Help- Computers

[EnglishLes]

Glad to hear it is now working and you haven't lost any data.

You need to consider what would happen if you did lose data.

You should be considering backing up your data as a business contingency whether you do this daily, weekly, monthly etc. and whether manual or automatic needs to be considered.

This needs to be based on could we recover all of that periods work from some form of transaction trail (paper records, memory), how long would that take, what would be the affect on the business in the meantime.

This then needs to be balanced against how long/costly the back-up process is.

Another consideration is where is the backup data held? On-site in a drawer or fire proof cabinet. Could someone take DVDs home? Use a commercial on-line service.

Having had a look at your Web site you seem a pretty big business so no doubt had a business contingency plan in case one of your Ribs catches fire, the office is unusable, a key member of staff cannot work for a long period etc. Computer systems and data should be incorporated into this plan and also maybe covered by insurance.

Cheers

(Ex IT guy for a major UK bank - no data meant no business, look what happened with the RBS a few weeks back)

[jezza2011]

go get a 2TB exterlan usb drive.
back up to that monthly and keep weeky DVD backups of data.create recovery CD's


simples

[C2 RIBS]

Originally Posted by jezza2011

go get a 2TB exterlan usb drive.
back up to that monthly and keep weeky DVD backups of data.create recovery CD's


simples

Yep, engineer has one on order should be here tomorrow. This was I can secure the work , mild panic over

[chris.moody]

Good news that you have not lost anything Ian.

The Operating System and applications are generally not worth backing up unless it's a system that is critical that it's operational 24/7, which I very much doubt is the case.

If so you only need to worry about the data (emails, documents, spreadsheets, accounts, etc) as the other stuff can be reloaded from the original DVDs. You can backup to USB memory stick or external hard drive, just depends how much data you have. You can copy the files across manually but automating the process with a backup application makes it simpler (e.g. A double click on an icon to backup, or scheduled to run at a specific time each day) and more foolproof. If you PM me I will suggest a good backup app that is FREE.

Don't just backup to one external drive or memory stick, get three and backup to them in rotation. And don't keep the backup media in the same location as the PC, take them offsite, as otherwise the fire / flood / burglary will destroy your backups as well as the original data.

If all that sounds like too much effort sign up for a reputable online automatic backup system and let that look after your data backups. Don't bother with the free or really cheap ones, they generally don't work properly when you try to restore from them (I have customers that have been there and done that). We are a reseller for Clunk Click backup from RISC Group and although it costs a few pounds a month it works really well' and your business data is stored in the UK, not in another country so you don't have any Data Protection issues. Your own IT provider will be able to recommend a good online backup system if you want to go down that route.

Glad it all worked out OK in the end, I know that thinking you have lost data is a stressful situation.

[SPR]

I would look at online back solutions

sugarsync give you free 5gb of free on storage

back up - static file to hard drive - photos musice etc
backup ever changing to online system


S.

[boristhebold]

Has anyone noticed something odd about some of the comments, some key words related to it systems seem to be being automatically linked to shopping sites. I mentioned then word mother board in my original post on this subject and I did not link it but it showed up hyperlinked. Is some web crawler or robot doing this ?

Here is a test , words below I have not hyperlinked, so let's see if same happens.

Mother board
Processor
Baked beans
Memory
GB intel chip
Smarties

[SPR]

looks like a bot is auto linking to key words in posts, prob a affiliate scheme or pay per click.

s.

[John Kennett]

Originally Posted by boristhebold

Has anyone noticed something odd about some of the comments, some key words related to it systems seem to be being automatically linked to shopping sites. I mentioned then word mother board in my original post on this subject and I did not link it but it showed up hyperlinked. Is some web crawler or robot doing this ?

The links are added by a program called SkimWords which is one of the ways that RIBnet pays the bills. You'll only see these links when you're not logged in as they are turned off for registered members.