[Remember] My favorite word of the English language.
Remember. Remember the time when personal computers were not in every house. Actually that is how I grew up. And I am not that old. Really, I am not; I am still on my 30s (late). Oh don’t you dare go back to my photo and judge the date, don’t be rude!
I bought my first computer when I was 17 year old. I was the exception between my friends. It was 1993 and I remember it was an IBM. At that point IBM was still the reference. It was a 386 16 MHz Intel processor with a 40 MBytes hard driver and of course a 1.44 floppy disk. This is history, nearly unbelievable now a day that such little machines (as for their performances) have ever existed. But this is another story.
About 20 years later we have machines that are a million times faster and smarter and I do not exaggerate! What amazes me most is the hard drive capacities – once we thought Tera Byte was something only Pentagon could imagine : now we talk in Tera Bytes. for home PCs. Amazing. Yes, my initial 40 MB are is a joke now. It truly is.
Now we can have millions of documents, photographs, videos, music, letters and so much more finds its place in our personal computers. We depend on these massive drives. (Or so I learned!)
Let’s have some fun now and let’s play the “What If” game: what if your hard drive gets broken?
OK, stop panicking, I know this is not a funny question to ask, so many of you have experienced a machine’s failure and lost so many files… Luckily for us external hard drives have been created, and we can create back ups of our files.
Maybe I should reformulate my question: What If MY hard drive breaks down? Can it? Yes of course it can… … no wait .. it just did last fortnight! *sobs*
Yes, my computer’s hard drive broke 2 weeks ago and I have lost all my files. Now before you ask I will confess already – I DID NOT MAINTAIN BACKUP! I used to! I really did! But recently my backup system failed and I did not act proactively. and here I am – sobbing like a 6 year old without his wooden horse! (huh what?) 
And here is where the story gets really painful for me (or should I say shameful). Instead of running to buy another hard drive instantly, I decided to wait a little. I had other things to handle and had to prepare my travel to Ibiza for collecting material for new articles… well, yes that was not the best decision I have ever taken. I thought I could wait and go after I’d be back home.
Reality always reminds us that the concept of doing today all we can and not waiting for tomorrow is very important and have all it reasons to exist. I can imagine Reality laughing for the lesson she taught me. I nearly could laugh myself. Nearly.
So keep a copy of everything you have on your computer, and a copy of the copy, and a copy of the copy of the copy, and… All right I promised not to become paranoid, but the most important is to replace your back up hard drive after a failure and keep in mind that it can happen to you. But obviously you should always be conscious of this in every activity you have in your life.
Now my only hope is to find someone who can try to recuperate my files from a damaged hard drive for a reasonable price. I know, it would have been much more reasonable to have a working back up. We always are much more intelligent afterwards, aren’t we?
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Editor’s Note:
Little birdie told us, Max ended up buying a new computer, with zero recovery of data from past. The funeral for the old laptop has not been decided yet, we may have to take Max to mental hospital prior to his separation from the dead laptop. And I cannot stop laughing and the song comes in my mind “Told you so, Told you so!”
Eddie - Hi Nicole, how are you?
Nicole Uveges- Bartolozzi – Hi Eddie! I am doing great, enjoying our warm weather, How about you?
Eddie – Gotta love the heat, here in Canada don’t know what that means! But I am very well; thank you. We are very excited about your contest. Tell us a bit more, what is this all about?
Nicole Uveges- Bartolozzi - Chase and Living Social have come together to offer 12 Small Business Grants! Each grant will be $250,000 which is amazing for any small business! To be eligible you must answer their essay questions about –
- Why your business is unique?
- What your intentions for using the grant will be?
- How you serve the community?
- How you will handle setbacks?
- Describing your team and what makes everyone work so well together?
Once that is submitted the race is on to get 250 votes via Facebook in support of your mission. On June 30th, all applicants who have reached 250 votes will have their essays reviewed and 12 grants will be awarded!
Nicole Uveges- Bartolozzi
Eddie - This is a wonderful concept and certainly a smart way to help small businesses be recognized and grow. Tell us a bit about why does the ‘Moments by Cole Photography’ deserve this grant?
Nicole Uveges- Bartolozzi - Because we really, really want it! Just Kidding! We do want it but for reasons that probably wouldn’t come to mind first for most. We have been in business for a little over 4 years now and unlike many startup businesses; we didn’t have the benefit of starting capital.
I worked with a studio and saved every penny to buy my first camera and have pieced together our equipment as we have moved forward. We’ve always been safe and reserved in our spending and we realize that is a lot of the reason why we are still smaller than we hope to become.
