Have you ever sent an email or posted something to someone else’s Facebook wall or to the comments section of their blog and then thought, damn, I shouldn’t have said that! Of course you have: we all have. If you haven’t posted something you later regret saying, you haven’t posted enough!
The question is, what do you do then?
You get over it. In some cases you can “withdraw” an email, but the sad fact of the matter is that this fails more often than it works, particularly in an instant-alert culture where people open their emails on receipt. You can email the blogger and humbly beg them to take your comment down, but if it happens to be a swipe at said blogger, you’re probably only going to make the situation worse. And you can delete your Facebook account, but if you posted something to someone’s wall, you have to delete it before you delete your account, otherwise you are well and truly hooped.
The moral of the story, boys and girls? While we are all about backing up your own material, we advise taking a deep breath before posting something to a region of the web you yourself do not control. As comfortable as you may be in the blogosphere and the Facebookosphere, it’s pretty much always a mistake to drink and comment.
And speaking of which, when you’re tempted to drink and dial, it’s probably best to avoid those with Google Voicemail, otherwise you could find your slurry imprecations forwarded all over the internet as mp3’s. Get yourself one of these drunk dial blockers and never wake up wondering what you have to regret again!
Mercury is the god of communications, rogues, thieves, and social media gurus
Normally, you’d think backing up your data was a safety precaution, akin to flossing your teeth, eating right, and looking both ways before crossing the street. Normally, you’d be right.
But what about when you and your existing site have to part ways? What if your web host goes under, leaving a big hole in the internet where your site used to be? What if you want to move to another server? What if your DNS starts PMSing and your website is MIA?
Your backups can be your guarantee of freedom and mobility.
If you have an up-to-date backup, you can relax. Okay, you can pour yourself a stiff Diet Coke and THEN relax, because you haven’t really lost anything; it’s just temporarily offline, suitcased, and you can put it anywhere you want: new address or old. Once you get your new web home, you can simply upload your old contents and you’re up and running! Try re-creating a lost website from traces left on Google Cache and the Wayback Machine and you’ll never again forget to do your weekly (or more frequent) backups!
And yes, sadly, that is the voice of experience talking. If you’re not the detail-oriented type, you can always have a qualified professional take care of it for you. Now, gee…where would you find one of those?
This isn’t particularly related to backing up or protecting your data, but it is awesome. Those of us in technical fields can often take the technology for granted and fail to see the fact that it really is life-changing if it’s designed well and gotten into the right hands.
Those would be this woman’s hands.
I didn’t get the point of the iPad at first; in many ways I still don’t. It just feels like the Segway, something about which we’re all supposed to become uncontrollably excited, but which isn’t game-changing for anyone.
iPhad convert your iphone into an ipad
I was thinking too small: the iPad is game-changing for those with visual impairments. People like the 100-year-old Virginia, who had never used a computer before. Watch and see the Digital Revolution in action.
