I had read all the reviews (both good and bad), and had set aside a few hours for the download and install just to be sure that I would have time spare and not be attempting to get work done on an unavailable machine. Thus I decided that a weekend would be the best bet.

I backed everything up via Time Machine on Friday before I left the office and proceeded with the download and install when I got home. All went well until I noticed that the ‘time remaining’ status bar was hanging at around 32 minutes for some time. Thinking nothing of it I left the laptop for a while and came back around 1 hour later- still 32 minutes left! Not wanting to stress I gave it a little more time and was then presented with a message saying that installation had failed and I should try again. No big deal… right???

Upon restarting my laptop the installation kicked off again automatically which I was impressed with. It want through all the standard screens, but I was then presented with a message what most computer users would never want to see. It went something along the lines of- Mac Lion can not be installed on this Hard Drive as it is corrupted. Still holding my cool (ever so slightly), I followed the prompts to disk utility and ran various tests and repairs. Nothing seemed to be working and thus I headed for the phone and apple customer support (patting myself on the back that I purchased AppelCare extended warranty only 2 weeks before).

The support guys were great, although they had not come across this particular issue previously. Several calls, tests and hours later it came down to a situation you never want o be in- wipe the hard drive and start again!!!!

Not being at the office and with my backup drive I held out until Monday and went through the VERY scary process of erasing my hard drive and reinstalling Lion. This all went flawlessly, and I then proceeded to bring my backed up data from Time Machine to my laptop. This process took around 8 hours, as well as reimporting all my mail from 2 Google Apps accounts with around 8 gig of emails.

The process was a stark reminder of why backing up your data is so vital, it also made me think more about a backup plan in the even it happens again.

For most people, backing up their computer is an arduous task that at best involves connecting an external drive every so often to their computer and ‘remembering’ to open some proprietary backup program and do a backup. This is not to mention that the backup drive sits next to their computer. The very same place that a single power surge, theft, fire or accident can wipe the 2 out in one fowl swoop.

Statistics on data loss are varied, but a report by StollzNow Research, Kroll Ontrack & IDG found a few interesting things:

- 49% of businesses reported data loss in the last two years

- 49% of small businesses do not backup their data on a daily basis

- Hardware failure & human error accounts for 78% of all data loss

- According to the US Archives and Records Administration,  93% of the companies that lost their entire data for 10 days or more filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster and 50% of businesses that found themselves without data management for this same period of time filed for bankruptcy immediately.

For any business, some form of back and recovery procedure is essential. This is often handled by IT departments or external companies, and in many cases even something is better than nothing.

But what do you do if you don’t have an IT department or if you are a much smaller business or a sole trader/ freelancer???

The answer is simple- you don’t use that as an excuse!!!

Data loss and downtime will affect you by an order of magnitude when you are on your own in business. Not having anyone else to blame or fall back on will make such a situation even harder to deal with.

Not sure who coined the term (I first heard it from Peter Krogh when he was on MacBreak Weekly , but I am an avid believer in the 3-2-1 Rule for backup. Put simply the way to remember how to backup is as follows:

- 3 copies of everything that you want to keep safe

- 2 different types of media should be used (online, hard drive, DVD disc, external drive, etc…)

- 1 of these should be off-site (i.e. backup drive at the home and office, off-site backup storage or an online backup service such as Carbonite

Once you have some form of backup procedure in place you need to stick to it, and at regular intervals test your backups. No point making backups if they don’t work when you need them.

Depending on what software and services that you use, you might already have online backups of your data with various SAAS (Software As A Service) providers. Online accounting applications such as Xero and Sassu or hosted email services such as Google Apps keep a copy of your data in the cloud and thus an additional backup should data loss occur on your computer. There are many other online services that you might use that have some portion of your data stored online. The trick is know what services store what data, and how you can get it back in the event of a disaster.

One major factor that is often not considered in a backup plan, is what you will do whilst you are in the process of recovering your data. This might be something as simple as email loss and re-downloading it from a server, through to loss or damage of your actual computer hardware.