This grant would allow us to purchase and upgrade our equipment to offer more options to our clients, as well as giving our business the opportunity of a permanent home. We have been very blessed over the last four years and personally the last 7 I have encountered more love and blessings than I sometimes feel I deserve.
I am a big fan of paying it forward and we have always gone out of our way to try and help organizations that are in need. As much as we love helping these organizations and individuals our donated work has at times hindered us from financial milestones that we need to be hitting. This grant would allow us to hit these milestones to obtain the equipment needed while still allowing us to help those who need it.
Eddie – Certainly, to help others you need to be able to first take care of yourselves as individuals and business. Can you please share a bit more about how ‘Moments by Cole Photography’ helped the community?
Nicole Uveges- Bartolozzi - Since 2008 we have played an active role in various fundraisers either by sponsorships or donated services to benefit The Emergency Assistance Center, The March of Dimes, St. Barnabas Schools, Goodwill Inc, & The Nordonia YMCA, to name a few. We have also stepped in for events such as a cut-a-thon that benefitted a local firefighter who had been diagnosed with cancer, or the Ladies night out which benefitted a local business owner who had just lost her husband unexpectedly.
We’ve also gone out of our way to help various professionals, meeting with several for coffee to chat about their business and to help them brainstorm or offer the benefit of our experience. In 2010 we also started a FREE bi-monthly networking event to help professionals make the much needed connections for their businesses.
But probably our biggest contribution is our annual Mommy-2-Bee Brunch. This event is centered on expectant mothers and their bundles of joy. Letting women know about the opportunities, resources, and options that they have available to them. We have speakers come and discuss nutrition, exercise, sanity savers, and more. All attendees get goodie bags full of coupons and much desired information. It truly has been an amazing event now 2 years running!
Eddie - That is certainly the signs of a business that not only supports the community but also understands the real needs and effectively delivers a genuine service that brings the businesses, the community and a better society in one place. Well Done!
And I have to ask – once you win the grant, fingers, legs – all crossed, how do you plan to utilize it?
Nicole Uveges- Bartolozzi - We all have everything crossed on this end as well, even my kids have crossed their fingers! This grant would be used in so many ways; $250,000 goes a LOOOONG when you use it wisely! To keep it brief out top goals are
- Tto get some standardized training for our staff, they are all very talented and come from various backgrounds, it would be nice to see them all benefit from growing together (myself included).
- To upgrade/ expand some of our equipment. Our team has grown a lot over the past 2 years specifically and currently based on schedules we share a lot of the resources which sometimes causes conflicts and delays which is not OK by any of our standards. It would be nice for us to have a realistic amount of resources to keep our work efficient and timely.
- Currently we are a residential studio and this grant would allow up the opportunity to explore a permanent home in a retail space. We would be able to research the options of renting versus owning a space and could then choose the wisest investment which many businesses don’t ever get as an option.
- A large portion of this money would be put away, for down the road’s unforeseeable events. I agree that a failure to plan is a plan to fail and we want to ensure that we are prepared for whatever may come our way.
Eddie – Smart thinking; and to make it happen, how can people help?
Nicole Uveges- Bartolozzi- Well, I just checked and we are just shy of 100 of the needed 250 votes so GO OUT AND VOTE! Voting only takes 30 seconds, and to share a post on your wall takes maybe 2 minutes at the most.
Here’s how to vote:
Click on the link https://www.missionsmallbusiness.com/
Click the “log in and support” icon on the lower right side Sign in through Facebook Type in “Moments by Cole Photography” in “Northfield, Ohio” and click the VOTE icon
I have been blown away by the outpouring of support and am grateful from the bottom of my heart!
Eddie - Our best wishes are with you and we’ll spread the word best we can, keep up the good work and thank you so much for interview on this short notice!
All the best from 3S1, Inc team.
Don’t forget to check their Facebook Page – just click the banner below -
or checkout their website at -
www.MomentsByColePhoto.com
You might also get to see ‘the Almost Naked CEO’ -
Szebastian-One
In a SATO first, I originally set out to interview the fabulous Stevie T Toms only for this blog of mine, Sex and the Olives, but seeing his campaign is already featured on the Urban Men, Worldwide and the great work he is doing I asked my team to publish it there as well! How can we not support such a great cause and awesome young man everywhere possible?
So without further ado, here is the interview with Stevie T Toms about his 21 Challenge to fight against Youth Homelessness! You Go Stevie!
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