Back Ups

Backups

The Majestic PC. Strong, Proud, and ready to crash and burn with all your data at a moments notice.

What are you doing to back up your mission critical data? What is your disaster recovery plan? Have you even thought about one?

It's probably safe to assume that since you are reading this, you run your dealership from your PC. Or maybe you only rely on your PC for email or web access. However you look at it, your PC is probably involved in your business and what is on it and what you do on it is critical to your success. What would you do if your PC crashed? What if your business data what fried? How would you get it back?

BACKUPS my friend. When it comes to managing your PC, there is nothing more annoying than backups. However, they have to be done. Most versions of Windows ship with a back up application, and there are many you can download for free, or purchase. Let's talk about a few and backup methodology.

If you are running Windows XP Professional or Vista, you have backup software. In XP, its located in the SYSTEM TOOLS section, and in Vista, you can simply type in BACK UP in the search field and find the BACK UP and RESTORE CENTER. In either case, you are presented with options to backup your entire PC or select files. Windows Backup is not perfect, but odds are you have it and it's relatively painless to setup.

In the case of a single PC, I recommend backing up select files. In the case of a disaster, odds are you are only going to either reinstall or purchase a new OS, so system type files will be replaced anyway. What you want to save are your business records, contacts, emails, favorites, etc. You can even back up on a set schedule. The two main methods of backup are FULL and INCREMENTAL. Full is fairly self explanatory. Basically whatever you schedule to back up with the full option will get overwritten when it runs. The plus is you are ensuring yourself an entire back up, the downside is EVERY file gets backed up, whether it needs to or not. So if you have a lot a data, your backup is going to take awhile.

Incremental backups only backup what has changed since the last back up. If you worked on a particular spreadsheet that day, and that was it, your incremental back up will be quick and easy. A good rule of thumb to follow is two full backups a week (typically at the beginning and middle of the week) and the rest can be incremental.

Of course there would be no point in backing up to the same location, so lets talk MEDIA. Where are you going to put this stuff? Easy...removable media. Nowadays you can go down to your local Best Buy store and pick up a few gigs for a few bucks. Western Digital makes some great pocket type external hard drives, up to 300GBs, for less than $100.00. And although a dont recommend it, you can also backup to your hard drive and archive to a CD or DVD. Of course if you forget to do this then you will kick yourself.

So if you don't want to use Windows Backup, what is out there? Check this out

http://tinyurl.com/dnmzvb

There are tons of options. Those are just the free ones! So get yourself setup with a decent backup scheme asap!

Cloud Computing Follow Up

Just a follow up article I came across on what Cloud Computing is and where how it is currently defined.

Cloud Computing: A Transition Methodology
— Cloud computing refers to the practice of leveraging third-party computing resources, such as network grids and server farms, to extend IT capabilities and reduce the cost of ownership. This practice offers numerous potential benefits to organizations that want to centralize software and data storage management while eliminating the costly overhead of in-house hardware and software maintenance and the personnel required to build, support, and maintain enterprise computing solutions.

Microsoft pulls their head out of the ARSES....

This is the first really super cool thing I have seen come out of the Windows 7 media explosion.


Its like someone at Microsoft grew a pair and said "hey...our stuff is bloated, so many if you you guys insist on making it that way, we can at least give users the option to decrease the bloatedness"

This person is now the subject of ridicule at the Redmond campus, but I call him HERO.

Is it wrong.....

...that I find this stuff really cool?

Hey Vista Users!

Critical patch coming tomorrow!

Microsoft is expected to release and upcoming patch on March 10 which address issues on Vista, Windows Server 2003, XP, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 2000.

Patches include 1 “critical” which is the highest Microsoft alert level, 2 “important”, and the rest within the 3rd and 4th alert level status. There are no details yet of the patches but Microsoft has confirmed this should be available on March 10.