A bunch of Reddit users have decided to declare March 31 as World Backup Day, using the clever tagline “Don’t be an April Fool.”

I know if I lost my work, it would be bad. How bad, like I don’t even want to think about it… of course I don’t want to think about it, because I have lost work before. However, I work to not repeat that mistake, and to help others not have to learn like I did.

There are numerous ways to back up data. I do periodic backups over time to external drives, which I keep in my fire and water resistant safe. These include things I would need right away if there was a disaster – things that would give me access to my client, tax, and insurance files.

I also continuously back up data to an external host – using Back Blaze. For $45/year, I can’t beat it, and it is stored far away – so if there was a local disaster, and only my family and I could escape, I could still get to my files.

Think that is too expensive think of it this way. If you lost your computer (think theft, fire, flood, or Godzilla attack) – how long would it take to:

• Recreate your list of clients? (with phone numbers, emails, and mailing addresses)
• Know who still owes you money, and who has paid?
• Recreate that project file which you’ve been working on for the last three months?

Now think of how much money your time is worth – if the hours * the hourly worth is more than $250, you ought to get a complete backup system. (If not – are you really in business, or is it just for fun?)

How did I come to the $250 number. Easy! It is not uncommon for a hard drive to fail within the first 5 years. $45 * 5 is approximately $250 ( I added a bit for inflation – and I like simple numbers) . So if you have a 50% chance of a failure, and can prevent data loss for <$50 a year – then it’s worth the little bit of cost.

Something to think about if you use a computer – especially if you use it for your business.

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Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.  Enjoy your time with family and friends this season, and have safe travels.

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Just wanted to quickly say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there.  Enjoy the turkey, and travel safely.

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1. Happy Halloween
2. Happy Leap Day
3. Happy Mother’s Day

Image via Wikipedia

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween today. Don’t forget to eat lots of candy.

More posts will be coming soon – I have been busy working on several projects which I will get to share with everyone soon, and will explain the absence of writing I hope, and provide some good case studies of web projects.

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1. Happy New Year
2. Happy Mother’s Day
3. Happy Thanksgiving

OK, so it isn’t news/business worthy, but still I like to let people know, just like PI day, and Talk Like a Pirate day.

I’m also glad to note that I met several personal goals I had set for myself to reach before this birthday. Now we just need to see what goals I need to set for next year’s birthday.

photo credit: brunkfordbraun

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1. Happy Birthday Firefox!

Arrghhhhh today be a special day – it ’tis “Talk like a Pirate Day“.

It comes bout evrry year tis time. 19th of September, the day my youngest be born.

So happy birrrthday to ya land lubbard, and have ye some fun.

(‘fer my fun I installed the Pirates App on MySpace – so join me crew if ye dar’)

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