Why???? Well, I love overkill.

No, really it’s because even if  you have your files backed up on an external hard drive (which, at the very least you should) they could still be lost due to theft, fire, flood, or just plain old crashing. And losing all your stuff sucks – big time. My computer crashed a couple of years ago – nothing dramatic, I did a “Restart” because it was running slow and…..it never came back on! Luckily, I had all my applications, files, music and photos backed up on external hard drives, so I was safe. But it could have been awful. So don’t be in a position where you are cryin’ like a baby if all your data disappears! Get backed up – NOW!

Here’s a good article on WHY backing up is important and why you need to do it. I read it on Top Ten Reviews:

Superheroes need it, police rely on it and everyone that uses a computer should use some form of it. In the world of mainframes and microchips it’s called data backup or data recovery and it can mean the difference between a slight computer setback and living through your own electronic apocalypse.

Let’s face it; our computers are a bigger part of life than ever before. We shop, work and play using computers. They’ve replaced stereos, encyclopedias, even the mailman. They’ve become journals, photo albums and canvases for our art.

But computers aren’t perfect. Files become corrupt, motherboards malfunction, CPUs call it quits taking our precious data with them.

The best defense is data backup software. Backing up data is vital for businesses; lost information can cause a major crisis or worse, lead to business failure. Individuals who don’t backup computer data run the same risk. While this may not cause financial ruin, it can certainly be frustrating and even heartbreaking.

So why do so few of us practice data backup?
Here are the common excuses:

“I’m too busy to backup my computer.” We are busy, work, family and friends fill our days and leave us little time for boring things like computer maintenance. But today’s backup software manufacturers make it easy. Through scheduled backups, your system can automatically perform a backup that fits your needs at an interval you choose—without interrupting life.

“I don’t know how to backup data.” Like preparing for a natural disaster, most of us understand how important data backup is, but don’t know where to start. A big step is deciding how you are going to store the data you backup.
One option is Removable Backup Media, but this only narrows the field a little. You could buy a million 3.5″ discs or perhaps invest in a larger-capacity external Zip drive. You could take the plunge into writeable CDs or stretch out your legs with the help of an external hard drive.

Another good data backup option is to backup to an FTP location, which allows you to backup a file, a folder or your entire hard drive to a separate location online.

“My computer won’t crash.” You’ve had your computer this long and haven’t had problems so far why worry about computer backup now? Think about it you wear your seat belt even though you don’t expect your car to crash everyday. Data backup is about protecting your data’s future, but with computers, it isn’t if you crash, it’s when you crash.

In today’s high-tech world of sneaky spyware and venomous viruses, you are in more danger of data loss than ever before. Computer viruses grew by as much as 11% during 2003 alone.*

Like tires on your car, the electronic circuits your computer rides on will eventually wear down and blow out. When this happens, you can either grieve at your loss or simply restore your data with data backup software.

So with that said, how does one choose the right backup software? There are many varieties available—some suited to a growing business and others for growing families. Some backup software is for technical experts, other packages for the technically challenged. To help you choose, check our Data Backup Software Review Homepage, where you can compare backup software features side-by-side and read reviews on top backup and recovery software.

Ritama Note: These companies have also  been recommended to me: Carbonite, CrashPlan, and BackBlaze

*References
Beauprez, Jennifer, The Denver Post: Experts fear ‘digital Pearl Harbor’. Mxlogic.com. (2003).

At TopTenREVIEWS We Do the Research So You Don’t Have To.™

http://moderator.appspot.com/#16/e=c9

Ask a Google engineer
This is your chance to interview us! Feel free to ask anything from “How many cafeterias are there?” to “How would you sort 1 million 32-bit integers in 2MB of RAM?”

This is the link I went to first:

http://twitter.com/JohnMu/statuses/933682726

There is a great article in the July 2008 issue of Vanity Fair, An Oral History of the Internet : How the Web Was Won, by Keenan Mayo and Peter Newcomb. (I know, I know it was printed a year ago and I am just now writing about it, so what, you got a problem with dat??)

Fifty years ago, in response to the surprise Soviet launch of Sputnik, the U.S. military set up the Advanced Research Projects Agency. It would become the cradle of connectivity, spawning the era of Google and YouTube, of Amazon and Facebook, of the Drudge Report and the Obama campaign. Each breakthrough—network protocols, hypertext, the World Wide Web, the browser—inspired another as narrow-tied engineers, long-haired hackers, and other visionaries built the foundations for a world-changing technology. Keenan Mayo and Peter Newcomb let the people who made it happen tell the story…..

The article is fascinating and well-done – give yourself about 45 minutes to read it, or, a few minutes to surf it. I hadn’t really thought about how the internet got started – hasn’t it always been here? Of course I had heard that Al Gore “made it”, which never made any sense and that is completely explained in the article, but the real history and a who’s who? Not a clue.

Click here to go the the article on the Vanity Fair site and read all about it. From the three “Founding Fathers”, Mosiac (first browser), the browser “war”, to AOL, YouTube and Google.

Today’s Note is The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz

“Think Big and you’ll live big. You’ll live big in happiness. You’ll live big in accomplishment.Big in income. Big in friends. Big in respect… Start now, right now, to discover how to make your thinking make magic for you. Start out with this thought of the great philosopher Disraeli: “Life is too short to be little.”
~ David J. Schwartz from The Magic of Thinking Big

Here’s what Brian says about the Notes:
Think: Mini-CliffsNotes for Self-Development Books!

The easiest way to describe PhilosophersNotes: they’re kinda like mini-CliffsNotes for self-development books or “Concentrated wisdom for your hero’s journey.”

Have you noticed that in any given book, there are usually 5-20 REALLY “Big Ideas”—those life-changing gems that really make an impact in your life?!? (… those pages are usually all marked up, underlined, starred, highlighted and all that goodness in my books! )

Well, what I’ve done is opened up my favorite books, gone straight to those pages with the BIG IDEAS and created “PhilosophersNotes” that quickly give you the inspiring gems along with my thoughts on how these ideas have impacted my life and how they can impact yours.

Brians notes cover all sorts of books, from Secrets of the Millionaire Mind to Pema Chodrons The Places That Scare You, something for every mood!

So, go sign up now and start getting them! Jeeze, what are you waiting for?

Brian Johnson’s Philosophers Notes

The video is on WordPress TV, using VideoPress for the player. I could have that video on THIS blog, but I am too cheap right now to get it – too bad – you’ll just have to go to the link provided to hear Mister Lilly. I’ll get VideoPress later maybe.