Data Backup

You should host your personal web site with a reputable web hosting company.

Having said that, it is extremely important for you to make a backup copy of your web site from time to time (using a floppy disc is O.K., at least when your site is still small). Store it in a safe place. Many people make at least two backup copies, one of which is stored off site.

You need a backup in case your web host crashes or goes bankrupt or is otherwise destroyed.

Also you need a paper backup copy- paper is still the best long term media because e-media are inherently unstable and can be fried by the sun, magnetic or electrical fields, microwaves, etc. Plus they degrade anyway (despite what CD Rom manufacturers say, I give them ten years tops without significant degradation- as Scientific American said a few years ago: digitized material will last "forever, or for five years, whichever comes first" ).

Also there is the problem of legacy systems. Imagine if you stored your data on 8 track cassettes? It would be pretty hard to find a reader or if the software format you used was no longer available. So acid free paper stored in a humidity controlled environment, away from the sun and the elements, lasts longest- the Dead Sea Scrolls or Egyptian hieroglyphics on papyrus come to mind (1,000s of years old and stored on paper).

It is interesting to note that classic films that are less than 40 years old suffer significant degradation in terms of their sound, colour and visual acuity and require extensive and expensive reworking to preserve them. The best way to preserve these films and other important data is probably on paper in digital form (basically holes punched in reams and reams of acid free computer paper that can be read much as the old punch cards were used with mainframe computers, circa the 1960s and 1970s.) Futurists have prdeicted that the late 20th Century and the 21st Century will be the great void in the historical record of future generations because so much of our art and science have migrated to e-digital format that will perish quickly or be unreadable.

Maybe we need to reconsider what we are doing, and relearn how to create more permanent records of important work (like this web site, for example). Maybe we should be digging up historical artifacts, photographing them and recording salient features and then putting them back in the ground from which they came instead of in museums, no matter how carefully stored. Earthquakes, fires, a breakdown in civilization, an airplane or truck crash carrying valuable artifacts can scatter or destroy the historical record for all time. We can not even solve an intractable problem like how to communicate with future generations over a geologically brief period of time like 10,000 years- all human languages evolve far too quickly to reliably communicate over periods that are far shorter than this. We can't warn future persons or beings that danger lurks within (eg., nuclear waste depots) over this kind of time period. Our civilzation depends on the reliable, accurate communication of human knowledge from one generation to the next. Humans are uniquely unsuited to survive without these passed-along skills so this is not a trivial problem.

The more often you update or change or add to your personl web site, the more often you need to have it backed up.

Try hosting with Momentous.ca Corporation , they have a web hosting service at Hostmaster.ca. They are local and run by Robert C. Hall, a friend and client of mine. There are many other options on the web for you to explore, as well.

There are web based services that can provide a separate, electronic backup for you, as well. Remember though, your personal web site is designed to suck up your personl Intellectual Property over your lifetime and, if you lose it, you will suffer a significant loss.

David Warren in the Ottawa Citizen (june 5, 2001) writes that a monastery he visited in Korea stored woodblocks of the Korean Buddhist Triptaka for a millennia based on careful architectural attention to ventilation and sunlight while modern climate control could not match the ancient standards. We need low tech soltuions for long term storage of important information. Humans are uniquely vulnerable- the information we need for survival is extensive. We need accurate transfer of information from generation to generation without which, humans will suffer greatly and needlessly. Humans need to work in teams and share skills and specialize to arrive at a state of the greatest good for the greatest number. Stable information storage will ensure that we are not inevitably condemned to repeat history's mistakes.

Dramatis Personae