We rely so heavily on technology these days that an internet or power outage can create havoc within a business. Equally devastating can be the collapse of a computer network or even just a ‘simple’ computer glitch if you are a sole operator and rely on one machine.
After my computer crashing a couple of years into my business and being in total panic for 24hrs while it was fixed, I had to put plans in place in case it happened again. I promptly bought a reconditioned laptop and set it up with the software I simply couldn’t do without in case something happened to my main PC.
This served me well for another couple of years but of course business expands, needs for file storage increases and technology grows. The old laptop struggled to keep up. Being a Virtual Assistant it’s important to me and the success of my business to be online and my systems up and running at all times. I work alone in my office so I can’t just hop over to another desk in the office and use another machine. Oh but wait, of course I can!
The next logical step was to establish another complete workstation. It was easily done as we already had a home computer which my daughter and husband played on that just needed a bit of extra memory whacked in and some hard disk tidying up to make it run just as well as my main machine. A new data cable and voila, ready to rock and roll! It still has a clunky old monitor but as soon as I can upgrade this one to a fabulous 21″ flat screen (drool), I will be sliding this flat screen over and sending the clunker off to recycling.
So has the new system been tested yet? Well as it happens, yes. Yesterday morning I turned on my machine and as usual it ran the security update (anti-virus etc) and I also decided to install a Java Update which had been flashing at me for a day or two. Installed the update and uh oh, crash! It tried to restart and got frozen on the very first screen which usually just flickers and then moves to the Windows screen. I couldn’t force it into Safe Mode, successfully reboot or anything. Deadlines were hanging over my head!
I switch it off and boot up the second machine. Security update runs, no problem there. Did I want to install a Java Update? Oh no, not right now thank you. I wasn’t prepared to risk the same thing happening so I just skipped that bit. My documents are all stored on an external drive so I just unplugged that and plugged it into the second machine and off I went. Deadlines met and clients happy.
Later in the day when I had time (okay so it was about 8pm last night), I turned on the main machine and it started. I immediately did a system restore to the day before and it’s been running like a charm ever since. When I get a chance I’ll investigate whether anyone else had problems with that particular update but for now it’s business as usual.
Do you have a back up in place? How devastating would it be for you to lose your computer for a day or longer?
