Mike’s Blog

You probably don’t even realize that you are clinging to your computer.  It is a normal state of affairs - being afraid of losing your data, the manifestation of all the hours and work that you have poured into that machine over the last months and years.  Somewhere, in that hardware, is your life and perhaps your job.  God help you if you lose it. 

I lost mine once.  A laptop, stolen from my car while I dashed into a store to buy milk and bread.  On the hard drive, copies of our strategic plans, financial records, product development plans, customer lists - every piece of critical confidential data short of the actual designs.  I had been working from home and was syncing the data over a VPN with the network at work.  The data wasn’t lost but is was certainly compromised.  I never got the laptop back.

My story isn’t unique.  Laptop theft happens all the time.  Search for it on the Internet to get a long list of high-profile cases.  From the loss of personal data to the extreme damage of loosing other people’s data, the loss of a laptop is a real pain.

And it is not just theft that is the sole cause of fear.  Hard drives crash.  Data gets corrupted.  There are many ways to lose the data.

Note that its the data that concerns people.  The computer itself?  It can be replaced in a few days.  The software?  It can be repurchased and reinstalled.  Its a hassle to be sure.  The data loss? That is painful.  More so if it wasn’t backed up. 

After the loss of my laptop, I started using remote desktop technology.  My new laptop was just a simple terminal.  I never stored any data on it.  All my data and my applications resided on my desktop and network at the office. 

Lately, I’ve been using the cloud for it all: corporate networks, desktops, applications, collaboration tools, storage and communications.  I can work from anywhere there is Internet connectivity which is everywhere I want to be working.  I can work on just about any machine.  I have no fear of loss of the laptop, damage to the computer or inadequate backups.  It is liberating.