Newspaper Page Text
AUGUST 17, 2000
Backing up is hard to do
I remember back in my
younger years when I worked for
a beer distributor, one of my first
jobs with the company was de
livering kegs of beer. Each one
of those kegs weighed 1551b5. It
was one of those jobs you
pray you will be promoted out of
as soon as possible. Finally my
time came, but first I had to
train my replacement. Scotty
and I had a ball riding together
for those two weeks. The hard
est part of that training was get
ting Scotty comfortable with
backing up that old beer truck.
He had the hardest time doing
it. Once in a moment of extreme
impatience, I literally reached
over with my left foot and
stepped on top of his foot on the
gas pedal so that he would speed
up as he backed up. It was
enough to get his attention and
from that time on when I told
him to back out, he seem to be
able to put just a little more foot
into it.
Here I am many years later in
a completely different industry,
and I find that there are many
computer users who seem to
have a similar hang-up concern
ing backing up their data. Un
fortunately, I have seen a num
ber of individuals who find out
the importance of backing up
only after a major loss of data.
Who Should Be Concerned
About Backing Up?
I would strongly suggest that
anyone using a computer to do
anything useful in their life
should be doing some form of
data back up. Think of all of the
things that you do on the com
puter. Where would you be if one
day your files just vanished? Do
you keep an address book, your
correspondences, personal
checkbook, business checkbook
or perhaps your whole set of
business records on one com
puter? If you do and do not have
some means of backing that data
up, you are a disaster waiting to
happen. In today’s world of PC,
we consumers are always look
ing for more and faster for less.
And fortunately the PC manu
facturers have been complying
with our demands. Just over
decade ago a 20 meg hard drive
would cost you an arm and a leg.
Today we can buy a 20 gig for
next to nothing. How has this
come about? Several things have
happened. One thing for sure is
that technology keeps advancing
Beginner Clogging Class
Tuesday August 22nd -
Perry, GA
■ Family Fun!
■All Ages Invited!
■ 10 Weeks -$25
■ Graduation with Diploma
■Various Show Opportunities
Call Mike or Tammy Stanely to Reserve
Your Spot Today 987-0316
Saxon Metal Roofing Sales
• Vtell match or beat any price
• Steel and Metal Shingles
• 25 Year Warranty Guaranteed
• References Referred Upon Request
• 14 Colors
• Galvanized
• Galvaloom
• Residential & Commercial Siding
• 26 & 29 Gauge
•5 V Tin
• Free Quotes
Kent Saxon
P.O. Box 612
Perry, GA 31069
(912) 967-2931 Home
(912) 954-8760 Mobile
and we are able to store more in
formation in a smaller amount of
space. Also competition has kept
prices very aggressive.
Many of us either overlook or
choose not to pay attention to an
area of great importance, quality
control. Manufacturers have
greatly reduced the amount of
testing that is done to equipment
to help offset the continued de
creasing prices for more PC. Of
ten times today it is not so much
a question of “Will I experience a
hard drive failure?” as to “When
will I?”
Only One Way To Be Safe
Have some form of backup tak
ing place on a regular basis. And
take the steps to periodically
verify that the backup is truly
taking place. Does this mean that
you need to go out and spend sev
eral hundred dollars for a tape
backup device? No, not necessar
ily. Of course that is probably the
best and most dependable way to
make sure that backups are oc
curring but you have lots of other
options. Many software packages
allow you to back up the data to
a floppy. That is available and
cheap way. Just make sure that
you back up often and that you
use more than one set of floppies.
One major disadvantage of back
ing up one’s program data to a
floppy is that everything else is
not being backed up.
Other suitable means of back
ing up is to a zip drive, to another
hard drive, to a writable CD or we
can even back our data up to the
Internet. Internet sites like
Xdrive.com will allow you to store
up to 20 megs of data for free. Of
course without broadband
Internet access, that might not
really be a practical means of do
ing so. Doing the back up can be
as simple as copying the files “as
is” to your backup device. You can
also use a program to actually
manage and automatically sched
ule the backup and perhaps also
compress the data so that more
can be stored. Of course using a
tape to do the backup would natu
rally mean using the software
that came with the drive to do so.
