Backup Copy Puts You Back In Business
Illawarra Mercury
Monday July 26, 1999
AN overriding concern for all computer users must be, What happens when something goes wrong?
Computers are wonderful tools that enable people to do their work more efficiently and find things more quickly than they ever could on paper and they can be a dream to work with when all goes well.
However, nothing in this world is perfect and from time to time everything breaks down. Computers are no exception.
They contain moving parts that can wear out, electronic circuits that can be damaged by voltage spikes and software that can become corrupted. In fact, with so much that can possibly go wrong it's sometimes a wonder that computers keep working at all.
So what can you do when the dream turns to a nightmare and your computer fails for whatever reason?
Obviously the first step is to get it working again.
For most people, getting the computer working again involves a trip to the shop where you bought it or, in the case of business, the call-out of a service technician.
While either of these options will probably get your box running again, there is one vital step that everybody needs to have taken before the computer broke in the first place. I'm talking about having backed up the data on your computer.
You see, when a shop or technician repairs your computer, they are primarily concerned with getting the hardware working.
And while they will make every effort to retain the information that was on the machine, sometimes it will have been the device holding the information which failed.
In that instance, if you didn't have a backup of your data then you would have to start from scratch recreating it.
Even if there isn't any significant document file to be saved, a lot of people forget things such as email messages, Internet bookmarks, save files from their favourite games and letters to friends.
If you haven't saved any of these things before your computer crashes you may not get the chance to save them after.
Even without fancy backup programs, you can still make a copy of important files on floppy disk every time they are changed.
Everybody needs to make an informed decision about what files they need to back up in case of disaster and how often they need to do it.
Home computer users may decide to back up once a month while businesses may do a backup every night after close of business.
Here at The Mercury we run backups of our main servers every night and our production critical systems are duplicated between at least two boxes so that a single failure shouldn't cause too much trauma.
Don't leave backing up your data until it's too late.
POCKET monsters, or Pokemon, have hit a new high in the world of computer games with the release from Nintendo of the Pokemon Pinball game for the Game Boy.
A new feature, a battery-driven rumble pack, shakes your Game Boy as you play so that you can feel each bounce and thud of the ball as it slams its way around the pinball table.
As with all Pokemon games, the object is to catch and train your Pokemon and to eventually own them all.
This time the capture of the Pokemons relies on luck and skill as the only way to catch them is by hitting the correct sequence of bumpers on the pinball table.
As well as two pinball tables, there are bonus stages that are activated by various events where you get a chance to score big points.
Pokemon pinball is a fun time-wasting game and even if you can't catch all the Pokemons, you can still go for a place on the high score table.
Hardware: the physical components of the computer
Pokemon: pocket monsters
© 1999 Illawarra Mercury