Category: Organization

Don’t gamble your data: the importance of backing up your information

Don’t gamble your data: the importance of backing up your information

Data backup is one of those things that everyone knows they should do, but somehow never quite gets around to. Many believe that disasters only happen to other people, or that computers will never let us down. But the truth is, data loss can strike anyone, at any time, and without warning. However, the importance of data backup is not just limited to individual users. In fact, in the modern world, data has become the currency that governs the daily operations of organizations of all shapes and sizes.   

Despite the crucial role that data plays in the modern world, many individuals and organizations still fail to back up their data consistently. This failure often stems from a lack of awareness about the potential risks of data loss, a misconception that data backup is complex and time-consuming, or a lack of resources or technical expertise.  

In spite of the obstacles in the way, however, the rate at which data is lost is not slowing down, and the resulting consequences of not backing data remain dire. As such, it’s time for individuals to stop playing data-loss roulette and start backing up precious information because in today’s data-driven world, losing precious information is simply not an option.  

As you would invest in insurance to protect physical assets, backing up data is insurance for digital assets. More so, backing up data ensures that information is secure, and can be accessed whenever needed. It safeguards against potential disasters such as hardware failures, software crashes, or cyber-attacks. A backup strategy ensures that even if data is lost, one could confidently recover it quickly and easily. 

That begs the question: What is a data backup and how can one get started?   

Data backup is copying data from a primary to a secondary place in order to protect it in the event of a catastrophe, an accident, or malicious activity.  

Cloud services make performing regular backups and storing data off-site increasingly convenient. However, it is imperative to emphasize that thorough planning and a comprehensive understanding of best practices is necessary.   

As educators and instructional support professionals at Loyola, maintaining uninterrupted access to Sakai is a primary concern. However, it is essential to recognize that relying solely on Sakai to retrieve critical educational documents is not a prudent practice. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to maintain at least one additional copy of essential data stored on an alternative platform or system. This is imperative as storage plays a crucial and strategic role in facilitating an organization’s overall data backup and disaster recovery strategy. Fortunately, there are several available methods and tools that can cater to one’s specific needs.  

  • Best practices for exporting Sakai content from each tool  

Microsoft OneDrive  

Microsoft OneDrive has been widely acknowledged as a leading cloud storage solution, providing businesses with enhanced productivity, seamless file sharing, and robust content management capabilities, which are being continually enhanced by cognitive content services. Loyola University Chicago faculty, staff, and students can benefit from the following advantages of OneDrive:   

  • Storage Capacity – All users are allocated 5 TB of storage in OneDrive for Business.   
  • Sharing – Files stored in OneDrive for Business are private by default, but users can choose to share them with specified co-workers for collaboration purposes. Additionally, OneDrive for Business allows users to share files and folders with individuals outside of the Loyola network.  
  • Real-Time Collaboration – OneDrive for Business facilitates real-time collaboration, enabling multiple individuals to simultaneously edit documents and eliminating the need for emailing documents or saving multiple versions on network drives.
  • Windows 10 Integration – The OneDrive for Business client is included, eliminating the need to download additional software for file and folder synchronization.  
  • Office 365 Integration – OneDrive for Business is already included in Office 365 for all students and is seamlessly integrated into the email web client.  
  • Security – OneDrive should be utilized to securely store files in adherence to the Loyola Cloud Computing Policy.  

Redundancy  

Redundancy refers to the practice of setting up an additional hard drive that is a replica of a sensitive system’s drive at a specific point in time, or an entire system. 

Removable Media  

Backing up data to removable media such as CDs, DVDs, newer Blu-Ray disks, USB flash drives or external hard drives is a simple and widely used option. The external hard drive is a high-volume drive that can be installed in a network, and backup software can be used to save updates to local files to that hard drive.   

Cloud Backup Services  

Online backup service providers regularly back up the contents of a hard drive to a remote, secure cloud-based data repository over a network connection.  

Backing up data is not a one-time event, it’s an ongoing process that requires constant attention and effort. Take the initiative to safeguard data and make data backup a top priority. Your future self will thank you.  

Digitally Manage your Notes with Evernote

Digitally Manage your Notes with Evernote

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Writing out notes and keeping track of all of those bits of paper can be a hard task to manage. Evernote has developed a free digital management system for all of your notes. Evernote incorporates the use of your computer, your mobile devices and the Internet to make your information accessible all of the time. If you are at a meeting or a class and you want to quickly remember the information, you can take a picture of the whiteboard and add it to your notes.  Evernote also has a useful feature that can read text in photographs or handwritten notes to make them easily searchable.  Some other ways to add information are through to-do lists, notes, web selections and voice memos.  Once you have many notes, it is easy to organize them into categories and add tags.

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Overall, Evernote is a helpful tool that acts like your own digital file cabinet. If you want to learn more or try it out, visit the Evernote homepage.

Customize your Gmail Page with Google Gadgets

Customize your Gmail Page with Google Gadgets

1X1If you use Gmail, there is a handy new feature that will enable you to add Google Gadgets to your Gmail page.  Google Gadgets are interactive mini-applications that you can display on your Web page, such as weather, personalized news and more.  When you add a Gadget, it will always appear on the sidebar of your email. Even though the sidebar is small, it is a convenient way to have resources readily available.

How to Insert Gadgets:

  • 1. In your Gmail account, click on Settings.
  • 2. Under the Labs tab, you can find different features to add to your Gmail. To add custom gadgets, go to Add any Gadget by URL and click Enable.

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  • 3. Then go to the Gadgets tab (within Settings) and you can enter any Gadgets’ URL, which is an XML page.  To get the URL, click on the gadget you want from the Gadgets page.  Click on the View Source link on the bottom of the page, then copy the URL from the URL window. 

Here a few URLs for popular Gadgets (copy and paste in the Gadget URL box to activate):

Get Organized with Remember the Milk.com

Get Organized with Remember the Milk.com

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Remember the Milk
Remember the Milk

As the fall semester comes to end and the holidays are fast-approaching, keeping track of holiday shopping and long to-do lists seems inevitable. If you still are relying on sticky notes and writing your reminders on bits of paper, you may want to try out the helpful Web task management tool, Rememberthemilk.com. Remember the Milk is a free Web-based application that can help you simplify and organize all of your tasks in one place.  This software allows you to create categorized task lists and send out reminders via text message, email, Twitter or even instant messages.

A few highlights of the Remember the Milk include:

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  • – Locate your task. Easily assign locations to a task to help plan the best way to get things done.
  • – Add tasks from a mobile device. Just send an email with one task per line to your Remember the Milk import email address and it will add the items to your task list.
  • – Print out your weekly check lists.