The Branch

I love when my children discuss politics. Heard from the backseat on the way to school today:

Teagan: “If Obama wins, then he will pick Hillary Clinton as Vice President.”

Hunter: “What about John McCain?”

Teagan: “Nobody likes John McCain, he is a Republican. Nobody likes Republicans. Who are Republicans, anyways?”

Ahh, from the mouth of babes…

My daughter recently wrote a book for school. It describes how she feels about hockey. Read it. It is very funny and very cute. If you like the book support Teagan by purchasing a raffle ticket for her hockey league. The tickets cost $5/ticket, or 5 for $20 for 5.

• 1st Prize is $1500
• 2nd Prize is $500
• 3rd Prize is $250

A small price to pay for enjoyment like that. If you are interested in purchasing a raffle ticket, please email me.

For some of my clients I have been investigating online backups. For people that are not familiar with the concept, here is a brief explanation. You install a piece of software on your machine. That software communicates with a server, sending your files over the Internet. The server then takes your files and stores them onto a disk. The concept is pretty simple, and with the ubiquity of high speed Internet connections, it just makes sense.

Here are some of the advantages to an online backup service:

Advantages

• You no longer need to worry about media. Tapes and tape drives are a real hassle.
• You do not have to worry about a schedule. Most small companies depend on a secretary or admin to put in the correct tape and kick off a backup. The software does all of this for you. Some even backup files immediately after they are edited.
• The data is stored off-site automatically. One of the biggest problems that I run into with small companies is that they do not take their tapes off-site. What if your building burns down? Insurance will cover the cost of the building but how are you going to recover your data off of melted tapes?
• The data is available to any machine as long as you have an internet connection. If you have a hardware problem and need to restore the data onto another machine, you do not have to worry about installing a tape drive. Just install the backup software and restore the data.
• Cost. Sure there is a monthly cost for these services, but it is typically much cheaper than buying tapes. And the piece of mind is priceless.

Alas, there are issues with online backups. Here are some disadvantages:

Disadvantages

• There are potential security issues. No matter how much encryption the companies boast, there are still risks. The only safe computer is one that is turned off, and locked in a room.
• Reliance on a network connection. If your network connection goes down, so does your ability to backup and restore. While ISP’s have improved their uptime, there is no doubt that good ol’ Murphy will arrive just as you need to perform a restore.

Whether you decide to use online backups is a matter of trust. Almost all of the online backup services are HIPPA certified. They use industry leading encryption to protect your data. And, quite frankly, it is their business to backup and restore software. I know that is more than I can say for most of my clients, and rightly so, they need to run their business not worry about backing up their data.

I am not going to go into any comparisons of the online backup providers, but if you are interested in which provider I am recommending to my clients, submit a comment.

Technorati Tags: online, backups, small, business

I have been doing some digging, around this fine Internet of ours, looking for more information regarding the sub-prime mortgage crisis. I have found another interesting article concerning the crisis and linking it to the whole Eliot Spitzer affair.

The whole sex scandal scenario seems fishy to me. I mean this guy is supposed to be really smart. A rising star in politics. Admittedly, he made no friends on Wall Street but…. I’m not buying the sex scandal. It seems too clean to me. A perfect end to a rising career. I am more inclined to believe Greg Palast, when he says that “the big players knew that unless Spitzer was taken out, he would create enough ruckus to spoil the party.” Although, Greg still believes that there was a sex scandal, I am not so sure. Take his wife, why would she stand next to him when he was resigning? To show her support? For what? The fact that her husband likes expensive call girls, or the fact that he is an idiot for wiring the money across state lines? No, my guess is that she was there to support her husband because whoever decided to extinguish his political flame had something much worse on him.

It makes more sense to me, especially after reading the article in my previous post that this was a classic smoke screen. It should be interesting to see what happens in the coming months. I do not envy the next President, whoever that happens to be. They are going to have to clean up one really BIG mess.

I you are like me, you probably hear about the sub-prime mortgage crisis on a daily basis, whether it is in the news, newspaper, or online. I thought that I understood the basics of the crisis, and I still think that I do. But this article explains in painful detail the financial mechanisms that caused collapse of Bear Sterns, and presumably many others to come.

If you want to get a better understanding on why a company that had a market cap of many billions, with a B, a week or so ago, can now be sold for about $220 million, read the article.

Save up your gold, you just might need it in the near future….

Technorati Tags: subprime, mortgage, recession, finance, economy