A Blog by Brian Lee Rouley

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Best Movie - Backup

Has it really been 3 months since my last rant about the importance of backup? Somebody is surely slipping. Be sure to read to the end on this one, as we put in a plug for a service you all should consider. It's personal.

Watching CBS Sunday Morning, old Charley narrates a bit of history about the Oscar Winning Movie (the first Best Picture Oscar), "Wings".

Having just tweeted this, for the purpose of citation, now I see I also get to provide a short link URL for you here:  http://bit.ly/z9k3gr
Scroll to the end of page one for the problem (possible data loss).

My Tweet:
Now reading :  Remembering "Wings," the 1st Best Picture : http://bit.ly/z9k3gr via @CBSNews - Best illustration of the importance of backup!

That's 140 characters - count 'em, if you must. Word will do this for you. Click the Review tab, then in the Proofing group, choose Word Count. There's a free lesson on MS Word for you - but it took me right off topic. Yes, this is another article about backup.

Near the end of the segment on the "Wings" movie, the discussion turns to finding the best copy of the movie. The studio searched everywhere for a good copy, because the one they had was deteriorating as "nitrate stock" film does. Use that link above and scroll to page two of the story to find the punch line.

Or, don't - here it is. They (the studio) had made a backup copy of the film in the 1950's. Do we really need to continue? Well, maybe we do.

Now I want to see that movie. But what I want more than that, for you, my dear reader, is to know that you have the foresight of a movie studio and you are backing up your precious data. Today, that may include video footage, music, words (a precious script, perhaps) and your memories in photographs. All of that data is analogous to the material that goes into making a great film. It also makes up the story of your life.

Wait, there's more! You say you have photos, films, music, and material that is not in digital format on your computer? Eeeyikes! How will you preserve that? The most obvious solution; find someone who can do that conversion for you. My recommendation, Heirloom Productions and Gene Shaw. You could look it up, but here it is, the easy way: http://goo.gl/pF5uh


How do we get those short links? That's a topic for another post. Keep coming back for more - right after you run your next data backup.

Brian Rouley
Rouzell Enterprises, Inc.
Mousehelp at Rouzell dot com.