Island Life by David Slack

If there's one thing I've learned about backups, it's that you have to regularly verify that they're working. Everyone who's worked in the industry has horror stories about backup tapes that were unreadable, backup processes that silently failed every night and so on. And they all contain the phrase "and when we went to restore from backup... [insert cockup of choice here]"

But commiserations. There is no feeling like the peculiar clench in the gut when you realise that something you thought was safe and secure is actually on the cusp of disaster if not already there.

A story was told to me and retold many times of the switch over to a computor booking system rather than the manual booking system at Air NZ. Photos looking like the '80s stock trading room - but in 50's garb hung on the walls.
Someone pulled the plug and lost the years advanced bookings. Travel wasn't cheap then for the next year no-one knew if anyone was turning up for the flight or if twice the number would.
That guy didn't have a long career after that.

Heh, when it comes to backups, it always pays to do it yourself, even if someone else is supposed to be doing it too. The attitude of your average ISP technician to failed tape drives and full log files can be... negative.

But, isn't Richard Dawkins a refreshingly un-apologetic read?

each time I've sat down to write about it I have lost the will

Must. Blog. Or. I. Will. Die.

You're in freaking France fer chrissakes! Have a holiday fergawdsakes! However did you survive before the Internet was invented?

:-)

But, isn't Richard Dawkins a refreshingly un-apologetic read?

Damn straight. Yes, every time he opens his mouth he creates ten fundies, etc, etc, but, you know what? As a member of the choir, sometimes I like to be preached to. It's...soothing. And a surprisingly useful source of logical argument, too.

Courage Mon Ami, Bon chance pour votre vacance, et Noel Viva la France viva Gascony .

Great to have you back on line tell us some more about your travels as soon as you fully recover.
John

...insouciance...

...no less!

You've been in the South of France for too long, mon ami.

This is a few years old now but its a good story...a mate of mine worked on a helpdesk at a certain nz university. Got a panicky call one day from a PhD student who had lost his work and, to make matters worse, could not get anything out of the backup work on the floppy disc.

For reasons I can't recall they wrote off what was on the computer and concentrated on what mgiht be wrong with the back up disc.

Did he back it up carefully, regularly? Yes, he said.

And he stored it carefully too.

He stuck it on the fridge.

With magnets.