About a year and a half ago I was sitting at our neighborhood swimming pool watching my kids and talking to a friend named Bill, who is the father of another kid in the pool. Bill owns a successful chain of sandwich shops. We talked for a few minutes about his business and then we talked about computers for a while. Somehow, the conversation always ends up on computers. Everyone has them and most people are becoming increasingly dependent on them. After a few minutes. I asked Bill the same question I ask a lot of people; "how are you backing up the data on your computer?"
Bill's answer was a little better than most. He is copying important data to CD's every once in a while. Of course I took the opportunity to encourage him to do a little more than that. I explained how online backup could be automatic and the data is much more secure off site than in his office drawer next to the computer. He didn't resist at all, he agreed and said he was going to take my advice and do just that.
A few nights ago, I saw Bill at a holiday party and the first thing he said to me was; "I should have taken your advice and used an online backup service." He went on to tell me that he had a problem with his computer and lost all of his data. I didn't press him for the details, but apparently he hadn't copied that data to a CD in quite a while.
This story is repeating itself over and over again. And its almost always exactly the same story every time. I talk to a friend or associate, advise them to backup their data on a regular basis and store copies off site. They almost never take action until they lose their data after some period of time passes. Then, after the loss, they are ready to implement and effective backup system.
There is no doubt that I will be telling you about a few more of these occurrences in the coming months. Since you are reading this blog, I expect that you are actually backing up your data on a regular basis. So hopefully, you won't be the subject of the next story like this.
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