If you hardware needs to be repaired how will you run your business without it for a week? Can you survive just on a smartphone or iPad- unlikely for more than a day.

Having some type of backup hardware can be a lifesaver in situation like this. Even if it just allows you to get online and access your email and the web in a somewhat normal fashion (i.e. not on a small phone screen), then you can have a measure of productivity whilst you are getting back up to to 100%.

I was forced to work off my iPhone for the entire day when I was recovering all of my data. I managed to borrow a bluetooth keyboard from someone in the office and could at least type faster, but doing anything other than emails was painfully slow.

I now have an old netbook sitting on a bookcase in the office. It is slow, runs windows (yes I am a Mac guy) and has a small screen, but it works and can be up and running in 2 minutes if my main machine is out of action again for whatever reason.

Backing up is often though if as flossing your teeth. We all know we should be doing it, but most of us never remember to, or can’t be bothered. It is only after a disaster (or very expensive trip to the dentist) that we think about it.

If you haven’t got at least a basic backup plan for your business, do yourself a favour and start now.

Like many in a similar situation, I went through the roller coaster of emotions. One day it would be the best decision you have ever made, the next- career suicide! Add in the fact that we had our second child on the way in 2 weeks, and things start to get really interesting. There has definitely been no shortage of advice nor a shortage of people to give it. Most has been incredibly useful, with the odd piece of ‘my god what were you thinking’.

Raz Chorev sent through this article from the Wall Street Journal- How to Succeed in the Age of Going Solo. There is some excellent advice in the article, from getting your own work space to joining business networks.

Probably the one thing that was missing from the article was a very simple piece of advice- don’t be afraid to ask for help. Sound’s simple, but when you decide to go it alone, it is often a hard (or even embarrassing) thing to admit and ask for. Start with people in your own network. You will be surprised at how wiling many are to lend a helping hand, or refer you to a professional resource that they might be using.

For me is was the financial and administrative side of the business that was taking a lot of my time. Perhaps the fact that I failed accounting first time around at university was a sign of things to come! First thing I did was chat to my accountant- Mr TaxMan (yes that’s his alter ego and you guessed it- phone number 1800-Tax-Man, gotta love him just for that).

Next was to reach out to friends on Twitter asking for sites/ software that people would recommend to help manage quoting/ invoicing. Many recommended Zoho Invoices, and I am extremely happy with it. Lets me do all my quoting and invoicing online, as well as managing reminders for late payers.

There are hundreds of other situations that you can get help for, and entire industries are popping up to service these exact needs. Virtual office space, desk shares, virtual assistants, time management and copywriting- the list goes on.

For all those that have taken the plunge and are going at it on their own, just remember that you don’t need to do it all alone. The sooner you can identify your own weaknesses, the sooner you can get on with the job of building a successful business.

Microsoft is hoping to take things to the next level by incorporating voice and facial recognition and doing away with a controller altogether, thus letting you be the controller.

Check out the video demo below for an overview of the new functionality.

In addition to the game play aspects of the unit, the new Xbox heavily focuses on being a movie player and delivery system, with full HD movie downloads from the device. Time will tell how many of the displayed features make their way out to Australia, but things look promising.

There are some great features that I am testing out, including the very convenient landscape keyboard.

Having the ability to post directly from my phone is going to open up an entirely new type of posting for me which I am very much liking forward to.

Check out some of the screen shots below:

The basic idea is that you can communicate by any means and it is all centralised in one place and different people that might join a conversation at a later date can see the history of a conversation and respond to a particular point in the message not just simply replying to a long email message

To get a better understanding of how this works, check out the sub-site over at http://wave.google.com. You can also sign up to be notified of when it is ready and even help out with bug testing and some user surveys.

The video below is the full developer demonstration of Google Wave. Video is about 1 hour and 20 mins, but the first 30 mins focus on the UI.

UPDATE: Excellent review over at Tech Crunch of Google Wave- “Google Wave Drips With Ambition. A New Communication Platform For A New Web”