No, I’m not going to grace these turkeys with a link.
Seems like I’ve spent a lot electrons lately on staying backed up. There were a few topics that I sort-of glossed over, like doing backups of your own home PC — but I would expect that most of the readers of this blog have already figured out how to get that done.
Although, if you haven’t, and you are looking for a good and inexpensive solution, I recommend Acronis, even though I’m not an affiliate for the guy I bought my copy from (wish I was!). He can sell you a comprehensive backup solution that is easy to use — cheaper than you can buy it directly from Acronis (never fear, he’s an authorized dealer). Not only that, his manual is shorter, easier to read, and does a better job of coaching you through the process than Acronis’ manual. If you email me or use my contact page to ask, I will send his contact information. Be aware that in order to get the best deal, you have to at least pretend that you belong to a local PC users’ group. Should not be hard to find a local group that would qualify nearly anywhere in the world.
I’ve also recently mentioned my favorite WordPress backup system, Backup Buddy. There are several other backup systems for WordPress out there, and some of them even cost less than Backup Buddy. However, every time I’ve considered going with any of their competition, they manage to come up with a way to improve their system. Having a backup plan that is convenient, encrypted by default, actively maintained, and well-supported is worth money to me.
And I also recently mentioned making sure you have redundant power. But I completely forgot about yet another important backup (which I actually have in place myself) any Internet marketer should have — until this afternoon. I think that the reason I forgot to mention it earlier is that it is a bit like breathing; you only think about it if it suddenly becomes a problem. And then it commands your undivided attention.
This afternoon, I was going to sit in on one of Sarah Staar’s joint webinars. I don’t generally buy anything on those webinars (I have several of Sarah’s products already, and I recommend them highly), but I always learn something interesting — and actionable. But about 15 minutes before the beginning of the webinar, I got an email from Sarah. Here is a snippet from that email:
Apologies to all of you who registered for the webinar tonight with myself and Barry Plaskow.
Barry’s internet connection has gone down and while he offered to do a recorded play-in from elsewhere I didn’t feel it was fair to you to not present a live webinar with live Q and A.
I have cancelled the webinar and may possibly re-schedule for a later date.
[…]
Apologies for cancelling the webinar, but I did have this thought..
If you had a business that was making several million $$££ a year.. wouldn’t you have a standby internet connection ??
That last bit sounded to me like Sarah might have been just a bit peeved, but I certainly sympathize.
A decade ago, when I was in the unfortunate position of having to deal with the monopoly cable provider (Comcast) in my town, I kept a 56Kbaud dialup account as a backup. Not only was that 56Kbaud service more reliable, it was occasionally faster. And their excuse for customer service was some of the worse “support” I have ever seen offered for a commercial service. When Verizon FiOS came along, I dropped the Comcast retards like a hot rock. So did most of my neighbors.
Well, I’ve now come full circle. I landed a temp contract working on an embedded system (and yes, it has some interesting network components) and I temporarily relocated. It wasn’t until I signed the short-term lease on my temporary abode here that I discovered that the ONLY broadband provider I could get at the apartment was Time-Warner Cable — the outfit that Comcast bought primarily in an attempt to run away from their reputation. If I had known that in advance, I would have rented in another area.
Fortunately, it isn’t quite as bad as it was 9 years ago, but it still has a lot of the same problems that cable always seems to have with shared bandwidth. I’m definitely looking forward to not being a Comcast Time-Warner Cable customer when I get back to FiOS country. I can’t remember a time when my FiOS connection went down.
There are also a few other alternatives available that weren’t there 9 years ago. Now, I can actually get email and do rudimentary tasks on the Internet over my Android phone. And in a real pinch, I can take one of my laptops (oh, I have several of those — have I mentioned that I am truly anal about being backed up?) to any of about 15 hotspots within 5 miles of the apartment, some of which are faster than TWC. Plus, T-Mobile just announced a very interesting new service called Personal CellSpot, which I’m going to check out on Saturday. If it’s as good as they claim, I will tell TWC to come get their cable modem (and where they can stick it, and how far). I’ll let you know how that turns out.
But I digress… Back to Sarah’s question:
If you had a business that was making several million $$££ a year.. wouldn’t you have a standby internet connection ??
You bet your sweet bippy I would. And I do.
