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Google Flu Trends - United States

Politics, the Role of Emergency Management and Relief

This is definitely a sensitive subject that's easier to talk about when there are not thousands of people in the cold without power or food or gas. On the other hand, it's the best time to drive the point home.

It's my opinion that the federal government and FEMA are not, and should not, be considered nor used as a 'relief agency'. The expectation should be that, prior to a threat, they encourage awareness, urge preparedness, educate and focus on threat mitigation. Once a threat is identified or an event occurs, CERT, local EMA, SEMA for FEMA come in, help people evacuate or shelter-in-place. They identify the high-priority actions to take in RESPONSE to an event, and then lead those response efforts. They triage the immediate situation and make those hard decisions regarding where to best allocate resources to help those that can be helped.

Now (and How) I'm Using Evernote for Productivity

I wrote a previous article on Ultimate Productivity and Life Management With SpringPad. I still like SpringPad for some things. In fact, I'm drafting this blog entry using SpringPad right now. But after awhile of using it for GTD, I found it actually hampered my productivity rather than helping. (And I really hate that I can't do any more complicated formatting or indenting beyond one level. I do a lot of outlining, and it's cumbersome.)

So, in my search for something better, I looked at several options. I had used ManyMoon for light project management before, and quickly came to love Do.com. I used it for a few months, but it really is suited toward collaborative project management and not managing everyday tasks and other information. I then spent a few days each with both Trello and Asana, but found the same limitations as Do.com. I will say, however, that I will keep Asana in my back pocket for future. It's awesome at what it does.

Last, as you could predict from the title, I thought I would revisit Evernote. I hadn't used it in well over a year and my 'process' had evolved. I didn't have high hopes because my old account was still a cluttered mess. Starting fresh, I thought it just might work.

It did.

Encrypted Daily Incremental Snapshot Backups, Oh, My!

When we last left our hero (me, of course), he/I was working on creating a personal data backup strategy for the family home computers.

Now that I have a working solution, I am, of course, not satisfied.

One of my requirements was that the data be easy to recover by someone other than me. Unfortunately, in doing so... in making the trade-off between efficiency and easy-to-recover... I think I've gone overboard.

Disaster Recovery Myths: Myth #1, Data Replication

Credit: Jacobian

After considerable amount of work, I think I have finally finished re-configuring the tactical aspects of my home/family 'disaster recovery' plan. This time I am specifically referring to data (usually, I give information and data a back-seat to process continuity). While I knew this already, it's worth repeating:

Myth #1: Data replication to a remote site does not a disaster recovery plan make.

You see, about a week ago, I found out that my web hosting provider, Dreamhost, includes 50GB of personal/business backup space with any paid service subscription (additional space is available for $.10/GB). As I had been looking for a place to back up my personal information without spending a lot of money, this was perfect.

Seven Tiers of Disaster Recovery

Photo Source: Topato

Today, to make a long story short, I landed upon the Wikipedia entry for the "Seven Tiers of Disaster Recovery". The original source is over here at Recovery Specialties.

If you're not familiar, it's a very common, if not somewhat dated, breakdown of the various levels of systems and data protection categorized by tier. Starting at 0, the higher the tier, the more protection, right?

[Ignore the fact that tiers 0-7 is actually 8 tiers... but I suppose we don't count "Tier 0: No offsite data".]

At first glance, one might think that "Tier 0: No Offsite Data" is as bad as it could get for a specific system or an organization in terms of preparedness. It's either a DR planner's dream or nightmare, depending on your expectations.

But no. It could be worse. In fact, the spectrum of tiers is to be expanded... and in the negative direction...

Sickweather Says Social Data Analysis Has Already Detected Two Illness Outbreaks

Sickweather, a start-up that’s attempting to forecast illness outbreaks by tracking Facebook and Twitter updates, says its method might have already worked.

That is, Sickweather noticed increased occurrences of the word “cough” near Algonquin, Ill., dating back to Oct. 5, about one month before whooping cough reports hit the local news. About a month later, the service recorded the same trends in Milwaukee, Wis., another area hit by whooping cough.

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