If you don't know what you are doing...........ask!

[killmeplease]

I'm the VP of a company that uses Quickbooks as a primary payroll and checkbook program. These files reside on a partition on a computer in a peer to peer network.

One day my boss (the pres.) calls me to say the "she thinks she F'ed up". While formatting som ZIP disks, she accidently formatted the partition in which these impotant files reside. OK. I just backed up the day prior. So I took her through hell, just to make a point. She was really scared, I recovered and my point was made, right?

Yesterday I got the same call. WTF!? I've been gone for over a week (nobody else will/can back up). I tried to use GetBackData, but it failed to recover payroll and the checkbook without fatal corruption(Quickbooks is the most fragile file I've ever seen). Now I have to go through friggin' paper to recover this crap.

I may shoot her Monday. What would YOU do to prevent this idiot from doing this kind of crap? She INSISTS that this file resides on her machine!

 

[ThaGrandCow]

Install Windows XP
Make her an account without access to that partition.
If she can't get to it, she can't fsck it up

 

[djheater]

Explain to here that none of her peers are setup that way. It is pure stupididty to have important files on her machine. Actions of that nature make lead to accidents (as you've just experienced). There is no way you guys can make money if all you do is fix her mistakes....

What we did is make a batch job a scheduled job on a W2K machine (not necessarily the local machine, jsut with access to the files) and have it copy and zip (PKZip command line) the important files to a different location on a nightly basis. Then someone burns that on a biweekly basis and carries it out of the building.....

 

[yoda291]

copy the partition to your machine (i'm going to assume that it's on her machine now) and map the network drive to hers. Then, change the access permissions on your machine so that she can't do anything she shouldn't be doing. Make sure to have it password authenticated. That should do the trick. Anything that critical to the entire group shouldn't reside locally with a user because users are susceptible to virii, crashes, 4 year olds with chocolate bars and a hankering for floppy drives, etc. Else, make a file server.

 

[DJP]

Well, frankly, you're an idiot not to do daily backups (and if you can't force someone to stick in a tape, really how much of a VP are you? 🙂 ). You can automate it all you know...

Firstly, you really shouldn't be doing ptp networking, get a server like the rest of the world. You use server mapped drives and back up only the server. Just buy 5-7 120 gig drives (one for each day of the week you work), install them into a tower pc, put a sdlt/dat/whatever tape backup drive in there, and write a couple scripts to copy all your important data to a different drive every night. Then every day have it backup up the previous day's drive onto tape which you take home with you at night in case the building burns down. This way you have instant recovery of files up to a week without resorting to tape unless you really have to. Get a bunch of tapes and reuse the tapes as necessary. (we keep some tapes for up to a year just in case..)

If this is too much for you, it sounds like you need some real IT help.

At the very least you should write a script that copies that quickbooks directory someplace else on the network every night. (IN XP start->settings->control panel->scheduled tasks) create a batch file that copies the quickbooks (example: xcopy "c:\program files\quickbooks" \\networkmachine\share$ /s /v) data and files someplave else.

 

[Czar]

Install a program that mirrors the file on another computer on the network, think you can get one from tucows.

 

[yoda291]

<< Well, frankly, you're an idiot not to do daily backups (and if you can't force someone to stick in a tape, really how much of a VP are you? 🙂 ). You can automate it all you know...

Firstly, you really shouldn't be doing ptp networking, get a server like the rest of the world. You use server mapped drives and back up only the server. Just buy 5-7 120 gig drives (one for each day of the week you work), install them into a tower pc, put a sdlt/dat/whatever tape backup drive in there, and write a couple scripts to copy all your important data to a different drive every night. Then every day have it backup up the previous day's drive onto tape which you take home with you at night in case the building burns down. This way you have instant recovery of files up to a week without resorting to tape unless you really have to. Get a bunch of tapes and reuse the tapes as necessary. (we keep some tapes for up to a year just in case..)

If this is too much for you, it sounds like you need some real IT help. >>



well, first off, p2p networking is usually sufficient for small businesses and you can't assume that they aren't on a server based network. p2p in this case could simply mean that they're on the same subnet. Secondly, you have to realize that he's not an admin. He's a vp of a business that may or may not have an adequate PC Operations dept. But I'm pretty certain that he/she doesn't have time to perform daily backups, server maintenance, security, and his regular duties and the cost of a whole server with multiple 120 Gig drives with staff to maintain(even if it's some high school kid working minimum) is prohibitive and may not be cost effective. Relatively speaking, it'd be the equivalent of killing an ant by dropping a truck full of anvils on it.

But I do agree that it isn't smart that your critical data isn't backed up daily. I would STRONGLY recommend that you find a way...any way to cut the president's access rights to those files though. As a general rule in fact, never ever ever give anyone(yourself included) more access rights than what the bare minimum is to do your job effectively.

 

[toant103]

don't let her use the computer. hehehe

 

[911paramedic]

She needs to be in her own workgroup "idiots" with "read only" permission. To kick it up a notch, I would have her account expire every hour or so...

 

[killmeplease]

<< Well, frankly, you're an idiot not to do daily backups (and if you can't force someone to stick in a tape, really how much of a VP are you? 🙂 ). You can automate it all you know...

Firstly, you really shouldn't be doing ptp networking, get a server like the rest of the world. You use server mapped drives and back up only the server. Just buy 5-7 120 gig drives (one for each day of the week you work), install them into a tower pc, put a sdlt/dat/whatever tape backup drive in there, and write a couple scripts to copy all your important data to a different drive every night. Then every day have it backup up the previous day's drive onto tape which you take home with you at night in case the building burns down. This way you have instant recovery of files up to a week without resorting to tape unless you really have to. Get a bunch of tapes and reuse the tapes as necessary. (we keep some tapes for up to a year just in case..)

If this is too much for you, it sounds like you need some real IT help.

At the very least you should write a script that copies that quickbooks directory someplace else on the network every night. (IN XP start->settings->control panel->scheduled tasks) create a batch file that copies the quickbooks (example: xcopy "c:\program files\quickbooks" \\networkmachine\share$ /s /v) data and files someplave else. >>



I don't consider myself an "idiot. But thank you for the last half of your post. I may find something useful there.

The reason for a simple peer to peer is has been simply because of evolution. A few computers have become many, the need to share any files have become more often and more extensive and the need for a more diverse printer capability without purchasing one-per-machine has presented itself only in the last couple of years.

It may indeed be time to go to a server system. But in the past, it has been cost prohibitive given the software and IT support. It may still be, but I am more than open to additional training if I can find the time. However, a hardware solution is pretty cheap.

Some of the tasks that she/we perform(s) on files require her/us to have a high priveledge level. So reducing her user level is not an option.

I appreciate the help. As I've stated, I'm not primarily IT. I've even looked into some solutions that enhance data security. Getting somebody who I can trust to perform tasks in my absence is a problem (such as this time).

We do about 9 million per year with a small margin (high competition). We are one of those companies that are in-between. Too small to be able to afford the solutions we may need and too big to get along with anything less.

Edit: BTW, I'm one hell of a VP. I share my time on many tasks like most employees of a small business do. We have several locations which requires travel. You know.......................the real world..................It's not just a TV show.................Look into it.