Keeping maintenance records

[metspitzer]

I have been using Yahoo's calendar for years and I love it. Anything I need to remember is there permanently. I keep up with doctor's appointments, flu shots and med refills. I use it for car scheduled maintenance, and I also use it to log major appliance purchases.

I have asked Yahoo for the following two features more than once, but it seems to be falling on deaf ears.

Some of my meds of the past were based on a 28 day schedule instead of

1. I can think of a few more things that also use days instead of months. I wish you could get a reminder for x amount of days instead of weeks or months.

Another feature I would like to see is the option to attach a scanned receipt to a day so I would have warrantee information at my fingertips.

Just thinking out loud. If more people find a need for these features, more may suggest it to Yahoo.

[Pete C.]

MS Outlook calendar will handle most schedules, and you aren't dependent on, nor putting your personal info on someone else's system.

[metspitzer]

No, but then I am dependent on me to back up the data. A flu shot or the last time I got a water heater is not exactly CIA kind of stuff.

[George]

So what will you do if Yahoo goes out of business or decides not to offer the calendars any more?

Also I really don't care for the idea of putting my personal or other information "in the cloud".

[gpsman]

"Yahoo" is little more than a collection of 'bots overseen by an idiot. You can bet the house nobody is listening, and if they were they wouldn't care. -----

- gpsman

[HeyBub]

Overseen by an idiot? Not any more. Yang is out. But he better not go outside, the shareholders will skin him.

Microsoft bid $33/share earlier this year, which Yang declined.

Price is now about $11.50/share.

Microsoft will probably buy Yahoo for somewhere around $15.

[Square Peg]

If you aren't backing up your data, all of your data, then either it isn't worth anything or you have more serious problems than keeping track of how old your water heater is.

I use Carbonite

For $50/year, it will back up all of the data on your PC over the internet to a secure location. It does it in the background, dynamically. If you accidentally erase a file, it will restore it in a minute or two, It keeps multiple versions of files so if you want the version you had yesterday, you can probably get it. The data is not in your house so if you get robbed or there is a fire, earthquake, flood, whatever, the data is safe. It's cheaper, faster, and safer than DVDs or tapes.

There are other online services. You really ought to get one of them.

[Nucular Reaction]

If Jerry Yang is an idiot, then you are a vegetable, probably a rutabaga (unless there is a dumber vegetable, then you're that one).

[Phisherman]

The big plus is that you still have your schedule when your PC's hard drive crashes. I have been using web mail for many years now.

[George]

No thanks on the online backup. I prefer to keep my data where I can see it.

[Pete C.]

I'll never trust my data to some online service.

DVDs don't really have adequate capacity for full backup purposes, and the few tape media that do have the capacity are way too expensive for home use.

The two most viable media for home off-site backup are either the portable 2.5" HDDs, or flash media be it USB drives, SD cards, etc. At least two "units" of this media in rotation, one on-site to be updated and one off-site in a safe deposit box gives you pretty secure backup.

One other possibility is using remote mirroring / replication between two locations, say between friends homes. Locate one of portable HDDs at each person's house and each replicates their data to their private disk at the other's house. The same could work with home and vacation house, home and office, etc.

[Pete C.]

I have been backing up my data for years now. I also have more than one machine and important data is duplicated on each.

[Top Spin]

Good luck seeing your data when the hard disk crashes, you erase or overwrite a critical file (if you even have any critical files), or any one of a number of disasters strikes. No worry, Darwin will sort it all out. :-)

[Top Spin]

Unless you are one in a million, the online service is far more reliable that you are.

Gawd (or gag). You would go to all that trouble just to avoid using an online service that would save you both time and money? Very few people will actually follow such a regimen meticulously enough to make it viable and even then it wouldn't provide dynamic backup. Carbonite backs up new files within minutes of them being created, changed files within 24 hours, and I can make it backup instantly whenever I want.

[Top Spin]

But you send all kinds of personal information via email, right?

[George]

How did you come to that conclusion from what I wrote? There are plenty of ways to implement data protection and disaster recovery without using "carbonite" or similar online services.

[George]

You don't need "carbonite" to do what you described. There is nothing magical or unique about "carbonite".

[George]

Actually no.

[Stormin Mormon]

There was a post on the usenet photography list, recently. An online backup company went into financial problems. The creditors took the storage equipment, and promised to reformat it, wipe all the data, and sell the equipment to pay for debts. I expect this to be far more common, and soon.

[Square Peg]

OK, what *is* your backup strategy / procedure?