Last week my friend knocked over a cup of coffee into his laptop and totally ruined the machine. Which leads me to remember something similar that happened to me one time.
I often wonder why people don’t ‘protect’ their internet marketing business better? If you were running a bricks and mortar business you would have the building and contents of your business insured, right?
That’s something I learned the hard way when I first started online marketing.
So, there I was busy pounding away on the PC feeling great about building my online business when suddenly WHAMM…
The PC hard drive failed and everything STOPPED and I was looking at the blue screen of death!
The cheap hard drive installed in the PC seized to respond and crashed, only to crash my entire business along with it. Yes I could easily access my eBay accounts, websites and blogs from another computer but all the precious data, images, bookmarks, tools, software, and files were gone forever.
I did eventually get all my passwords back that I had stored on the hard drive, but I was still entering my email address in the ‘recover your password’ forms for months to come. I also did have an external hard drive that I used to backup my data once in a while but I only backed up maybe every 6 months or so. I lost 6 months of files I had stored and lots of TIME!
You can imagine the nightmare of the blue screen of death!
So I now use 2 tools that prevent such a disaster ever happening again and they are..
1. Roboform
I can’t imagine being without this tool. Every time I need to login to a website I simply hover the Roboform link installed in my web browser and Roboform shows me all the websites that I have login information stored. I click the website I want to login to and Roboform automatically logs me in. I don’t have to remember the login details and it even stores my address details to fill sign up forms. It saves me so much time and it’s security protected. Oh, and there’s a 30 day free trial to test it out.
The second one is..
2. GoodSync
If I had used this tool BEFORE my hard drive died I would have saved so much time not having to recover important information (some of which I will never get back). It’s like the ‘It will never happen to me’ lie we all fool ourselves with until after the disastrous event. Using GoodSync, in 2 clicks I can now backup any important files and synchronize between my PC, laptop, server, external drive and phone.
These are the tools that stop me guessing if and when the next blue screen of death will appear, not to mention the amount of time saved trying to recover and remember passwords.
If you have lots of time spare and don’t have important documents on your laptop there’s no need to know about these tools. Or like my friend, if you don’t mind pouring coffee into your laptop and losing everything!
Hey John,
Fingers crossed I have never had this happen to me, however I regularly back up all my software and files weekly onto a memory stick…
AWeber lists..
Blog back up…
Roboform passwords
updates of all kinds to my products!
As you can see I too use Roboform and like you say it`s invaluble, for the cost of the ‘PRO’ version I wouldn’t do without it, at the moment I have 70 passwords on it all a tthe speed of a couple of clicks!
I haven’t heard of ‘Goodsync’, must check it out?
Later John….Ed.
Yes, I did have the blue screen happen to me a few years ago and it’s
always a good reminder to backup Ed!
Cheers
Hi John, I haven’t had the blue screen crash (yet) but it’ll come one day and when it does i’m ready. I use acronis for my weekly back ups of the PC and tools on it.
I had a scare last year whilst on bed rest, i was working on the laptop and it suddenly asked me for my email password. Being set up to remember the password i knew there was a fault and when i checked i had lost all of my sites on one server. I thought i had lost everything, years of work gone.
I got my daughter to check the same sites on my PC, GONE! Alarmed i tried to get onto my web host but his site had also gone, i sent emails from another account and they were returned, panic struck and i sought help from a forum that i’m a member of.
Someone came back to me and said the sites were all live and explained that my modem may have a glitch in it. I turned it off for 30 minutes and everything came back to life.
Lesson learnt, i bought an external HD and set about backing everything up, which i now do every Sunday.
I’ll check out the 2 sites you recommend John, passwords is something i overlooked! and isn’t is a winde up waiting for the password reminder email to come when you need it NOW
Point taken John, thanks mate
Barry
Like everything else Barry, it sometimes takes a near miss before we realize we need to take action.
Cheers Barry!
Hi John, you are the second blogger today that has mentioned Goodsync, I am going to look into it now. Would be a nightmare to lose it all.
Thanks for a useful post.
Pete
Hi Pete,
Certainly would!
Thanks for stopping by.
John B
Never heard about GoodSync before, although it does seem like one heck of a handy tool!
I’m taking a look at the software’s site right now, my laptop hasn’t been looking very stable lately, so I could definitely do with some backup
Hi John, I’ve just popped back to wish you and your family a happy christmas and a prosperous new year.
Catch you up in the new year John, enjoy the holiday season
Barry
Best Wishes Barry!
I’ve just downloaded the free trial Roboform via your link John, hopefully you are an affiliate. If I can work out how to use it, and it saves time, it seems well worth $9.95.
I’ve got my backups sorted the same way as Barry. A separate hard drive, and Acronis which automatically copies everything on my computer.
Thanks for the Roboform tip John. I hadn’t heard of this before and I’m looking forward to using it, (I don’t like filling in forms).
John
Leamington Spa, England
It definitely is a time saver for me John, at my last count I had over 100 passwords stored in my Roboform account on my firefox browser. The good thing is it is also stores information securely.
Let me know what you think of it!
Cheers,
John
I’m using this tool then. I wouldn’t know what to do if my hard drive crashes without backing up important files.