Friends Don’t Let Friends’ Computers Crash the Party

I thought since it was close to New Year’s Eve and a great time to talk about resolutions, thought this little post would set a good reminder for you. What’s the reminder you say… back it up. Yes, back up your stuff from your computer!

I recently wrote a blog on having a plan B due to illnesses and natural disasters and let me tell you, if you have ever had a computer crash or lose a hard drive, trust me when I say… it will make you ill and feel like a national natural disaster! Be it as it may, I have had TWO such disasters, this year alone, so hear me when I say – BACK THAT STUFF UP!

I was lucky – do you want to chance it?

I had measures in place the first time, but wasn’t as ‘good as I could be’ with backing things up and paid a small penny to have stuff restored. I was lucky in that it was salvageable, but when I got all that stuff that was salvaged a month later, I had already done double my work to make up for it. The second time, I was totally prepared and lost NOTHING – well, two full work days and a humongous stress headache, and maybe a few tears.. oh and a big fat pity party. But, you know. So, my question to you is, do you want to chance it?

What do you currently have in place?

So, right now, if you were to lose your computer, in its entirety, what would happen with your business?  Could you function? How long would you be ‘out of commission’? Consider these things. What if you didn’t lose your computer but had a virus or your hard drive crashed – what would you have lost, how long would it take for you to be back up and fully functional? These are things you need to consider and start putting things in place.

What you CAN do now

Not sure what you could do to prepare? Yea, well, I wasn’t completely sure at first, but I have many measures in place now that you will want to revisit your options. So, thought I would share what I do now, so you can see why you should take a look back and yours and make some revisions.

• Real time (or daily) back up – I use CrashPlan as a real time back up. There are others like Carbonite and etc so you have to do the research to determine what you need and how much space you’ll use as well as how often it backs up. This is offsite and would take a few days to totally restore, luckily I haven’t needed to use it and I have had it a year… but I have peace of mind. I can select whatever I want to have backed up, whenever I want and unlimited space.
• Computer back up – this is that one that is set up via your computer control panel. I have it going to an external hard drive. Obviously this is onsite so if my house were to flood, burn down or be swept away – it would be pointless, but it was a place that I could go to get something quick if I were to lose something. It is scheduled weekly.
• Cloud back up – I also have cloud storage for things that I use on a regular basis like client information and etc that I can access from my phone and other computers. It is password protected and I personally back it up weekly.
• Email back up – I don’t know if you use Outlook with those neat and organized folders, but that folder is backed up with the computer back up, but I also download a weekly .pst file just to be sure.
• List of restores – the first crash this year, I was tired of trying to remember what I needed so as I loaded software programs I had to reinstall – I made a list. I have a list of browsers, Microsoft Office key (keep those Windows discs handy too), monitors (3), printers (2), malware/virus programs, downloading instructions for certain programs and etc… to include the email account set up needed to reload everything back up after the restore.

Trust me, this has all made my restore a much easier process. It’s going to suck, let me tell you, but when your business is like 100% online and you depend on the internet or your computers for 100% of your business, you can relate to what I am saying.

Bottom line –

So if you don’t have any processes in place, or at least one onsite and one offsite process in place, you will HATE LIFE if it happens to you. So, please get your back up in place so your computer doesn’t CRASH your party. Oh and… you’re welcome!

Should you have any questions about my internet business, my back up process or the like, contact me, I am happy to help. Let me know if the comments below… what do YOU have in place???

~Kristen

Kristen Day

CEO/Founder of A Visual Business

Kristen is a small business owner and thus dedicated to other small business owners by helping them improve their online presence with search engine optimization, social media marketing, email marketing and pay per click advertising all of which are necessary 'evils' in the digital marketing sphere but enables small business owners the opportunity to compete with larger companies. When not in the digital arena, you can find her riding her Honda VTX1300 or drinking a margarita.