madoff, investing, data + putting your eggs in one basket

looking at stuff happening these days reminds me of the idiom

"don't put all your eggs in one basket"

it's certainly a simple saying but it does make a lot of sense cause if anything happens to the basket, there go all your huevos.

this actually applies very well to life.

on investing

with the madoff scam, I feel bad for those who lost so much, and for some, their life savings.  for the rest of us,  we should diversify across multiple places to invest.  a basket here and a basket there.  don't give all your money to a single investment entity.  or invest in a single stock.  or deposit all your cash in one account. (yes FDIC does insure but banks do go bankrupt...)  seems simple enough but it does take work.

on data storage: 

so the same applies to your precious data (personal docs, financial, priceless photos, videos).  backups are HUGE because hard drives (HDDs) aren't indestructible.  re: the demise of your drive, it's not a matter of IF, but a matter of WHEN.  i personally backup onto inexpensive, dedicated external USB HDDs (they are only on when i backup.  remember cali is earthquake country!) and also upload my photos to the net. (Flickr for me, Smugmug for others).  remote backup is key as your home is only one basket.  a friend recommended an automatic $5/month/computer remote encrypted backup service called backblaze which i'm considering cause manual backups take time/discipline.  finally for laptop users, it's even more important to backup given theft is a growing problem.

BKM: don't put all your investments/money/data/anything of value into one basket

I'll end w/ this bit of humor. :)