Adnan’s Temporary Absence
November 29, 2007 by
Adam
Filed under
Me & My Life
This is Connor Wilson (the designer here), doing some house cleaning in terms of approving comments and keeping things running while Adnan works out some problems.
Regarding the Sale
If you have any questions about the sale, keep emailing them to Adnan via the contact form, but for those of you awaiting a response: don’t worry. You have not been forgotten!
Adnan’s internet has crashed amidst his big sale. It likely won’t be back until tomorrow or Saturday with the repairmen being apathetic and all.
He has some access to the net via school computers, but there’s not much you can do from there. If you have an outstanding question or email and are wondering where your response is, just know that you’ll get it soon.
Plan B?
Having a backup plan, in case of such an emergency is always a good idea. Adnan suggested to me that this post could serve as a post detailing such things, but sometimes there is nothing you can do. Going to a school computer lab or local internet café to stay on top of things as best you can is a good idea, however.
It’s always unfortunate that your problem is in the hands of someone else (like the service technicians in this case) and the only thing to really do is wait.
In a case like this, as a blogger, you can still write. You may not get to write online, but fire up your favourite word processor and have at it. Just because you have some setbacks doesn’t mean you can’t come back with a boom!
You Have not been Forgotten!
Just to recap, due to extenuating circumstances, Adnan might have fallen behind on emails and posting. All will be well in a few days, and those potential buyers should not be disgruntled.
My Internet crashed a couple of days ago and I couldn’t access the site at all but it was good for me and I needed to be away from the pc for sometime! but you definitely need it at this time, so hope all works out well for you Adnan… My bests with the sale!
Plan B - It is the lifeline of the business world. You would not believe how much it is actually used. Plan B is actually Plan A.
With so many things a person’s got to worry about it is a good advice Connor. Best of luck with the sale , hope it works out nicely for you guys ( and best of luck with college applications as well ).
Thanks for keeping us updated. After all these years, though, I’m surprised how we, who use the ‘Net to make money are so tolerant and accepting of failure. Just like backing up files we should always have an action plan for when our regular access to the ‘net fails … becuase it’s not “if” it will fail, it’s ‘when” it will fail.
One thing available to many these days are 3G plans from (usually) cellular telecom providers. these are marketed to people with high-power PDA’s and uber cool cellphones .. the Nolia N-95 crowd, but they cna be used with a USB modem on any computer … you may have to educate yourself and the provider first. A basic plan with a low monthly fee and aper minute charge is worth having as a backup … you’ll only pay the per minute charges when you use it … but when you need it, it’s there.
Having your web browser and other programs you normally use to blog on a USB memeory drive is a cheap backup system also. Instead of trying to adapt a borrowed or rented (Internt cafe) machine to work for you, you cna stick the USB drive in a slot and get your work done.
And don’t forget good old dial-up. Even though we’d all hate to go back to that, but slow connectivity is infinetely better than no connectivity … and none of us can type a blog entry faster thna a modem can send text … it can keep you alive. In the US Net Zero still offers free plans, I’m sure there is a UK solution. usually these are limited to a fixed numbe rof hours per month before a fee kicks in, but when you need them the free hours may just get you through.
Putting your entire online life in the hands of just one provider doesn’t make much sense to me, if you’re really an entrepreneur.
@ pearl - thanks a lot for the support - I noticed that having the internet gone wasn’t entirely a bad thing - just made it quite frustrating having to access it from school!
@ Jafar - thanks for the advice and the kind words.
@ Dave - wow what a comment, and as usual jam-packed full of advice. At the moment, I’ve got a Sony Ericsson K800i phone, which whilst it isn’t WiFi enabled, could well be used to get internet - although I’m not sure how much it would cost with my service provider. The advice about having the web browser and blogging programs on the USB is something I havn’t thought about - so cheers for that.
And finally, thanks Connor for throwing up the post, I’m back online now!
Glad to see your web connection is alive again. My backup plan, besides finding an unsecured wireless network (shhh!) is travelling to my parents and using their ADSL if ours goes down (like it did last year for 2 months!).
For using GPRS/3G in the UK you can buy a bundle or a no limit package but they’re not cheap. Another option is the £10/month mobile internet from Three or the Web and Walk offerings from T-Mobile (£30/month), which means you have Internet providing 3G is available. However for a fall back option, it’s an expensive method. You either need two contracts to ensure a fallback option or use an expensive temporary solution such as pay-as-you-go GPRS/3G.
