When was the last time you played hooky?
Once, on one of those spectacular fall days where Mother Nature offers up the perfect combination of sunshine, warmth, humidity and an abundance of color, my wife and I did just that: we played hooky. We decided on a road trip and headed away from the hustle and bustle of the big city to explore rural America – no constraints and just the following rules: “No phones & let’s enjoy”.
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It seems that with every new TV commercial, automobile technology makes another huge leap. Everything from automatic parallel parking, radar-assisted cruise control, back-cameras with audio warning, blind spot detection, and foot-activated rear door openers are now available.
Recently my son traded in his truck for a brand new Mazda. Talk about making the buying decision stress-free: This dealership stepped up to the plate on the trade-in value based on the “Kelly Bluebook”, was equally competitive with other dealerships on the purchase price and offered 0% financing for 36 months paid bi-monthly. The paperwork (without any “funny/shady” stuff normally associated with hucksters) was done in less time than it took to do the test drive.
The Hidden Information We Strive For is Buried WithinOne thing for sure: modern society gathers and stores more data per second than just one generation prior did in a lifetime.
A generation ago, none of the following were commonplace:
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“Safe and Reliable” are two words frequently used when articulating the features and benefits of computer back-up systems. But just how safe is “Safe” and just how reliable is “Reliable”?
After installing a reasonably expensive automated back-up and recovery system on our network, we followed the installation instruction guide and did a complete back-up followed by a complete system restore.
The successful completion provided a sense of confidence that, should disaster strike, we were only minutes away from initiating a restore of the data and being back in business.
For years we were under the delusion that our automated back-up and recovery system was functioning correctly. After all, there were no device errors reported through the sys-admin tools. That, coupled with our continuous cycling and replacing of the backup tapes, strengthened our belief that our “Safe and Reliable” system would be there at a moment’s notice. NOT SO!
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