Week 17: Protect Your Data

This week's task:  Make and implement a plan to back up your data.

Many of us have important stuff stored electronically...especially in the form of digital photos and videos.  Your data could be damaged or lost due to fire, theft, a lost device, hard drive failure, or flood. Is your data backed up?  Are you going to be worrying about grabbing your computer when you should be focusing on getting yourself and your family out of a dangerous situation?

Things to consider:

1. How painful would it be to lose everything on my computer/smartphone/tablet?
2. How much data do you need to back up?
3. How much are you willing to pay for a backup solution?
4. Are you comfortable storing personal data online (i.e. encrypted and password protected, but in a remote location on a company's servers)?
5. Will you consistently take action to back up your data or do you need your backup system to run completely automatically?

If you care about protecting your data, there are two main ways to do it: (1) Back up to an external hard drive or (2) Online backup (i.e. securely back up your files to a company's servers located somewhere other than your house).

External Hard Drive:

Advantages:

• One-time expense: You can get a high-quality 1-terabyte external usb drive for less than $100.  This harddrive  allows wireless backups across your home network.
• You retain physical control of your data...it isn't stored on a company's servers.

Disadvantages of backing up to an external drive:

• If you have a small amount of data to back up (less than 5 gigabytes), you can get online storage for free.
• If you store the hard drive at home, you could lose your backed up data in addition to your computer in the event of fire/theft/flood. 
• If you keep your hard drive stored somewhere offsite, then you have to concoct a complicated plan of bringing it back for regular backups or using a rotating system with two hard drives. Unless you are unusually diligent about this, you will probably go for long periods without backing up your most recent data to the offsite hard drive. 

Online Backup/Cloud-based Storage (storing your data "in the cloud"):

Online (cloud-based) backup services store your data on the company's servers at some undisclosed location in the world.  If your data is backed up with one of these services and your computer explodes tomorrow, you can buy a new computer and download all of your files in a couple easy steps.  To use online storage, you sign up for a service, download some software to your computer, tell it which folders you want to have backed up (or put everything you want backed up into a special folder), and you're done.  After that, anything you add to the designated back-up folders will be automatically backed up.  Note that you can only access your data that is stored online using a login name and password - it is not accessible publicly.

There are a lot of cloud-based services out there.  For the last few years, I've used Dropbox.  If you have less than 2 GB of data, it's free. Otherwise it is $10/month to back up a terabyte of data.  (That's 1000 gigabytes.)  You can access your data from any of your computers or mobile devices, it backs up everything you add automatically, and you can even make your phone/ipad back up the pictures and videos that you take automatically.

Advantages of cloud-based storage:

• Automatically backs up all new files or changes to existing files to an offsite location, safe from fire/flood/physical theft.  
• Many back-up services integrate very well with mobile devices so that you don't have to deal with backing them up separately.  

Disadvantages of cloud-based storage:

• The ongoing monthly charge (if you need to back up more than a small amount of data) will likely be more expensive over time than an external hard drive.
• Your data is stored on remote servers and if you worry about hackers, this might cause you anxiety.  (Note that your data is not publicly available - it can only be accessed by you using a login name and password.  Also, the probability of losing your data to hackers is probably much, much smaller than the probability of losing it some other way because you don't have it backed up.)

Week 16: Staying Warm

This week's assignment:  Make a plan for staying warm when the heat is off.

The likelihood that you will be without heat for an extended period and the seriousness of being in that situation will depend on the type of heating system you have, the types of disasters you face in your area, the severity of your climate, and the health and ages of the people in your household.   Here are a few strategies to consider:

Tough it out: A household in a mild climate with only healthy adults older children may decide not to invest in emergency heating equipment.  Here are a few things that will help you stay a little warmer:

• Make sure everyone has warm clothes and blankets (especially warms hats, socks, and gloves).
• Consider getting a few emergency mylar blankets or bivies (sleeping bags).  If you want something a little more durable consider these blankets or bivies or these hooded blankets that can also be used as a tarp.
• Hand warmers or hot water bottles (if you have a way to boil water) can provide added comfort

Diversify: If you have natural gas heat, get an electric space heater.  If you have electric heat, get a propane heater (make sure you get one that is safe for indoor use, like the Mr. Heater Buddy, which is clean burning, has a low-oxygen sensor and is approved for indoor use).  If you have a wood-burning stove, keep firewood on hand (but be careful after an earthquake because your chimney will almost certainly be damaged).

Invest in a generator: I have no experience with these, so I will just point you to information here,  here, and here and let you and Google take it from there.

Factoid about utility restoration after the 1994 Northridge earthquake:  After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, 2.5 million people lost electricity, but over 90% of customers had power restored within 24 hours.  Over 150,000 people lost natural gas service.  Service was restored to 120,000 customers within 12 days and 9000 customers were still without service after a month.  (Note that 133,000 people turned their gas off as a precaution even though they didn't suspect a gas leak and this delayed service restoration significantly.  PG&E recommends that you only turn off your gas if you smell gas, hear a leak, or see a broken gas line.) 

Have other ideas?  Leave them in the comments.

Emergency Fair Handouts and Information about Upcoming First Aid Class

CPR/First Aid course this Saturday

Our Red Cross Instructor that spoke at the Emergency Fair is offering a CPR and First Aid class for us this Saturday, May 11th, at a discounted price (anyone is welcome to sign up).  Participants will receive certification cards for CPR and First Aid.

From the instructor: 

During this course you will learn skills that will enable you to help a person who becomes suddenly ill or injured.

What Life Saving Skills will I learn?

Adult, Infant and Child CPR - When and how to correctly administer CPR

AED - When and how to use an Automated External Defibrillator

Standard First Aid -When and how to administer First Aid

How do I register?

Click on the following link and follow the instructions. (NOTE: A Paypal account is NOT required. Once you click on the link below, choose "Don't Have A Paypal Account" and a form will appear requesting your credit/debit card info.)

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=TX5W8Q63LVU4N

Will I receive confirmation of my registration?

After you have register, a confirmation email will be sent back to you.

When will I receive my certification card?

Generally our students receive their cards on the same day as training. In rare instances such as a delay at the processing center, you will receive your certification within 5 business days.

What materials will I receive?

All participants receive:

Participants Manual - large full color manual which contains all of the information covered in class and so much more.

Ready Reference Card - colorful display of techniques and information on a glossy, multi-fold card with step-by-step instructions.

Class Details:

Class: CPR/AED/Standard First Aid class for Adult, Child and Infant
Location: LDS Institute Building, 2368 Le Conte Ave, Berkeley
Date/Time: Saturday, May 11th, 10am-2pm
Cost: $60 (regular price: $110).


Handouts from the Fair:

Plan Ahead:

Family Plan Worksheet
Wallet-Sized Emergency Contact Cards
FEMA Fire Safey Checklist

Get Training:

Local CERT Training Information

Learn to shut off your gas:

Gas Shutoff Procedure

Paracord Bracelet:

Instructions

Berkeley Ward Neighborhood Emergency Groups:

I will send an email to the ward with the neighborhood group handout.