Just as I hit stride putting out fresh content everyday, my computer crapped out on me.  So, expect things to be a lot quieter here.  I’ll blog when I can.  However, my audio production is on hold until my computer gets back from repair.

The elevators in the building in which I work have computer screens that entertain passengers with advertisements, building and office news and an array of information from cbc.ca including news headlines, weather, sports and stock tickers.

Eight months ago one of the computers failed. Ever since, that elevator’s screen has proudly and loudly displayed a DISK BOOT FAILURE message. I alerted the security desk several times in the weeks following the initial appearance of the problem.

Nothing happened.

Nothing has happened.

That boot error persists today.

A few months ago, one of the elevators on the seventh floor stopped dinging and lighting up when it stops to pick up and drop off when going down (it works fine going up). I alerted the security desk about that, too.

Nothing.

Last week, another elevator screen was hit with an error. Microsoft Internet Explorer crashed and displayed the famous “…has encountered a problem and needs to close” pop-up.

Fortunately, that problem was corrected pretty quickly; the same day, I think.

As I consider these individual and slightly humourous incidents, I wonder if these problems are isolated and irrelevant.

Or, are they symptomatic of a larger problem?

At what point should I and the rest of the building population become concerned that elevator maintenance is an afterthought, here?

I’m thumbing this post on my BlackBerry by gate 16 of Ottawa International Airport following the seed of a conversation with Donna Pappacosta on my earlier post about Carbon Copy.

No matter your platform, no matter if you’re a hobbyist or professional, how do you protect your electronic data? Which software do you use, if any? How often do you backup? To what media? Where do you store any backups?