I’m back …

Here’s some advice for anyone who operates a home business: Keep a spare. Not a blank spare, but one that’s fully configured. Every time you install software on your main system, install it on your spare as well. Then, keep everything you can synchronized so your data and any application customization you rely on exists in two places at once.

If you work in desktop support in a large organization, there are parallels: Encourage users with laptops to make use of offline folders so everything is automatically backed up (and give everyone gobs of storage through the miracle of cheap Network Attached Storage). And keep enough pre-configured spares on hand so that anyone who loses a system can get a replacement immediately.

As you have probably guessed, I’m speaking from the voice of very recent experience. I’ve been out of commission for a week – and my apologies for not having posted in that time. The technology InfoWorld uses for its weblogs requires a client-side installation that can only run on one system at a time. My system died – the Geek Squad tells me the hard drive went bad – and even though most of my data was backed up to my Linux server, I still had to buy a new laptop, install everything (I’m nearly done) configure it the way I’m used to, and so on. I figure I lost two days to this.

Which wouldn’t have been a problem if I weren’t in the middle of a spike in workload. But of course, this all happened at the least convenient time. No surprise there.

The point is this (there is a point – honest!): Just because it’s a home business doesn’t make it any less of a business. I’d been too frugal. I was able to limp along using my Linux server, browser-based e-mail and so on. But that was limping along. It was good enough, but my own business recovery plan wasn’t as good as what I’d expect from a client, when it should have been better.

After all, they have dis-economies of scale I don’t have to worry about.

——–