How is your Backup?

How is your Backup?
As many of you know, I am a bit of a backup fanatic. This is part of an occasional series that I send out called: How is your Backup. I like to send these out when I have a good or a bad example of how important it is to backup your database. Today I have one of each. All names have been kept confidential for obvious reasons. Both of these stories are 100% true and happened in the past month.

Example 1:
About one year ago, we upgraded a client’s ACT! database. During this time, we set up something called Second Copy. Second Copy is a product that costs $29.95. Basically, this program copies any file that has been changed during the day. We have set it so ACT! creates a ZIP file backup each night. This file then gets copied to her external hard drive, along with everything else that changed during the day.
She called about a month ago to tell me that her computer was hit with a major virus and she lost her entire hard drive. By the time she called me, she had gotten a new hard drive and needed help. (She had all her contacts on a Blackberry and had all the contact information for her database.) All we had to do was install ACT! and restore the backup from the external hard drive that was created from Second Copy. She was up and running in 1 hour AND SHE DID NOT LOSE A SINGLE PIECE OF DATA.

Example 2:
I got a call from another client yesterday. He had wanted to get in touch with me for a few days but didn’t have my phone number or email address anywhere except his ACT! database. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get to his ACT! database. Like my previous client, a virus got hold of his machine and he lost all of his data. He had been using an off-site backup system but unfortunately, unbeknownst to him, his ACT! database was not being backed up. Also, not incidentally, he had an extremely hard time getting the data downloaded from the off-site backup. The last ACT! backup that we could find on the off-site backup was from September 2008 that I created when I did some work for him. He had not made manual backups and unfortunately, has lost all the data that he entered in since September 2008. He is using Constant Contact so we were able to import in the email and contact names from those contacts that existed in Constant Contact but not ACT!. But emails and contact name is no replacement for 18 months of lost data.

What can you do?
1. Check it - If you have a backup system working, please check it – early and often. Set a reminder in ACT! (or some other program) to check it. I check mine one time a week.
2. Get it – If you don’t have a backup working, get it going immediately. Today.
3. Be Redundant - Have redundant backups. As I mentioned I use Second Copy to backup my hard drive to an external hard drive. This works well unless there is a fire in my house. So, I also use Mozy.com to backup a small subset of my data to their off-site location.
4. Understand it - Understand how backup works. If you don’t understand the following words, please call me or your IT consultant:
a. Backup
b. External hard drive
c. Off-site backup
d. ZIP file
e. Restore

Your data is your world, it is so important to protect yourself. I am happy to help you with your questions, please let me know as soon as possible if you have questions. If you don't have an IT Consultant, please let me know, I have several great recommendations.

Color Coding your Calendar

I have been using a Color Code system for my calendar for years. Recently, I have noticed that others are using a similar system so I thought I would write this post for those of you not using a color code system for your calendar. I find this to be an excellent way to quickly determine what kind of day, week or month you have ahead. After years of playing with it, here are some of my thoughts:
1. Use 3 or 4 Colors. I have 3 or 4 colors that I use to denote different kinds of meetings on my calendar. Green usually means a billable meeting. Blue means a prospecting or networking meeting. Purple is a personal meeting and black is for everything else. Some of my clients have many more colors on their calendar and if you can keep all the colors straight, then go for it, but I seem to max out around 3 or 4.
2. Use a Filter. If you are using ACT!, you know that you can schedule a call, meeting or a to-do on your calendar. I have also added Conference Call and Birthday on my calendar. The conference call is important because it is not really a call and it is not really a meeting. I like to be able to filter my calendar to show only my Conference Calls and my Meetings. I created a new one for Birthday as well because this really is its own type. I have discussed how I love to use my dashboard to show upcoming birthdays. Keep in mind that Colors cannot be filtered. In other words, you cannot show only activities that are Blue. You must use an Activity Type to be able to show only some items on your calendar.
3. Taking it with you. Unfortunately, colors will not show up on your Blackberry. You can print out your calendar and the colors will show up.
In short, I really think using a color code system on my calendar helps me to be very organized. I hope this helps you as well. Do you have any tips on making your calendar more user friendly? Please let us know!