Steve Jobs Is Building A Spaceship On Earth (Cupertino, CA To Be Exact)

Steve Jobs is “selling” Apple again – only this time he’s pitching the Cupertino City Council on allowing him to develop a 150-acre plot of land to build. “The best office building in the world.” This building will be home to a new Apple Campus – and without a doubt it’s a very ambitious plan.

This giant building would hold 12,000 people. But that’s not what makes this project so interesting – it’s the circular design that gives it a spaceship appearance. In fact, there won’t be a single straight piece of glass on the outside.

During his presentation, it was reported that Steve Jobs wasn’t in his normal “pitch mode” we’re used to seeing on stage at Apple keynotes and events. During this presentation he was reported as being much more low-key because he knows the city council can say “No” to his project if they want to. He’s still salesy, but doesn’t use words like “magical” or “insanely great.”

And yet you can still see a tough streak in his proposal. When a council member asked if Apple plans to give the city free Wi-Fi, he replied, “We’re the largest taxpayers in Cupertino, so we’d like to continue to stay here and pay taxes.” Obviously that can be both a benefit and threat that Apple would pack up its bags and leave if not granted this request. Other highlights about the campus:

   –  The building would use its own natural gas generator as its primary source of power and the city’s power grid only as a backup.

   –  The building includes an auditorium for conferences giving them the ability to hold their events there instead of San Francisco.

   –  Apple wants to break ground next year, and move in by 2015.

New Facebook App Lets You Leave Messages To Loved Ones (And Enemies!) When You Die

We suppose it was only a matter of time before someone came up with the idea of a Facebook application that allows you to record a message that will be shared with your friends and family after you die. While the concept isn’t a new one, putting it on a social media site certainly is.

This new application called, “If I Die,” allows you record a video message directly from your webcam (you can also draft a letter if you prefer). After recording, you are prompted to select three trustees that will be appointed to hold your message. It takes all three of those trustees to say that you are actually dead before the message is released to all friends and family via your Facebook page. Not too surprisingly, some of the videos being recorded aren’t very nice.

The PC Is 30 Years Old!

On August 12th in 1981 IBM released its first PC – the IBM 5150. The basic model sold around $1600. The full package with 64kb of RAM cost around $3000! Walk down memory lane with this classic PC commercial:

Disaster Recovery: The Most Critical Part To Data Backups That Most Companies Overlook

     A few months back tornadoes ripped through Joplin, MO and Tuscaloosa, AL causing massive devastation. The fortunate victims only had to suffer through minor interruptions of utility services, while others paid a far steeper price. In fact, a colleague of ours who also offers IT services had his office in Joplin reduced to a pile of rubble (see photo). This got us thinking about how important disaster recovery planning is to any business. No one expects terrible things to happen, but when they do, having that plan in place can really save your bacon. And one of the MOST important aspects of this is the recovery part – how you are going to get that data back onto a working platform that allows you to continue serving your customers and operating your business. The shocker for most business owners is that simply having a copy of the data does NOT guarantee a fast recovery. Let us give you an analogy to help you understand…

     Let’s suppose we put  a disaster recovery plan for your home. Your house would represent the server and platform, and all your furniture and personal items would be the data. Now let’s suppose we could make a backup of your home by making an exact copy of everything that’s in your house (all your furniture, appliances, clothing, etc.) and storing it in a “backup” shed. Then the unthinkable happens: your house gets leveled by an earthquake, flood or fire and everything is gone (or a critical part of it is damaged and needs to be replaced). You would think, “Well, at least I have a copy!” True, but the first thing you would need to do is replace the home itself (remember, that’s the platform that everything resides on). Next you would have to “reinstall” the services like gas, electricity and water (let’s call that the software). Then you would have to haul everything from the shed back to the house and “reformat” it by arranging it into the house. Depending on the extent of the damage done to your house, that could take days or weeks; chances are you’d have to find a hotel to live out of in the meantime. In addition, there’s the time and cost of moving everything back in and re-arranging and restoring everything to its proper place.

     Plus, the above assumes you have a recent, working copy of your entire home and everything in it. If you failed to make a copy – or if the shed where you were storing everything had a water leak that destroyed everything inside due to mold – then you’re really out of luck.

     Of course, this is a simple analogy – and there are ways to back up your data and network so that recovery can happen affordably in a matter of hours versus days or weeks. But if you simply think having a tape backup is going to be your saving grace, you might be unpleasantly surprised. We can’t tell you the number of businesses who ended up losing incredibly valuable, irreplaceable data because they didn’t think through the RECOVERY part of the backup equation.

     So what do you need to think about? First, the way you backup your data should be based on how important your data is and how fast you would need to be back up and running in the event of a disaster. If losing your data would only be a mild inconvenience and you could stand to be down for a couple days, then tape backups may be okay. If that’s not an option for you and there are certain critical functions that need to happen to keep you from getting into hot water with your customers and to prevent you losing a LOT of cash, then you want something more reliable than tape drives.

     The BEST thing to do is contact your IT provider (US! 408.483.1881) to schedule a strategy meeting to go over your needs and expectations for what should happen in the event of downtime or an outright disaster. That way you know for sure what to expect and – more importantly – how to accurately prepare for a disaster.