Back up and Back up and Back up your Data. Yep, back up and go back up. You guessed it, I got that laced with fear blue screen again Monday. Everthing that was planned for the last three days got ditched fast. I was told to stop what I was doing and big time back up because computer death was iminent. So imagine my surprise when my Active Rain friend, Monique Hailer, actually ntoced I was absent on Active Rain the last week. Even with Server errors, it was unusual. I've had my own set of computer problems and gut wrenching they always are. Anyway, here's what I learned on the Journey.
Back up and Back up and Back up your Data. I use Carbonite and boy have they upgraded their service. They have phone support and they help plenty. The problem is, the computer problem I had at Easter had left me with a major amount of files still not back up. Maybe a third had not caught up. At 3-5 gigs a day capability, and the HP folks saying Back UP NOW period, I did not have a couple of weeks. I was toast city. So, I have some 64 gig flash drives from Amazon.com. I backed up Agent Office and Quickbooks and my file of 50Top Docs... which in the event of an extreme emergency, I could still run a business with these 50.
Back up and Back up and Back up. Yesterday I bought the 7.7 upgraded EMC Retropspect programs for two laptops which means 30 days of free support. Carbonite does not back up the external hard drives so this was worth it alone to just back up my large itunes collection which is kept on an external drive. That back up is humming. I cannot back up the main laptop which is the big goal until I order a new Hard drive. All of mine are 350 gigs and under and I have blown past those sizes. So, I checked out the www.Iomega.com site, which is now affiliated with Retrospect, and learned the new eGo compact 500 gig hard drive is about $115.00. What's really cool, though, is a new program they have that lets you clone your whole laptop on the small hard drive and it can be used with any other laptop as though you were on that laptop. Plus, in the event of a blue screen, you are all set with everything ready to restore. It's called vclone. It is in beta. I cannot get my hands on it fast enough! Plus, when you go back to the main laptop, it brings any new files over. YOWZA!
Back up and Back up and Back up. I am a Plan C person. Plan A I blow up, Plan B I blow past, and Plan C is where I BE!!!! Plus, my name starts with a "C" so it's the place I always seem to be you'll see! So, Backup "Golden Results" style is Step one Carbonite. Oh, I forgot to mention to can access all your files on all your computers remotely with Carbonite. AMEN! However, Carbonite does not back up the file path where the Agent Office data is stored.So... Step two is flash drives for the Top 50 docs, Quickbooks, and Agent Office. Step 3 is Retrospect with hard drives. Step 4 is the new vclone. And another blue screen from now, I will probably add step FIVE. Land sakes alive!
In case I did not say it enough times, back up your data. Yep, back up and go back up. Every way imaginable. You'll Retrieve Golden Results with Cheryl Ritchie, RE/MAX 100, for all your Southern Maryland Real Estate Services. Visit www.GoldenResults.com for more information. P.S. Go back up. One of my friends called the other day before all this started to tell me her computer crash woes. I extended some sympathy but not enough. Go back up!
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