Mark W. Shead

Arjun at The Productive Student questions whether online backup strategies make sense. He raises some good points.  I’m still a fan of online backups as one part of my backup strategy.  Specifically I use Jungle Disk to backup my frequently changing and important files to Amazon S2 infrastructure.  As Arjun points out, this doesn’t give me the ability to get a bootable drive, but it does protect me in case I’m traveling and it gives me the ability to restore files to a previous version.  I use Jungle Disk to backup DevonTHINK, iPhoto and specific document folders.

When I’m not traveling I use Time Machine and occasionally image a hard drive for safe keeping and to have an easily bootable option that I can bring up on another laptop if something catastrophic happens to my system.

We have reached an interesting point in moving toward digital technology.  The the barriers between paper and paperless offices are no longer technical but cultural.  The components of a paperless office are readily available and not particularly expensive. High quality monitors are getting cheaper every day and sheet fed scanners can be had for less than $500.

Humans are use to using paper.  We’ve been doing it for a long time and changing to a different paradigm is going to be difficult.  One of the biggest things holding back a move to more digital technology that replaces paper is the lack of ubiquitous encryption and digital signatures. Without  secure way to transmit information and verify who sent something, we are going to have to continue to rely on paper based procedures.

A lot of the hold up is that people don’t really understand how encryption or how digital signatures really work.  At least I think it is an issue with understanding. The benefits are great.  The amount of gasoline and trees that could be saved by getting the general public to shift to more digital technologies is tremendous.  Environmental groups may find that their efforts promoting and educating about paperless technologies will accomplish more toward reducing carbon emissions than some of the other more direct projects.