and his backup drive. But, he would have been able to restore his data from the off site location.

For me, I use a service called carbonite (carbonite.com). For around $60.00 per year, I can backup an unlimited amount of data off site. It’s a great service and is incredibly simple to set up. There’s many other services similar to carbonite. But, I haven’t used them.

So, there you have it. 3-2-1 Backup. Maybe someone reading will be saved a ton of trouble by implementing a few ideas here….

Using Rss Feeds To Find New Leads!

Posted by Eric on March 13, 2010 | No Comments »

If you spend any time listening to all the newest and latest buzz words on the internet, then you’ve probably heard the term RSS. It started cropping up a lot more regularly a few years ago and made a lot of noise. But, as with many things, interest in RSS has sort of died down. You just don’t hear about it much anymore. As a matter of fact, most people don’t really know what it is.

But, I’m convinced that the proper use of RSS feeds can be a great way to find new business leads! Let me explain.

First of all, let’s explain just what RSS is and the problem that it solves.

Suppose I have interest in several different topics – such as Web Design, E-Commerce, and Social Networking. And, I want to know all the latest news on these topics. How would I go about getting this information? Well, one answer would be to repeatedly visit various web sites that have news and information about these topics – checking if anything new has been posted. But, the problem is that this can get very, very tedious and very time consuming. The second option is to hope that these websites have a NOTIFY ME of updates option – meaning I would get an e-mail whenever something new has been posted. Now this might sound like a good idea, but the problem here is that most of us are regularly bombarded with e-mail. And, the thought of getting new e-mails every time a change has happened on all the web sites is not a good thought.

The solution? Use RSS Feeds. RSS Feed look a lot like your inbox – but they are separate. And, they are a GREAT way to know when you have a new item.

Here a snapshot of my current RSS Feeds:

As you can see, I have 6 current feeds I am monitoring. And, whenever a new item is added, I see that number – the same way I see an unread message. It’s an awesome way to keep on track of things.

For those of you using MS Outlook, here a screen shot of what RSS Feeds look like in Outlook.

For me, I use RSS Feeds to stay on top of many different issues. But, there are two core types of RSS Feeds I find myself using all the time:

1. TWITTER SEARCH

I always have at least one twitter search RSS feed being monitored. For me, I go to search.twitter.com and search for something of interest – such as Web Design – then limit it to within 50 or 100 miles of my locations. Then hit submit. Twitter will deliver a result page for me of everyone who has mentioned “Web Design” in a tweet that is within a 50 or 100 mile radius of me. This is obviously extremely useful. But, what is even more useful is to save this search as an RSS Feed. This way, any time a new tweet appears in my area, mentioning my key term, it will show up in my RSS Feed, just as a new message would show up in my inbox. Within minutes, I’ll know that someone in the area talked about my keyword – and, now I can join in the conversation.

2. GOOGLE ALERTS

Google Alerts are an amazing way to stay on top of terms that are of interest to you. You simply visit google.com/alerts and set up a google alert.

For example, you can set up an alert so that you will be notified every tim eGoogle finds a new page about “web design”. Now instead of being sent an e-mail (which just clutters up my inbox), I choose to save the alert as an RSS Feed – essentially creating a new inbox ONLY for these google alert items.

So, my RSS Feed for “Fort Wayne Web Design” looks something like this: