station 22 - Gentry VFD
Data Safety
How important is your data? Take a few moments to consider your answer! If you lost everything on your computer, how would that affect you? Maybe you don't have any idea how much or what kind of data is on your computer. A lot of people don't. Do you do your own taxes on your computer? Is your entire business run from your computer (lot of that happening these days!). Maybe you just have lists of recipes or people's birthdays. How long did it take you to do all of that work and how necessary is it for you to keep it?
Fire is pretty tough on computer storage as is the water we use to put out the fires. Obviously your priority should be to preserve life and get out of the building but with just a little planning you can reduce the effect of losing your data!
- Make a quick list of what you can't afford to lose
- Select some kind of backup storage - USB sticks are a great cheap and portable storage option
- Setup software to backup your data - Most Operating Systems have a built in back up program. There are plenty of free ones available on the internet
- Manually run or schedule the backup to happen
- Put your backup media somewhere safe! - Fireproof safe or a different (trustworthy!) location
- Test your backup - Make an extra copy of something, let it go through the backup cycle, delete it and then see if you can put it back. Your entire backup process is pointless if you can't put what you lost back. Get some help with this the first time if you aren't sure what you are doing!
Fire Dues!
Well it's that time again..no no.. not THAT time.. save that for later. It's time to pay your fire dues. Why you ask? Although these dues are not mandatory they make up a good portion of the volunteer budget which allows the Department to repair or purchase new equipment.
Not to mention (but I am going to mention it anyway) you can get stuck with a bill if the Department is called to respond to your address!