by: John Sciacca

Backing up your data is something that everyone plans on doing, but tends to get backburnered for one reason or other. Truthfully, I was no different. Even with minor scares like my power supply crapping out and the hard drive making random clicking sounds — you know, the computer basically shooting up red flares telling me that trouble was a brewin’ – I still managed to put it off.

My procrastinating came to a head one day when my computer totally locked-up. After installing some updates and running a virus scan, not even the failsafe control-alt-delete worked. After a hard power down, the computer booted up into DOS and the monitor immediately began filling with screen after screen of code. This went on for several minutes until finally the desktop came on…totally blank!

I was instantly overcome with that watery, narrowly-avoided-a-horrible-car-wreck feeling. Had I stumbled across a virus that wiped my drive clean just for giggles? Was this the Conflicker worm rearing its ugly head? But most importantly, had I just lost my precious, irretrievable data? Every digital photo and video we’ve taken of our 2 ½ year old. My 8,000 song music collection. Eight years of Sound & Vision articles. Fifteen years of financial records. And every other scrap of data that makes up the unique 0s and 1s of what I hold dear.

Fortunately, the desktop returned to normal and my data was intact, but in those few moments, I became a true believer and I immediately ordered a hard drive, the Western Digital My Book Mirror. Out of the box, this wonder is pre-configured for RAID 1, meaning that it uses the 2 Terabytes as two mirrored 1 Terabyte drives. With some free software found on the Net, the computer now automatically performs back-ups weekly. Beyond the fear of losing data from a drive crash, I now have a small data “vault” that is easily evacuated in the case of emergency. (I live in hurricane prone Myrtle Beach.)

Spend a few seconds and consider what you’d lose if your computer suddenly had a grand mal. Sobering, no? Whether you buy a large external drive, use Network Attached Storage (NAS) or a bunch of USB drives, pay for remote storage or just routinely burn everything onto a DVD (or Blu-ray), make sure you’ve got a back-up plan in place and stick to it!

Welcome to Electronics Design Group’s new blog. We’ll be using this space to talk about anything and everything related to custom electronics integration  and  design. We — and our guest bloggers — will be offering opinions of industry news, observations on exciting new technologies, thoughts of our philosophy about doing business in today’s evolving digital world, and more. Please feel free to add your comments to any post; your opinions matter to us and we welcome the dialogue.

This first post is a good time to discuss what we do here at EDG, because it’s not as obvious as it seems. On the surface, we’re a pretty high-tech operation, and could define our business as something like this: “The design and integration of custom home theater, wholehouse audio/video, lighting, and home automation control systems in residential and commercial applications.” Pretty geeky stuff, for sure, and it’s true that our day-to-day here is largely consumed in working closely with trade partners like architects and interior designers identifying our clients’ needs, creating engineering diagrams, ordering parts, and constructing the elaborate systems for which we’ve won so many CEDIA Lifestyle and industry magazine awards. Then, like any other enterprise, we’ve got the ongoing job of promoting ourselves and making sure that there’s always another project lined up so we can thrive and provide a secure professional environment for the 50 or so employees who rely on us.

But all of this misses the real point about why we continue to succeed in what is arguably the most difficult economic environment in our company’s 22-year history. That part can be best explained not so much in what we do, but in why our clients hire us. They do so because they’ve come to realize the import in their daily lives of the systems we design and implement. They recognize, though not always consciously, that there is an emotional element to using custom electronics that derives from the power of the technology to entertain them, to shift their mood at the touch of a button, to assure their physical comfort, to protect and secure their persons and property. And, above all, to simplify their lives so that these benefits can be seamlessly enjoyed at will. Few trades involved in building a custom home have the same power to so dramatically enhance — or foul up — the ongoing lifestyle of the homeowner. While our successes are great, so is our responsibility, and we take it very seriously. That commitment to our clients is what’s separated EDG from its competition since the very beginning.

So if we crow a bit when we win an award, or receive another testimonial or referral from a happy client, its not just because we’re proud that we’ve successfully maneuvered all these elements into place one more time. It’s also because we know we’ve given a very real gift to the families that have placed their trust in us, one that will last their tenure in their home. Unlike with some other businesses, our clients touch what we do every single day, and it makes for pretty gratifying work. Now, granted, this isn’t the only reason we do what we do. But it’s one of the best.

Bob Gullo is the President and founder of Electronics Design Group