The Verizon Foundation has launched the redesigned Thinkfinity website. It provides easier access to some of the Thinkfinity resources from the home page. If you've never used this resource, you should really take a look. They work closely with nine national partners including the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, National Geographic and many more to bring high quality lesson plans, online activities and other educational materials to teachers and students.

The redesigned website also introduces the Verizon Thinkfinity Community where educators can converse, ask questions, trade ideas and more.

Belt AND Suspenders - A Lesson in Data Backup

A college roommate of mine was once introduced at a banquet as the only person the emcee knew who was so conservative that he wore a belt and suspenders. That phrase has stuck with me over the years and I use it once in a while to describe security measures in technology. There are times when it means "overkill" and there are times when it serves as a good reminder - this one is the latter.

Two mutually exclusive events this week involving Data backup should serve as a reminder to all of us. Two stories of personal stress as two friends both lost years of digital photos. One accidentally deleted them and the other had a drive fail. In both cases, without any backup, the stress has been significant and the monetary cost may be steep. In both cases, many hours of lost time dealing with the issue.

One has recovered the photos at the cost of recovery software and an external drive to restore them to (and hopefully use as a backup drive in the future). The other will most likely get them back but will pay $600 to $1000 to a data recovery company.

Real examples to remind us all to practice safe computing. Back up that data early and often!