For some time I’ve been looking for a way to reliably backup all my personal and work related files on both my home and office computers that is as maintenance and hands-off as I can get it.? This “holy grail” of start-and-forget operability has been elusive…until now.

Why backups?

Quite simply - as any computer guru will tell you (or someone who’s learned the hard way!) - hard drive failure is not an if, but a when.? No matter how well a hard drive is manufactured it is still mechanical and subject to wear and tear.? Eventually it will fail.? Backing up your data is just plain smart if you don’t want to lose any of your hard work. It is something that is even more necessary in this age of digital media - who really wants to lose their years of photo memories, or that cache of mp3’s they’ve been gradually amassing?? If you don’t have a backup system - there’s really no time to waste and it should be the first thing on your to-do list in the immediate future.

Mark Kelley, the News Director for Saddleback Church-Purpose Driven Network, has been advocating a Christian Bloggers Network via an email list obtained from doing a survey put out by Pastors.com and Church Communications Pro. I am intrigued by such a network but hope that it becomes more than just a marketing vehicle and self-promotion outlet. If that happens I’ll bail out before you can say “snap”!

As I’ve given thought to some of the legitimate questions Mark has asked regarding the formation of this network and how it can be useful, my mind has hit on twitter. No, that’s not an adjective describing my state of thought! Twittering is a new phenomenon that has hit the web in the last three months - another offering in the Web 2.0 flavor of the year crowd.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is basically a website that has provided users a way of simply and quickly answering the question, “What is _____ up to now?”. Think it of mini-blogging on steroids. In of itself it isn’t really much - but combined with the Twitter API, the ability to “tweet” from multiple platforms (IM, your phone via text, web, and even your WordPress blog ), and it’s ease of use, the potential for this tool in useful “networking” is limitless.

I’ve been using a service for sometime now called “LogMeIn” as a way of remotely controlling the computers I have access to. In my opinion, the developers of LogMeIn have designed the premier way of remotely accessing any computers you have connected (via a broadband connection mind you) to the internet. The best thing? It’s free! If you haven’t heard of them I suggest you take a quick browse over and check it out. To quickly summarize what LogMeIn is:

• You sign up for a free account and download the software to the computer you want to be able to remotely control. (you can do this for any computer you want to be able to access)
• After setting up the software (painless) that computer is now accessible via the LogMeIn interface via any browser on any computer (err…by any I mean IE or Firefox - the only two browsers I’ve used with it ;)).