Tech Forward:

Business travelers (and I’m one of them) have to worry about a plethora of things when flying to a meeting or to make a presentation… Did I remember hard copies of the presentation? Did I bring the projector? Are our ideas strong enough? Do we have time to rehearse? Am I going to make my flight?

The folks at Projector123.com make our lives, travels and presentations easier.

They rent LCD projectors online and will send the projector via next-business-day delivery by FedEx to any location in the United States. Whoo hoo!

All the projectors they stock are simple to use, capable of HD quality, and they’re sent with a little step-by-step guide to the set-up process. And just in case you get caught in a bind, a 24-hour support line provides immediate technical assistance.

Finally, a service that makes sense and, if they can deliver on their promises,that’s  even better!

We’ve all learned numerous lessons from 9/11, and for each business the lessons have been different. But two of the more valuable lessons were:

• Have an up-to-date, viable, disaster recovery plan in place, and

• Use off-site data backups.

Data backups are a necessary evil, in that the need for data space always eclipses capacity–or, more aptly put–a capacity that’s affordable. And data backups are tricky: How do you know what you need? Do you know what you would do if you lost your office tomorrow? What would you do if you lost access to all your data? Your answer should be: Go to an alternate location and pull out a loose-leaf binder that contains a step-by-step recovery plan. If that’s not possible, then start with the steps below:

1. Keep a list of the software and hardware you have in your office. Keep these lists updated and off-site. It won’t help if you have all this wonderful information saved to the hard drive that has just crashed.

2. Back up all critical data daily. Make a list of all the data that is mission critical to your operations. Make sure that data, in particular, is backed up every day off-site.

3. Choose a backup system that will be there when you need it. There are all sorts of solutions: CD-RW, DAT (tape), NAS, Ultrium, etc. But, when you’re dealing with magnetic media, you’re bound to have a snafu somewhere. For smaller businesses, we recommend using a secure internet-based solution for backing up files. For larger businesses, redundant, off-site, outsourced solutions are preferable.

4. Make sure the backup is easy to do. The more complicated a process is, the more likely it will be done either incorrectly or not at all.

5. Ensure that the backup process is being done. Periodically, check the backed-up data to make sure that recent data is present.

It may take some time to implement these procedures. After all, change can be difficult. However, being able to sleep soundly at night knowing that your critical business data is safe, secure, accessible and intact makes it all worth it. You can’t control events that happen during the course of day-to-day business, but you can control your level of preparedness and your reaction to those events.

I get asked this question a lot: we’re a growing company, how do when know when it’s time for us to buy a server?

Many people will tell you that the time is when you have more than one computer that you want to connect. Wrong! That’s what peer-to-peer networking is for.

Others will say the minute you need to be able to access company files from home. Wrong again. GoToMyPC has solved that little dilemma.

And, a small batch will say it’s when you need to do group schedules. Buzz! Ever heard of Basecamp or Unfuddled anyone?

OK, so when is it time?

When you’re tired of:

• E-mailing co-workers files–or putting them into a CD–just so they can access your files on their machine
• Needing a printer for each machine (or you’re sick of switching out the printer cable)
• Wondering how you’re going to continue updating software and virus definition files for all the computers in your company

Chances are, if you’ve ever run into these kinds of challenges, you need a server.

Bottomline: So what are you waiting for?