Microsoft has been kind enough
to provide a somewhat limited
tool to do the backup with on
Windows 95 and 98. On the Start
Menu you will find the program
icon under Programs/Accessories/
System Tools. If you do not find
it there then you will have to go
into the control panel and from
4w
tUlfe plcrme journal
Jack Hildebrand
Columnist
the Add/Remove Programs Icon
add Backup from the Disk
Tools option. Other software
tools that you might want to use
could include something as
simple as some compression util
ity such as PKZip or Winzip.
For those of you that have a
tape back up and are debating as
to whether you should do a full
back up or an incremental, I
strongly suggest always doing a
full one. And I suggest doing so
once a day, with a monthly
backup being made at the end of
each month and a quarterly done
at the beginning of each new
quarter. And if one closes out the
books at the end of the year, I
would suggest a yearly backup
before performing that often
times unrepeatable task.
The different types of backups
that can be done would really
need to be covered in another
article. My main goal here has
been to bring to your attention
the need to regularly do backups
and then to periodically verify
that they are actually working.
If I can convince one user to start
doing backup and save them
selves a disaster, then I would
feel that I had truly achieved
something for the time it took to
compose this article. Backing up
data is not really hard to do, and
not backing up can truly be
heartbreaking. I would hope that
each of you would start
proactively doing so today.
In actuality, backing up a large
beer truck is much more of a
challenge! I think I’ll give Scotty
a call to see if he ever learned to
comfortably back up a beer truck.
If you have any questions that
you would like to have answered
in upcoming articles, please di
rect them to
J ack@ Allinonecomputer s A qpm
Turbo Charge
your phone.
Turn your phone into a
high-performance machine
with 12 calling features
for only $14.95. That's a
savings of 60 percent,* with
a money-back guarantee.
For better performance, you need the ALLTEL Complete
Package. You'll get 12 features, including Caller ID Deluxe,
Call Waiting, Call Return and more, all for only $14.95.
Call 1-877-234-7723 to order or for more information.
* Average savings based on Complete Package. Display devices that are compatible with Caller ID or Caller ID Deluxe service may not necessarily work with Caller ID on Call Waiting
service. Check the display unit specifications to ensure that it is capable of supporting Caller ID on Call Waiting service. Savings may vary by state. Service availability may vary.
• sF’' 'JuBUBRStBi nr, jzk* tbhm»4 ■ 9Hn
SUL 1 I * s |R< m'' InMi
l ■ «j - . «k> :v. tail nfywoyf
ii 1 ili'ifcartr It w -W l % l
IgMEH * rip , -4 fpspray
.. j
■ ' 'lWfelif ■lltA ifcsu.. ii • $ J
flip |1 r- ,1
Photos by Charlotte Perkins
Members of the Perry High
School band set up a giant yard
sale recently to raise funds for
a trip to Philadelphia in
November. Students and their
parents set up their wares in
the parking lot of Advance Auto
Parts.
Maurice Marshall, Shameaka
Richardson and her mother,
Eva Richardson get ready for
hamburgers on the grill.
AKIN DRUG CO.
"76e Ramify “Pfawacty
COMPUTERIZED PRESCRIPTION SERVICE
i USHiiIS
Hubert Bennett
Pharmacist
Open 8:30 AM til 6:00 PM Mon. - Fri.
Sat. 8:30 AM til 12:30 PM
Sign up now and there's no activation fee.
I '' WmmFm
"Til,l nll 11 1 11 1 1 iwli wmatel
Ik JHR
I
• Free Prescription
Delivery In Town
• Medical Supplies
• Complete Line
of Sundry Items
• Senior Citizen Discount
( 987-2114~ )
Night Emergency Call 987-3130 y
m
Philadelphia ,
here we come!
May we help you? - Perry High
Band Members Brandt
McDowell, Haley Bacon and
Ashley Moody worked at the
yard sale which was organized
to raise funds for a big trip in
November.
I 4
881 EFi.
jouxel
The power to simplify
PAGE 7B
%
1036 Macon Rd. *
Perry, GA