Marc from ezinearticles has written an article that strikes a chord with me. Develop a downtime plan is all about being prepared when you are hit with unexpected downtime. As regular readers will know I write daily, but this last week I have been hit badly by failing Internet connections. Believe or not, at work, at home and where I stay every Monday night. Bad luck or what! It’s frustrating, so what can you do?
You need to have a strategy in place. If you write regularly, have a least one spare, evergreen article already written. If you write to a blog, have the article written as a draft but not published. You could investigate and use offline blog posting tools. Window Live Writer is an excellent tool I have used and can recommend. The latest 2009 version is now available. It’s free and it has lots of new features, such as inserting videos, photos and it has plug-ins too.
If you work online, creating or updating your website or blog every day, you need alternatives if your computer crashes or your Internet connection dies. If your computer crashes, do you have your data backed up? Amazingly, most people do not. It’s a chore isn’t it? Norton Ghost will make a complete mirror image of your hard drive and will restore everything. IDrive is an online backup service. You can get 2Gigabytes of online backup for free.
And if being online every day is crucial, you could invest in a laptop to use if your desktop fails. You can buy a Dell laptop for as little as £200. There good deals available all the time. Perhaps a broadband and free laptop deal.
If your Internet connection fails there are alternatives. Connect for free is a UK based Internet dial-up service. You just pay for the phone calls, which are 1p per minute. It’s useful as a backup. You could also invest in mobile broadband. There are many providers and it’s worth comparing them. You usually get a small ‘dongle’ that slots into your USB socket. The monthly costs are low but the provider will often tie you into a one or two year contract. Test one before you buy just in case the coverage or bandwidth in your area is either poor or non existent.
Whatever you do, be prepared and have a backup plan.
