Please udpate bookmarks: http://www.cphrus.net – and i hope to see you all there.

A Backup Strategy should be an integral part of a healthy data system.

Computers and computer components can and will fail; multiple disk failures in RAID configurations, data center catastrophes (no matter how small) and virus infections can take down your system and corrupt critical data.

There is usually no warning before it’s too late. Suddenly data is unrecoverable and lost – and basically data loss can be costly and may impact productivity.

There is a large amount of investment into the data on a user hard drive. Some data value is obvious, such as company financial data or employee records, which would be disastrous to lose.

Consider the man-hours reinstalling the base software (operating system) on your computer and reconfiguring your environment to suit your preferences again. In some instances this could easily cost you several days of productivity. In extreme cases, some data may not be recoverable.

Implementing a backup plan will often turn several days of lost productivity and weeks of reorganizing into an hour of restoring your disk image.
Depending on the importance and value of your data, storing a regular backup securely off site may be prudent, in case of a disaster or catastrophe.

Redundancy provides the ability to survive the loss of a single hard drive, and replace the failed drive without a system crash. In theory this is good, but does not provide for data viability in the event of two drive failures, or two drive data corruption. DO NOT confuse hard drive redundancy with a true backup.

I have a confession. I’m not a very faithful person. In the past years I’ve used everything from Ubuntu Linux, OpenSUSE – miscellaneous Windows and Vista Installations – and whatever i found interesting to install.
In all these years, I had annoying bugs after bugs with each release/solution, in the hope that maybe, maybe the upcoming release (or version) will be ‘the golden one’, the one that would solve all my issues. But in vain…

So, I backed up all my stuff and installed Fedora 10.

Fedora Linux is the free community version derivation of Red Hat Linux. While Red Hat Linux is an enterprise-class server Linux OS used in massive computer networks, Fedora is like the ‘free to use’ version more suited to home users. It is also sponsored by Red Hat company. While the community gets sponsorship, Red Hat uses Fedora as test-bed for upcoming new features in their commercial products.

Fedora sure has a lot of new things. I was quite surprised by how different it is from other Linux Distributions, even though it looks the same and does the same thing.
I didn’t need to bother though, because everything, really, just works, and that’s great.

I am not saying i will ditch windows (forever) – but for now, i have taken the path at home, with a Microsoft Free Solution – to find out, can Linux really provide me with the desktop tools that i need.

I am still using Windows (in the office) and at the home server – to test services under VMware – services that will make sure that i am aware of what is going on in the Redmond Camp, but for now .. Welcome to a new world… And by the way, they kids love it – they do not know there should be any differences with the software.

Reading up these days, give me an insight to the excellence of Einstein: The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. 

This is something i clearly believe in. Having a strong personal network is something i carry with me, and appreciate in my daily life, both as a professional IT consultant – and as an individual who are just trying to live this live, in the best way possible.

You network is not something you should utilize to your benefit, it’s the foundation of who you are and what you have acquired of skills, and one of the most important ones are to gain mutual respect for your work and for your person. 

You do not have to mention (every time) that your advice is taking from your network, but do never forget; the combined knowledge of you and your network is the real value of you. Nobody can be the best at everything, but being the best of knowing who to ask – may be quite the thing to go for. 

A true networker (and true friend) will never ask for something in return from you, but he/she will surely not hesitate asking you for a favor – in return to the advice / assistance that you have been offered before. It goes both ways, and trusts me in the end – it will always go upwards and increase your personal value.

If there’s any area of my personal organization tasks – that web apps haven’t gotten right yet, it’s the contact manager.

As a busy consultant, i need to be able to quickly add contacts, and pull them up from anywhere, on any computer. An online contact manager that works smoothly would be a great solution for me and many others.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a perfect solution for most people yet. While email, calendar and to-do software is getting better all the time, contact managers are like the ugly cousin that no one pays attention to. Perhaps part of the reason is that people are hesitant to store all of this personal information online — and still, we are perfectly willing to put all of our private emails and contacts in a service such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail.

Then – there is all the other companies – who jump onboard the CRM process, with their new and flashy CRM System (Microsoft, Siebel, Sales Forge or something completely out there).

They may not have a strategy and ambition with their investment – but they surely have CRM. !!!

This process can kill an organization – having CRM without am ambition / plan and a way to identify the success and gain we can achieve – by actually planning our CRM approach. That is why I something ask people, how much is enough (Online Contact Bok, or the Full Sales Forge Solution.

My best advice is quite simple. Identify your goal – and your desire, and ask yourself, will I really gain any value of the CRM process. Can you do the same – in a without doing the same thing like everyone extra.
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Education and Experience – Here are some thoughts: I have been reading about Einstein lately – and came to terms with one of his major expressions: Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

Basically this expression provides so much insight to daily life, that it could not be much better said. Basically, it not so much what you have learned and tried before, that makes you successful – but the fact that using this previous experience to something, that in future will become valuable.

Why is the Candle Hot?? – Not because I said so, but because I burned my hand last time I touched it. It may be unnecessary to learn certain things the hard way, but as said in other words, you learn by your mistakes (and doing) and that is not necessarily something bad.

What did you learn the hard way?

The idea of the perfect life seems alluring, but what is the perfect live ? – It’s a questions with many difficult answers and I have written about how I work with myself and my priorities – and I want to extend this posting, by adding additional comments.