As for a portable version of your core software - http://portableapps.com/ is well worth a look. Portable Firefox, Thunderbird, Xampp (which means you could install WordPress on there), and more. You can easily copy over your profile from your computer to Firefox, which means all bookmarks, cookies, passwords and extensions would be running. A small 2.5″ external drive can be set up for under £50 and give you easily a 40gb+ capacity (and is the size of a PDA!).
@ Adnan:, What, you mean you were surfin g instead of studying at school? Oh my goodness my image of the diligent pupil is shattered … ha ha ha. The thing I miss most since I retired and have to “real” job? Internet surfing on someone else’s dime (sixpence? 5NP?) LoL
@ Sarah:, yes that Portable Aps is one of the ones I had in mind. Having access to another connected computer is part of the plan but if none of the software/data you need every day is at hand you can’t use the substitute machine effectively. A USB drive can make the ‘fallback” process almost seamless.
And re. costs. I must have seen half a dozen references to cost already. If you are an entrepreneur cost is only part of the equation. Yes, I know, none of us has unlimited resources. But this is why I focus on the ROI side of things. I’m not advocating a “for pay” solution just to surf celebrity news sites and download iTunes, I’m advocating keeping a business alive.
Blogtrepreneur is bringing in something like $600+ USD per month. That’s about $20 a day. How many days can Adnan stay away before that income degrades?
That’s up to him, but it will degrade … and telling folks you didn’t have access because of a failure you could plan around somehow takes away some of your “entrepreneurial luster” … or so it seems to me. Sort of like putting your car up for sale at top dollar and leaving it dirty because a car was costs .001 percent of the sale price.
I’d submit that spending a couple dollars aday to protect an income of ten times that much isn’t a cost, it’s an investment with a pretty good rate of return. (ok, done spending other people’s money, regularly scheduled programming will now resume)
Dave, if it were me (and I couldn’t travel down south to leech off my parents!) then I would use my mobile phone or dial up (if the phone line still worked). I was merely pointing out the costs and options to Adnan so he was aware of them
Dave….you have to remember that you have the benefit of hindsight here. We all become experts after the fact. I am sure most people don’t prepare adequately for their 1st computer crash however I am willing to wager that most DO prepare for a 2nd.
I had broadband problems a couple of weeks ago and it was a nightmare so I know how you feel!
I tried to focus on writing some posts but it was just so frustrating waiting for it to go back on. I must have spent a good two days on the phone after they ‘fixed’ it still trying to get it up and running!
Hang in there…
Thanks Adnan for letting us know. But these internet crashing is really a pain. I can just imagine what you must be going through. i also had such a problem 10 days back and it’s so bad as so much of my work suffered because of all this.
Thanks for informing us.
My internet has been playing up recently…good job i’m changing to a new provider in the new year.
Thanks Nicholas, Hair Loss Cure and Mandy - it was a real pain in the bottom, and I think it disrupted the site sale quite badly - these things happen though.
@ Sarah and Dave - some awesome comments as usual. I know that O2 (which is the network I’m on), has some fairly reasonable internet costs. However because I don’t pay the phone bill yet, I would have to ask my Dad - not sure what he would say (he’s a bit of a tech n00b lol).
The PortableApps thing does sound very cool, and funny you mentioned a harddrive, because I managed to get a free 40GB one. At the moment, it’s got all of my TV shows on it, but it could come in useful if I put some programs on it. And Sarah, I also tried the unsecured wireless networks (but keep that on the hush hush..
)
Dave, you are right. Blogtrepreneur’s income does rely on me having internet, and without it, it would definitely slide. So having a backup plan is pretty much vital for an entrepreneur. I’ll try and have one ready for the next time!
My macbookpro just died
… and won’t be back for a day or two at least.
I thought I had a good backup plan, but my backup program isn’t fully compatible with Leopard yet and as a result my backup is a week old - not the end of the world but not really worth resurrecting for a day.
i understand how you feel when you lost internet connection. i also lost 2 weeks of internet world recently. although it give me time to do the thing i should focus on offline but when i’m back online there are so many things that just realise you are way back behind. so now i have to catch up a lot of things. anyway good luck with the sale. i hope you get the money you deserve and the buyer would get the asset that would bring him/her the success.
I think that one way as a back up , at least to still be able to post is the use of the pop3 email function in wordpress. Yes wordpress have the ability to take a post that you have send on a specified email address.
But be careful, everything that is send to this email address would be published.
There is also the possibility of implementing an SMS to Blog solution, but this is another story.