Wayne's Small Biz Tech Blog

Finally, a REAL Backup Solution!

As a "tech guy", the most difficult thing to tell a customer is when their data has been irretrievably lost. Unfortunately, for small businesses this can be devastating, even a threat to the company's existence. 

Here's just a small sample of disasters I've been called into after the fact to try and fix:

1. A company had all their computers hooked up to battery backed up surge protectors and felt safe. The morning after a severe thunderstorm, the PC they were using as a file server wouldn't boot up. They had installed a fax through the computer and connected the telephone lines directly to the PC. The phone line surge blew out the mother boards and drive. No good backup of the files had been made in months.
2. A company laptop was running poorly, so it was brought to a big box store for repair. The laptop was returned in perfect running order. Unfortunately, the big box store deleted the entire hard drive and reinstalled the operating system to fix it quickly. All the company's Quickbook files were lost. The laptop was used for personal needs as well, so years and years of photos were lost. No backup of company data or personal data was ever made. Neither the company financial data nor the family photos could be recovered even through forensic techniques. They were gone forever.
3. A mortgage company thought their files were safely being backed up to tape. When the computer went down hard, a new one was purchased. When it came time to restore the backed up data it was found that the backup hadn't been done for almost a year. It was too hard so the person in charge just didn't do it. It took several months to manually replace the missing data at a huge cost to the company. At least they were able to limp along and not go out of business.

There are more horror stories I could tell. the point is, data HAS to be backed up if you are running a business. The backup has to be simple and it has to be easily verifiable that it is being done. It also has to be suitable for restoring the data from nearly any catastrophic event. So, it has to satisfy the worst case scenario.

The worst case is that the entire computer is gone. Fire and theft can occur. If you are backing up to the same computer or a connected backup drive, then your data is still gone no matter how dedicated you are to making the backup. The best solution is to back up off-site.

Backup solutions is probably in my top three questions that I am asked about from small businesses. Backup drives are great but usually stay connected to the computer they are backing up. Flash drives are good, but hold a limited amount of data. They also have to be manually connected and disconnected each backup day. I've had too many emergency repair situations from a USB device being improperly disconnected to really recommend this.

So what's the best solution? Back up off-site to a web based solution. I've been checking out Carbonite for several weeks now and strongly recommend it. It's affordable at $49.95 per year (yes, that a full year for $50 bucks!), and shows you right from your desktop what has been backed up. The one drawback is the amount of time it can take for the initial backup (it can take several days depending on the amount of data you are backing up) but after the initial backup it only backs up the files that have changed.

For those needing both an off-site backup solution of under 2 GB AND anti-virus protection, Norton 360 suits the task just fine. Just be aware that they charge extra for over 2GB and that 2GB is not all that much file server space thee days.

Carbonite is currently only available for the Windows platform, but Mac users can sign up as beta testers for the Mac version. There is a 15 day free trial for those who like to "try before they buy". If you are interested in Carbonite, or Norton 360, please use the links below which help support this blog.

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Do They Really Hear What Your Saying?

Communication can be the key to success in your personal life and in your professional life. How well do you communicate? Can you even honestly answer that question?

Years ago I was asked by the company I worked for to teach some software development classes in Japan. Although it was my first trip there, I was fairly confident I could do it. As I normally do, I bought some books about traveling to Japan and even a few on doing business there. Don't use slang and always be polite. I could do that!

What I was teaching required the use of a software development package called a compiler. Specifically, it required the use of the compiler produced by a company named Watcom. There were other compilers in the market, Borland and Microsoft offered the two best known at the time. The development I was teaching to the Japanese required the Watcom compiler, the others like the Borland and Microsoft compilers could not be used.

From what I just said, can you tell me what compiler was needed for the software I was teaching? Could the Borland compiler be used with the software? If you answered 'Watcom' for the first question and 'no' for the second, you understood me better than my class.

The first question a student asked after my discussion on compilers was "Mr. Hohler, may we use the Borland compiler?" I answered 'No, you can only use the Watcom compiler."

The next question was "Mr. Hohler, may we use the Microsoft compiler?" Again, I answered, "No, you can only use the the Watcom compiler."

Another hand went up. One by one the class kept asking if they could use either the Borland or Microsoft compiler. Figuring it was a language issue, I listed all the known compilers on the white board and drew a circle around them with the line through it. The International "NO" symbol. I then wrote 'Watcom' and drew a smiley face. That would do it!

"Mr. Hohler, may we use Borland compiler?" Aargh!

I realized we were having a communication problem. It wasn't a language problem, each of the students spoke English fluently. I wasn't using slang. I was even being polite, at least as I knew it. But one of the books I read mentioned that in Japan the word 'No' is avoided, especially in business. While my class spoke English, they spoke a different flavor of English than I was used to. They spoke English as understood by Japanese norms and customs.

So, my next answer was "Yes, you may use the Borland compiler. But the resulting software will not work." The student thought a moment then said, "Ahhh, so we should only use Watcom compiler." The class finally understood, and so did I.

Communication is difficult. You have to say what you mean in a way that your audience understands. This can be harder than you think. To get your message across, a few things to keep in mind:

1. Know your audience. Speaking to a person in the 'business' is different than speaking to a potential customer or someone not in the business. Take the time to know your audience and gage the level of understanding they have. Speak at the level of the person with the least understanding of your subject.

2. Avoid Buzzwords, Slang, and Acronyms. Unless someone works in the same business, use words everyone knows. Buzzwords really doesn't make you appear knowledgeable about your subject to someone who has no idea what you just said.

3. Be polite. Always be polite. Sarcasm can be taken wrong and often misunderstood. Take the blame for any misunderstandings or confusion and try rewording your reply. 

4. Practice your Sales Pitch. Practice on someone outside your business. A spouse or close friend can really help here. Make sure it's someone who is comfortable telling you they have no idea what you just said, if that indeed is the case.

The business referral group I'm a member of, Business Networking International (BNI), strongly urges its members to do 'One-On-One' meetings with each other. Two members meet individually outside the regular weekly meeting. If you are not a member of a BNI group, you can do something similar with someone you talk about your business to often. This One-On-One meeting is a great time to ask the other person "Can you tell me what I do?".

If they can answer correctly, most likely you are communicating effectively. If they can't, you may not be giving out the message you think you are. If this happens at a lot, it's time to evaluate your message and how it's being delivered.

Sometimes, even if you are saying what you mean ... people can hear something completely different. It's always good to catch and correct this sooner rather than later.