Intention – Not Opportunity:What does this mean? It means living your life on purpose by defining what you want, knowing where you are going, and simply living out that dream day by day.

Are you just going through the motions day-in and day-out? Do you say yes to most requests and commitments to your time with no regard to whether they mesh with the life you want to live? How about living in the impossible life of consumer-horror of working to pay for all the possessions you buy but not having the time to use them because you are working to pay for them?

If this sounds familiar, know that you are not alone. How do you break out of this cycle? It’s simple, but not necessarily easy, but it can be done.

Decide.

Commit to a change in your life. Get out paper and a pen and be ready to begin the process of life changes. You have so much more power to change your life than you can imagine – its just a matter of your choice to do so.

Define.

Write down what is important to you. Think about areas and interests in your life and how you want to spend your time:

• Values
• Career
• Relationships
• Financial
• Physical
• Mindset
• Creative
• Spiritual
• Travel
• Leisure
• Home & Possessions

Keep in mind that you do not have to change everything in your life overnight

Narrow Your Focus.

In life we need to make choices. The people who said you can have it all were wrong – but this is a bad thing.
Having it all makes us without ambitions. So instead, choose what is most  important to you. Do this by narrowing down your list and prioritizing the things you keep on your list. If it is too hard to cut things, put them on a “maybe or someday” list.

How are you doing it

What does it take to become happy and successful in life; is a question asked by many. I am not saying I have the full recipe – but I think (and try) to live by certain rules, which perhaps can bring me closer to the things I want.

My goals and desires are a major part of it – as well as my personal relationship and the involvement I have with other people. I believe that it is possible to plan to become successful / happy or whatever we want, as long as our motivation is there.
My A-list of Actions would say:

1.       What I desire and what I want should become a goal.

Well first of all – I need to be honest to myself. I want certain things in my life, I need to identify what is important for me – and how I actually get there. When it’s comes to weight loss eg. I could say “Loose 10 KG” – but in terms of goals – it’s actually something like losing 10*1KG.
Splitting down a major goal for me (into small pieces) has made me realise – that it is not that impossible.

2.       My Goals becomes a habit of life.

Well, if I did succeed my goal on the way – perhaps I can extend the goal by itself. Perhaps the first goal was only a step in the way (Learning French as an example) – Extending the goal would be go to France (or even better live there for a year).

I just want to make sure that I do not (un)learn the success/achievement I had before.

3.       Track my progress and celebrate the accomplishments.

Well, the whole idea of having a list of goal – is to (constantly) remind myself about the objectives and desires that I have identified, and make sure that a goal on the list – once is achieved – will be remembered as a victory – and properly celebrated.
Remember – celebrating the achievements are important – there was a reason why I put it on the list at the beginning.

4.       Watch out for the Negative Influence.

Well – who said it would be impossible (Well, many people said so) – but do we need to agree with them. NO WAY !!! A negative person does not contribute to you become happy – so what if you can reach the moon – at least you tried and found yourself on a beautiful mountain.
Do not be influenced by people telling you what can or cannot be done.

5.       Keep eyes and ears open.

The wind of change sometimes blows around your corner. Once you set your goals, you start think about them. Having them on the list is important for you – but it also remind you to reflect upon the goals – and when needed take them of the list again.

Well you want to be a millionaire … Good for you …. But once you grow into your real ideal situation in life, you may (or may not) find it a goal to achieve health and personal satisfaction in your relationship. So keep eyes and ears open for new ideas and goals. The list5 should not be carved in stone.. And sometime you should take the time, and re-evaluate the items on that list.

That’s it !! Perhaps the list is not complete, but it does provide me with an indication of what I am doing in my life. This is the way I try and live; Did I reach my goals — Hell No .. But I am working on improving and that is sufficient for me.

Been through a lot of actions at my work recently – some of it has been a challenge that I would have been best without, some of it has been a learning experience – errors have been made, but also right decisions have been taken
(and possibly overruled by others) But then again – is that not all about life?

I have come to term with the following sentence: “The freedom to move forward to new opportunities and to produce results – comes from living in the present and not the past”

Basically, we all believe that we can achieve greatness – but sometimes are too afraid to challenge the known path (of how to do things) and proceed forward in a new and interesting approach.

Sometime, you have to challenge the authorities and tell people that your path IS the right way, and that is because you say so. Sometime you have to take a stand for your opinion, and not let anyone else overrule your decisions.

So this post – should serve as inspiration to others; it’s sometimes worth fighting for a cause – even if it seems lost at the beginning. The final result could be great.

If you’re somehow a web worker like me – would be on the constant search for good, free software applications and utilities – which can help you improve.

The web is booming with software – ready for download, some good and some reeeeeaaaally bad  
With this little posting – I will round up the places, where I search for software and utils there are plenty more, let me know with – feedback to my post / comments and enlighten me.

SourceForge.net. The one and only Source Forge is the place to go. The home of all software (Open Source) that moves, and the software we need to succeed. If you can’t find it here, well – then its going to be a hard search. 
Categories, excellent search function and a match not seen anywhere else, Chance to see the activities within the individual projects and a place to find the solution – no matter what or which platform you are looking for.

TinyApps.org. Well, just a little bunch of surprises here. The site is clear (call it minimalistic) but certainly a place to find the little neat thing that can help you once in a while.

There are many other, let me have you feedback.