Digital Dark Age
This is common sense to anyone in the business.
Honest. When was the last time you tried to find a computer that used a floppy disk? Have you even touched a floppy in the past year? If so, I think you’re in the minority. But, the same is becomeing true for something that IT Professionals (ie. professional geeks) have most likely dealt with: backup tapes. I’ve lost count of how many different kinds of backup systems I’ve used over the years and you know, most of them only would read tapes from one or two generations back. I wonder how many businesses have their archival data stored on tapes that they can’t read anymore…
Anyway, this article on smh.com.au regarding a coming digital Dark Age might be news to some of my readers, so I post it anyway. And, it is something important to think about, especially when dealing with disaster recovery plans. Are your tapes so old that your hotsite can’t read them? Better check quick, because hurricane season isn’t over yet.
Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
--Mark Twain
Another Dark Age issue. New laptops don’t come with a serial port, but network gear (like routers & switches) still like to have their initial configuration done with a serial hyperterm connection. Those usb-serial converters work sometime, but not all the times. Thisa is the only reason I’m keeping my old laptop around and hoping it doesn;t quit on me.
Comment by Bruce Currier — 10/21/2005 @ 8:09 am