In the spirit of Halloween, I am going to tell you a horror story. One stormy morning, my colleague came in to the office and started doing work on his computer just like he does every day. Then, out of no where, a virus popped up! He tried to stop it but the virus just came in too fast and attacked his computer! Needless to say, my coworker has been running a recovery tool for five hours and the recovery program estimates at least another four hours to go.
The moral of this horror story? Protect your computer and more importantly the field service software on your computer from ghouls and goblins…better known as viruses.
How do you do this?
First, be sure your virus protection system is up to date. I know I am guilty of ignoring the pop up saying my system is ready to be updated. I always seem to click the “Remind Me Later” button and move on with my day. But honestly, don’t be a slacker like me. Update your virus protection system. If it’s updated, it’s more efficient, and if it’s more efficient it is stronger to fight off the virus.
Unfortunately, my coworker did have his virus protection updated. Sometimes the viruses are just too strong. So now what?
Run backups. Backups are the storage of all of your data. Every change you make or file you save is stored in the backup. Running these daily is your best bet. You should also store backups off of the computer. Either put them on a flash drive or have them sent to an online backup storage.
Finally, check those backups! Are they running the way you set them up to? Can you actually access your files on the backup? Checking backups every few days or week is just one more safety precaution you can take. You don’t want to think your backups are being stored for months on end, only to find out they haven’t been storing properly all along.
A crashed computer is a horrible story. We save so much information on our computers, usually valuable business information, that we can’t afford to have it lost even if for just a day. Protect your computer and your field service software with these tips and you will be able to sleep a little better at night.