CompuSchmooze – Lubetkin Media Companies LLC

As I write this column, Hurricane Joaquin has just been upgraded to Category Three and may become a Category Four storm before you get this issue of The Voice. It is a serious reminder for small businesses of the disruption to data networks in New Jersey businesses caused by Super Storm Sandy in 2011, and the more recent multi-day power outages in June around the southern part of the state from severe summer storms. Increasingly severe weather underscores the need for advance planning for keeping a business operating when infrastructure is impaired. Michael Mullin, president of Integrated Business Systems in Totowa, NJ, says that businesses of all sizes should have a business continuity plan. Listen to a podcast of our conversation with Mullin. “As we know, the longer a business goes without getting back on their feet, the more likely it is that they will never get back on their feet,” Mullin says. “I think we saw this after Sandy. Lots of businesses that weren’t prepared never came back, just because they didn’t have their records, their customer lists, the things they needed to sustain their business.” The cost of having backup is becoming more reasonable, and more accessible for even the smallest businesses, Mullin says. Advances like cloud computing are changing the way mission-critical information is stored and accessed, providing a real “win” for business continuity in terms of both efficiency and cost, he says. Business continuity solutions are not one-size-fits-all, Mullin says. Companies need to think about the impact on their business from disruptions to their technologies. Companies should determine how often to make backups of data based on what’s needed to get up and running again. Mullin says business owners need to ask themselves what would happen if email correspondence is lost? What systems, software applications, key documents and user clearances must be kept absolutely current in order to run the business? Then, they need to decide how long they afford to be offline during and after a disaster. Some smaller companies can manage effectively without instantaneous recovery of some data systems. There are some key steps every business can take to prepare for a problem, before a disaster disrupts their systems, Mullin says. For example, backup systems and data storage should not be managed in the same building, but should be in a different location remote from the company’s operations. Software should be kept up to date, and installation files and documents should be available offsite. Companies should keep a written plan detailing how they will get back on line after a disaster, and they should test it with their employees. Often, companies find that plans are outdated, have wrong phone numbers or email addresses for people who have left the company. Mullin says that companies can engage outside help to manage a disaster recovery plan, and there are a number of vendors in New Jersey who work in this specialty. We featured one of them, Lam Cloud, in our April 2014 column. It’s a lot like insurance, you feel like you’re just paying for something you’re not using, until a Hurricane Joaquin comes along, and then you realize you won’t lose your business because you lose your computers.

Update: We decided to use the August Compuschmooze column to update the available information about Talmud study materials on the web. You can read the column and check out the links we discovered at the Jewish Community Voice newspaper website. With news that 90,000 Orthodox Jews gathered in Met Life Stadium in the Meadowlands to celebrate the Siyyum haShas, the completion of a seven year Daf Yomi cycle of Talmud study, we were reminded of one of our 2005 CompuSchmooze columns. In that April 2005 column, we interviewed Yehuda Schmidman, who recognized the power of Apple's iPod to expand opportunities for Talmud study by offering an iPod pre-loaded with shiurim, commentaries on the Talmud by a respected Talmud scholar. We also produced one of our earliest podcasts from our interview with Schmidman, which you can revisit here in honor of the completion of the current Daf Yomi cycle.  

The CompuSchmooze podcast returns with an interview about event planning online, with our guest, Vanessa Schneider, senior public relations manager of Eventbrite.com, an online event organizing site. Listen to the podcast here: Read the article based on this interview in the Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey. Vanessa Hope Schneider, Senior Public Relations Manager, EventBrite Vanessa generates media coverage of Eventbrite and its customers. She believes that the best way to tell Eventbrite’s story is to tell the stories of all of the people who use it. Before working at Eventbrite, Vanessa lived in New York City and worked in the book publishing industry. She managed the publicity campaigns for several New York Times Bestsellers, including Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern and The Drunkard’s Walk by CalTech professor Leonard Mlodinow. She is a graduate of Columbia University, where she studied English and Creative Writing.   Subscribe to the RSS feed for the Compuschmooze podcast series. Apple iPod owners, subscribe to Compuschmooze podcasts in the Apple iTunes Music Store.

In this audio podcast, we present a telescoped aircheck recording of an interview with Lori Katz, Cherry Hill resident and Parkinson's Disease activist and advocate. (A telescoped aircheck removes the commercials and irrelevant content of a broadcast. This interview was broadcast Thursday, April 19, on WMBS-AM 590 Radio, Uniontown, PA, near Pittsburgh. We previously interviewed Lori for our CompuSchmooze column and the Compuschmooze Video Podcast #5 in January 2010 to discuss her own experience with Parkinson's Disease and some assistive technologies she was using. To read the complete CompuSchmooze article, visit the Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey website.