Texas Auctioneers Association - Block Talk - November 2016

Your Monthly News & Updates
LESSONS LEARNED THE HARD WAY...
By: Lance Swigert
 
So recently I had my truck broke into and a few things stolen from. They are all just things which can all be replaced....Except that all important master copy of your auction software database!! We all hear every day, and get the emails, are you backing up your computers? Sure my daily documents, computers, phones, etc... are backed up on cloud services like iCloud, Google Drive, and Dropbox.  But what about our auction computers? Our standard procedure is to backup the computers before and after an auction. It just so happened that with our last live auction, these backups were overlooked.  I did make a backup at one point during the viewing day, but only saved that backup to the computer itself, not an external device, so that didn't do me much good.  Thankfully I did have backups from the previous live auction, so we only lost the information from one sale.  It's not going to be a killer, but it drives home the point of you NEVER know when something is going to happen to your data.  
 
So make a note and schedule it on your calendar to begin or keep backing up ALL your data.  Not just the computers or devices we use everyday, but the ones that sit in the corner till we need them.  Whether its on a hard drive, or in the cloud, one copy is better than none.  And two copies is better than one.  We could go crazy with all the potential scenarios that would cause us to loose our data, so hit the low hanging fruit and protect yourself some.  Storage hard drives are cheap these days, but do make sure and spend a little extra for a quality drive that is designed for backups.  Here is a link to a website that has reviewed hard drives they use in there server farm.  https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-q1-2016/
TEXAS LONE STAR OPEN WINNERS!
DECEMBER 5 - HOLIDAY EVENT AT SCOTTISH RITE HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN

Dallas, TX - 10:00AM    
 
Help auction toys to the patients. Bring monetary donations or send to the TAA office: 201 Stillwater, Ste. 8, Wimberley, TX 78676.

No child is turned away. Help make a difference for this terrific charity!
 
 
TAA MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS
COMING ONLINE!
 
Membership year is January 1-December 31.
RENEW for the 60th Anniversary year! 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
TAA is thankful for each member! 
 

TEXAS AUCTIONEERS ASSOCIATION - 512.285.2727 - WWW.TEXASAUCTIONEERS.ORG