At 08:49 AM 7/27/05 +0100, Jean Nathan wrote: > Hadn't thought of > backing up to a web site, but then I don't think I like the idea - it's out > of my control then.
It's also out of the house -- if your DVDs are in the same room with your computer, all your copies could be destroyed in the same incident. Some of the professional writers on rec.arts.sf.composition aren't happy unless at least one of their back-up copies is on a different *continent*. A web site is no place to park files someone would make an effort to read (though I believe that our ISP supplies "secure" filespace for an extra fee), but it's a good place for files that are precious only to you -- pictures taken on a trip you saved up fifty years to be able to take, for example. Some folks say "if the house burns down, my unfinished manuscripts are going to be the least of my worries" -- but most folks poke around in the ashes hoping that *something* escaped. It makes sense to save anything that's easy to save. For financial records, I recall the joke about the electrical engineer who, when someone asked what was currently the best insulator, said "The same as it's always been: ten feet of fresh air." The best firewall is a physical break in the connection -- don't keep sensitive files on a computer that's hard-wired into the net. And once a month, mail a DVD to someone who can be trusted to incinerate it when he gets the next one. (Or overwrite it with his data and mail it back, if it's that sort of DVD.) Or if it's *really* sensitive, deliver it yourself. My mother's prescriptions were saved, once, because her pharmacist made a habit of taking a set of floppies home with him every night. -- Joy Beeson http://home.earthlink.net/~joybeeson/ http://home.earthlink.net/~dbeeson594/ROUGHSEW/ROUGH.HTM http://home.earthlink.net/~beeson_n3f/ http://www.timeswrsw.com/craig/cam/ (local weather) west of Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A. where I woke up yesterday to hear the air conditioner NOT running. To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
