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Software

The category in our blog area that discusses anything pertaining to software applications.

Featured image for our blog about local and cloud back ups.

Why are data backups so important?

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Data Backups

If you have any data on any of your devices that is important and irreplaceable, you owe it yourself to have a backup system in place. Don’t wait until it’s too late as a lot of my clients do.

Just think about all the important documents, photos, and other files that you would pay an arm and a leg to get back in the event of a data loss. Ideally, you should have at least one cloud backup and at least one local backup.

Carbonite, Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud Drive, Dropbox, etc. are all examples of cloud data backups. The advantage to cloud backup says that most of them are automatic so that’s so long as your computer is online and on it’s always backing up your data to the cloud. Additionally, should a house fire, theft or hard drive crash occur your data in the cloud would be safe.

I also suggest a local backup. This can be done using a thumb drive or external hard drive and gives you a second layer of data redundancy should your cloud backup fail. Hard drives are just like any other device they all eventually fail. When that happens imagine what you would pay to get back your family photos, work documents, etc. That amount almost certainly exceeds the cost of setting up a cloud and local backup system. Data loss is inevitable. Why not get out ahead of it so you can survive it with minimal impact.

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Tech Companies Are Now the Gatekeepers…

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Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon and others now control many aspects of our daily lives. Whether it be the music we listen to, the movies and TV shows we watch, our conversations with friends and family, our calendars, our personal photos and videos, our sensitive personal information, the way we bank and shop and even our lifestyle and medical information, these modern-day gatekeepers control much of our decisions and actions.

30 years ago if you wanted to cash a check you went to your local bank, or shop for clothing you would go to a retail store, or watch a movie you’d go to a movie rental store, or even purchase an album you’d go to the record shop. Today all of those transactions take place on a tiny computer, that sits in your pocket, via the Internet.

It’s difficult to get by in the modern world without a smartphone, tablet, and/or a computer. But that’s not enough, you also have to engage with one or several of these gatekeepers. For example, I have several devices, some running on windows, some running on macOS, and others running on iOS and android. I own 2 iMacs, a MacBook Air, an Apple Watch, an iPad, AirPods, an Apple TV, and an iPhone. I also consume Apple services such as iCloud storage and Apple Music. And it doesn’t stop there. I use Gmail for one of my email accounts, Microsoft 365 Exchange for another email account, YouTube TV to watch TV, Spectrum Mobile from my cell phone service, Spectrum Internet for my home Internet and Apple Wallet combined with Apple Pay to make shopping easier.

Nearly every aspect of a typical day in my life involves at least some direct or indirect interaction with these gatekeepers. And their stranglehold on our daily lives is only increasing.

Some would say that’s cause for concern, while others would say it’s an inevitable outcome of evolution. I, however, choose to embrace it.

This is the world we live in now. It’s hard and only getting harder for the average person to navigate their day without interacting with Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and others. Apple, Google, and Amazon effectively control the distribution of all types of media. Music, movies, TV shows, books, audiobooks, podcasts, and many other media are controlled by the gatekeepers. They’ve even branched out into banking and credit cards.

I guess the point of this article is to emphasize the present and increasingly omnipresent impact these gatekeepers have on we the consumers.

In my lifetime several distinct consumer categories such as television, stereo systems, security systems, various forms of entertainment, and even photography and cinematography have all coalesced into one overarching category; tech.

This has been great for me personally and even more so professionally. I’ve made a living off of all of these categories as a technology consultant for the last 16 years. Every year or two a new category gets swallowed by the tech monster and results in even more products and services I can offer my clients. My advice to you the reader is to remain flexible and do your best to embrace tech and it’s gatekeepers or you might get left behind.

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We Are All Renters… And, Maybe That’s a Good Thing.

I hear it all the time. I don’t want to pay Microsoft $10 a month forever to use Office. I don’t want to pay $.99 a month to Apple to increase my iCloud storage. And I get it, paying x amount of dollars per month for every item adds up particularly in the long run. However, this is the world we live in now. It’s called the Netflix model.

I want to sell you a service and have you pay me a monthly fee. There are pros and cons of renting services and products. Renting software guarantees that you always have the latest updates and it’s usually cross-platform and cross-device. Additionally, your account can be managed online from any device and oftentimes you can share this product or service with others whether it be friends or family members.

Buying the software or service outright has its own benefits. Namely, a one-time fee and the right to do with the software what you want so long as it does not violate the terms of the license.

This scenario has got me thinking about the Netflix model and what it means to us as consumers. A thought occurred to me that even if we buy a service or product outright, in a sense we are still renting it. For example, if I buy a $1000 computer and get five years of use out of it before it failed or I upgraded to a newer model. it could be argued that I rented the computer for that period of time. The math is pretty simple. $1000 divided by 60 months equals $16.66 a month that I effectively paid for the use of the computer over that period of time.

So from this perspective, it appears as though I did in fact rent the computer. The same argument applies to services as well as software and hardware. We are all renters. We are renting our bodies, our cars, our houses, etc.

So the next time you think about renting a product or service versus purchasing it outright think about the actual transaction that’s going on.

  • What is my total investment?
  • How long do I expect to get benefit out of this product or service?

I challenge you to run the numbers on both scenarios and then the best option will likely stand out from those results. It may in fact turn out over the long run that renting is better for me. However, purchasing outright may be better for you. Or even some combination of both. Just some thoughts from a guy with 16+ years in the consumer electronics business.