It’s good to have a backup.
I’m always telling clients, friends and anyone with a computer who will listen that they should have a backup strategy. As we commit more and more of our lives to digital files on our computers, the prospect of losing the lot due to mechanical or software failure, or simply poking the wrong key on the keyboard, is all too obvious. And yet most people still don’t have a backup strategy.
Backup software applications are included in the latest versions of Windows and in Mac OSX. And external USB or Firewire hard drives are cheap, so there is no excuse.
Don’t lose all those precious photos and documents if your computer crashes or gets
left on a train. Backup, and backup regularly.
What prompted this post is a backup of a different kind.
I’ve discovered this morning that the landline phone at our London address isn’t working. There is no dial tone and to anyone calling the number it appears to be ringing. But it isn’t.
Virgin media supply us with the phone, and super fast cable broadband, in London, but they can’t get an engineer out until Thursday despite my stressing the business use.
Fallback or ‘the backup strategy’ for outgoing calls is the mobile phone, but I could very soon use up my inclusive minutes and start paying exorbitant call charges.
The second layer of backup for outgoing phone calls is Skype. I’ve used that for Skype to Skype audio and video chats, within the UK and internationally, and that works well. I’ve even taken international calls made to our Skypein numbers in the UK and overseas. But I’ve never used it to make national calls, there didn’t seem to be any point
Well now I have to, and it works.
Using the built in mic and speakers on a MacBookPro, SkypeOut is an efficient effective backup strategy if your landline phone falls over. Call quality was excellent, there was no echo on the line and the person I called didn’t keep saying “pardon?”
Our only problem now is incoming calls to our London number won’t get answered until sometime Thursday. Memo to self, initiate a divert facility on the line as a backup.