Technical Writer

In Disaster Recovery part 1 I talked about how important it is for us as tech writers to back up information we have on the PC at home. Information that we may not even realise is important, particularly if we do most of our work for a company on the company PC. However, we still have contacts, emails and a portfolio that we really couldn’t afford to lose.

In this article I want to talk about another backup you need to consider. This is aimed mainly at tech writers in smaller companies, because in larger companies this is covered as part of the implementation project.

Suppose you have the following scenario:

You’re a lone tech writer in a team. Your information is all over the place and you’re desperate to organise it. You go online and find an open source content management system like Joomla (or even WordPress), or an inexpensive one like KBPublisher that you can convince your boss to buy. You get on well with the IT guys and they help you set up a My SQL database and give you space on a server to run it.

(Tech writing) life has never been better. You have a nice little content management system going. People use it. They even add to it, and recommend it to others.

A small system like this is often better for a small company than a monster like SharePoint.  Don’t get me wrong. I like SharePoint, but it is big, and unweildy, and has an incredibly steep learning curve. Sometimes, it’s like using a b-double road train when a bicycle is a better option.

But …

Maybe you have even discovered that your company has SharePoint and have convinced your IT people to implement Windows SharePoint Services for you and are using this for your documentation. 

Either way, what you have is a database system that has fallen outside of the usual IT control. They have let you implement it, and you’re managing it. This means you are responsible for disaster recovery too.

If you have implemented a system like this, ask yourself, “Can I afford to lose this information?” and “What will happen if I do lose it?”

If you answered ’No’ to the first question, and anything other than ’I/we have a disaster recovery plan and we can restore almost everything from the latest backup’ then it’s time to do something about it. 

Most larger system projects provide for regular backups as part of the implementation process, but when a project sneaks in the back way, with a single person implementing it, backups are usually the last thing one thinks about. The implementation is experimental anyway and it’s only when the whole project turns out to be a success that it becomes a real problem.

If you have implemented a content management system like this:

• Do you even know where the data is?
• Do you know if it is backed up at all?
• If it’s not, what are you going to do about it?

You always have to expect the worst, even if it never happens. Data is only as good as your last backup. If your database becomes corrupted, you lose everything.

 For years now disaster recovery has been a hot issue in larger companies.  Smaller companies don’t take as much notice, and little one or two people contracting companies often take no notice of it at all. Yet for writers, whose future work depends on what we can show prospective clients, disaster recovery is a must.

Some of us work from home either full-time or part-time. Many of us have work samples and partly completed work (and even partly completed novels as well) on our PC at home. 

What would happen if your hard disk crashed, or someone stole your PC? How much would it set you back?

I am not talking about a simple lack of a computer here. You can walk into any computer store, buy a new one, and be up and running within minutes—or at worst in a couple of hours if you have to install special software.

I’m talking about work in progress, your portfolio, your notes, your contact information and your emails.

Many people only realise how valuable this is when they lose it.

Writing is a business, and we have to treat it like a business. This means keeping our business information protected, and ensuring that we have a back-up plan for when disaster strikes. 

Most of us insure our homes and our health; many of us also insure against loss of income. Yet there’s one really important thing that many of us don’t consider. Ensuring your data is safe. This one doesn’t even cost as much as the other insurances, all it takes it some time, a blank CD/DVD/flash drive, and a regular back-up habit.

What sort of things should you back up?

• Any work emails on your home PC
• All work, particularly work in progress
• Your portfolio of work
• Contact information
• Invoicing and billing detail

at the very least.

Where should you back it up to?

• Copy it onto a CD or DVD or flash drive and store it away from the PC.

When should you do it?

• Do it regularly.  I do mine once a month, but it really depends on how much you can afford to lose. I should do it once a week, but the monthly one is an easier habit to build because I do it after the bills.

Automate the process as much as you can. In an ideal world your whole backup process would run automatically, and all you would have to do is put a disk into the drive to write the data.  That’s my ideal, but I haven’t got around to it yet.

If you don’t yet back up your home PC, you should at least consider the consequences of losing the data. The worst time to discover you need that data is just after your PC has died.

In part 2, I look at another area of back-ups where tech writers often run into problems.