Leaving Grand Teton, bound for Yellowstone, bMighty's "Tech On The Go" correspondent doesn't worry that his work, his data, his photos, video and more are safe from harm's way thank to online backup
Our "Tech On the Go" correspondent Scott Koegler will be filing his column from the road this summer as he crosses the country with his family over the next six weeks. Though there's bound to be some "vacationing" along the way, Scott will continue to operate his small business from the road. Throughout this adventure, he'll share tips, tricks, and insights about how to keep a business running smoothly when you're on the move while maintaining a virtual connection to his office network, server, desktop computer, and video surveillance system.
Scott and his wife, Donna Marie, are traveling in a Ford E-350 van, pulling a travel trailer, accompanied by their dogs Cody and Mac. They left their home in Wilkesboro, N.C., on June 16 bound for the Rocky Mountains. After crossing the Continental Divide, they'll stop off in Las Vegas, peek into the Grand Canyon, and visit family in New Mexico before heading for home along Route 66 (and more modern byways).
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Grand Teton, Wy. -- We are leaving the Grand Teton area today, and heading toward Yellowstone National Park, where we will be for the next week. The area here is spectacular, and facilities are few and far between. This campground doesn't offer Wi-Fi, or even cable television. Fortunately, my Sprint card is working well at 2-3 bars, and my AT&T Blackjack II connects with 3-4 bars. So, connectivity-wise, life is good as well.
One thing that does take a back seat during times of limited connectivity, is my online backup service. I've become absolutely dependent on my Carbonite subscription service that backs up my entire drive, or set of drives, in near real-time for around $50 per year. But without a decent and reliable broadband connection, an online backup is not something I want to rely on entirely. And when connections are in the 2-bar range, I don't want to sacrifice the bandwidth, even though upstream traffic is minimal.
What I do for backup while on the road, is to use Seagate's FreeAgent GO, a portable drive that also does a lot more than just backup. The drive comes in multiple capacities; mine is the 160GB version. It connects to two USB ports, presumably because of the power demand to run the drive. That means that I need to unplug my mouse, or some other device to accommodate the GO. Fortunately, I only plug in the GO once each day, in order to do a backup.
A word about the FreeAgent backup... it is a folder synchronization, rather than a backup. For my application, that's fine,as what I really want is the ability to instantly work on my applications and data, should my laptop die somewhere along the way. Should that happen, I can hijack my wife's laptop, plug in the GO, and access the entire contents of the drive, assuming the loss of only what was not backed up since the last sync.
The FreeAgent GO can also be a portable "My Computer." When you attach the GO to a PC, the autostart offers to take over the host PC with your own applications. That means you can use a friend's computer as if it were your own, without installing your apps, or leaving browser history. My only complaint is that it's necessary to pay for a subscription to the full functionality... something I've elected not to do, since all I'm really using is the backup/synchronization function.
At any rate, like any insurance policy, I hope that I don't need to use the backup. But knowing how things happen, I'm staying on the safe side... and on the right side of the highway.
See you on the road!
See more "Tech on the Go" columns by Scott Koegler
