Back on December 11 I posted about a little contest that I wanted to run. The “prize” was a copy of James Brausch’s “The Internet Business Book, Volume I”.
On a side note, Volume II has been sent to his proofreaders. I’m expecting a release sometime within the next month or so.
Unfortunately, I didn’t receive any winning entries for the book giveaway contest, nor did I receive any “good” incorrect answers — so I still have the book. To be honest, it’s not an easy thing to figure out, and with close to 1,000 entries, finding stuff on James’ blog can be challenging. However, the concept I wanted to discuss is important enough for me to go ahead and explain it even though nobody won.
And we’ll have another “contest” because I’m determined to give away the extra copy of that book.
I have a Gmail account. I like that account for several reasons. One reason is that I can access it from anywhere that I travel and everything between my computer and Google’s server is encrypted. Lots of people don’t know that you can easily encrypt your Gmail session simply by inserting the letter “s” after “http” in your browser’s address bar (don’t forget to hit “Enter” after making the change).
Another reason to like Gmail is that I don’t have to delete stuff. That’s important to me because my security background enables me to fight spam with more effectiveness than a lot of people. Before I fire off a spam complaint, though, I go back through my three years worth of messages to make sure that I didn’t sign up to a mailing list for the sender. I’ll check email addresses, names, websites in the links… And only then will I proceed with a “spam slap”. Of course, it also means that all of my email is always there, which leads to this…
There’s one “hidden” reason to like Gmail that you won’t hear many people talk about because it’s not on their personal “radar”. Using Gmail can help give you data freedom.
Data Freedom? What the heck is that, you say? It’s simple: I don’t have to worry about keeping copies of stuff on my local computer or in a filing cabinet because it is always available to me online (or somewhere else). Between Google’s generous storage quotas and their search functions, finding a particular email when I need it is a snap.
So why would I want to store it on my local computer where it’s hard to find, subject to malware and all sorts of other threats, and where a hard disk crash could cause me to lose it forever?
The simple answer: There’s no reason to. And by using the filters and labels, I’m able to easily “file” emails to make it easy to refer to them for specific tasks, like incoming revenue, expenses, website passwords, etc.
The only thing I need to do is ensure that I protect my password, change it often, don’t advertise my email address too much (!), and make sure that hackers haven’t inserted filters that will forward email to them. One individual recently had a nightmare on his hands when his Gmail account was hacked, resulting in a domain name hijack. But that’s easy enough to counter if you pay attention to your settings.
So what does this have to do with James’ blog? It’s simple: This post — which was the correct answer to the challenge — says that James does not store any data on his computer (and this post tells you more about that). He made the post on his blog that I referred to in the contest announcement because he needed some place to store that data temporarily and he doesn’t store data on his computer (because he would lose it when he shut down and restarted the computer). He has “Data Freedom”. Now I’m not there yet, but I do have things to the point that I don’t store anything on the computer’s hard drive. I do save stuff to an external drive, but that’s mostly because I’m on a dialup connection and once I download something large, I don’t want to have to do it again.
I am taking the next step and will be setting up a domain and website that will be my “secret online headquarters”. I’ll be storing a lot of stuff there that is currently on that external hard drive. It will enable me to access it from anywhere and save me from being enslaved to that data. I’ll pay somebody to manage the server, perform backups, and restore the data if something happens.
It’s that simple.
In fact, I’m typing this post on my computer using UltraEdit 32, but when I’m done with it and have posted it to my blog, I’ll delete this copy. I won’t need it; it will be on my web server, which gets backed up regularly. It’s a wonderful feeling to be able to delete an important file from your computer, knowing that the data is safe and that somebody else has agreed to take responsibility for keeping it safe. It’s kind of like that “last day of school” feeling that James talked about in that blog post. It really is.
How about you? Is it time to stop being a “data packrat” — which leads to “data slavery”? Here are a few things you can do to help you get started:
* Get a web hosting company that performs daily backups of your data (if not more often; some will do “on the fly” data preservation). Once you have that and have verified that the backups are good, you can stop saving website stuff on your local computer. Freedom.
* If you have important files, consider using an online file storage solution to store those files, especially if you have a high speed connection. Read the terms carefully first; ensure that your data is protected (I’d try to find a service that allows you to encrypt your data with a password that only you know, just to be safe), backed up, and that the company isn’t going to go out of business anytime soon. In that regard, go with a paid service, not a free one (unless the free service is run by a large company); while “free” can be neat, “free” is not usually a sustanable business plan. Of course, this is just a temporary step on the road to Freedom.
* Use an email account like Gmail for all of your email. Just ensure that you follow their terms EXACTLY; you don’t want to get into a situation where you violate their terms and lose months, if not years, of crucial email records. I eventually plan on seting up my own web-based mail system on my own server simply to help ensure that somebody else (in this case, Google) doesn’t take some arbitrary action that puts my system at risk. If they hold my data hostage, there’s no Freedom.
* Establish and implement a data retention policy. How long do you really need to keep email and other business records? Figure out how long you need to keep certain records, put it in writing as a policy, then follow it. Get rid of old stuff — both paper and electronic copies. And when you destroy paper copies, do so in a cross-cut shredder (and recycle the shreds).
* Scan copies of important documents and upload them to your “secret online headquarters”. There’s a better solution that’s tied to the system I want to test for handling personal mail.
I’ll talk about another possibility for handling regular mail in a future post (I need to implement and test the system myself first, so it will be a while before I report about that). I’ll also talk about progress on my “secret online headquarters” and other things that can help you obtain data freedom.
And that book? If you want my extra copy, simply reply to the email I’m about to send out to my blog announcement list (the title of that email will be the same as the title of this post). The first email I receive with a correct mailing address gets the book. If you reply right away, I’ll have your address before I do my weekly post office run tomorrow; otherwise you’ll have to wait until next week’s run.
Not a blog announcement list subscriber? Then you’re not eligible — this time. As I’ve said several times, I believe in thanking those who give me permission to occupy precious space in their Inbox. This is one of those “reward” times. There will be future opportunities for thank you gifts (especially as I continue to clean out my office) and some of them will be offered for free to my blog announcement list subscribers. So please sign up for that list if you would like a chance to qualify for future offers.
One more thing about my list and these little giveaways: My list is growing, and the longer you wait to sign up, the more people you’ll be competing against in these little “giveaways”. The sooner you sign up, the more opportunities you’ll have to grab a freebie — and the less competition you’ll face.
The signup box for my blog announcement list is in the upper right corner of the main blog page (if you don’t see it on this page, click on the “News By Tom Brownsword” banner at the top and you’ll be directed to that page). It’s double opt-in, which means you’ll have to click a link in a confirmation email before you’ll get regular announcements, and each and every email contains a link you can click to unsubscribe. You are always in complete control.
Thanks for listening,
Tom
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