On Tue, 5 Jul 2011 10:05:49 -0700 (PDT), Robert Macy
wrote:

I like the way this guy thinks. Don't EVER move from point A to point
B without the ability to move back to point A.

Only the paranoid survive.

In this case, it was well handled and worthwhile. However, there are
times where it doesn't work. Also in the 1970's I was working for a
marine radio manufactory that had a similar mentality. Whenever
something went wrong, instead of fixing the problem, someone would
always suggest going back to the old way of doing things. For
example, when the fancy new Swiss made wave soldering machine decided
to make a mess of the PCB's, instead of fixing the problem, someone
suggested resurrecting the ancient solder pot out of storage. It took
considerable effort to convince them that there may have been a reason
why it was buried in storage. As soon as the new wave solder machine
was back in action, I was more than happy to assist in emptying the
old solder pot, and delivering it to the local scrap dealer. This was
not done to recover the cost of the solder pot, but to prevent
mis-management from ever making a similar suggestion. Several other
upgrades were followed by intentionally disposing of the old junk to
prevent similar incidents.

I have another customer, with a particularly ancient computer system,
that prints out every invoice, transaction, inventory, etc on a daily
basis. The toll on paper and printers is severe. So much for the
paperless office. However, when the computer crashed, and they were
down for several days while I tried to put Humpty Dumpty back together
out of sparse backup tapes, they were able to continue operating from
the paper copies. According to the owner and staff, it made the paper
pile worthwhile.

Last year, one of my former customers went with a cloud computing
service, dumping me in the process. No loss, but I made sure that the
old system was still functional, even if it wasn't being used (or
paying me). Sure enough, there have been several "regrettable
incidents" that shut down the whole company, and required temporarily
resurrecting the old system. A more spectacular example was another
company, that did something similar, only to get audited by the Feds.
They needed reports from the old system, which they stupidly gave me
to recycle, but instead which I stored for a few months. Premonition
I guess.

These days, I don't work on any machine that I don't first make an
image backup of the hard disk. When I'm done, I make an other. Cheap
insurance.


--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558