Years ago, when I went on holiday as a youngster, we used to have handwritten lists of things we needed to pack. We might have left information with one or two people about our travels, such as flight details and where we were staying. Today, I have received a three-page document regarding Ma & Pa FWL’s forthcoming travels, by email. Included are email addresses and other contact details for a zillion people, flight details, seat numbers and heaven alone knows what else. Wonderful! Oh, how times have changed….
When we (as in, my family) first had a computer, it didn’t have much disk space and to back-up everything, we had to have half a dozen floppy disks or later, CD-RW/CD-Rs. Now, we have external hard drives which can be scheduled to back-up on a regular basis. But, the question is: when did you last do a back-up? If we did a poll, I am pretty sure that less than 50% of you have backed up your data in the last week. Don’t wish to scare you, but what happens if your computer ‘fries’ tomorrow (for whatever reason)? If you are a genie, you will have lost all your hard work from the last ‘n’ years and for many of you, ‘n’ is a large number.
Why do you have house insurance, car insurance and holiday insurance? Because you want to insure against the unexpected. The only insurance against losing everything on your electronic devices (PC, laptop, etc.) is to have a back-up. Where is that back-up? If it’s in your house, think about having a second copy off-site. Heaven forbid your house is flooded or fire damaged but in this instance, you lose both the device and the back-up in one fell swoop.
We now live in a very fast moving world. The unexpected seems to happen more regularly for a variety of unaccountable reasons …. politics, religion, disaster …. and whoever we are, wherever we are and whatever we do, we need to ‘be prepared’, in every sense. The first time Ma & Pa FWL travelled to the Southern Hemisphere, they lost their suitcase before even leaving the UK (three weeks away, one suitcase and Pa FWL only had the shoes he was wearing!) and the day they were due to fly back, an earthquake struck Christchurch, New Zealand. I am pretty sure that neither of those things were part of the plan….
Be prepared …. for every eventuality.
