Ep. 420 - Computer Organization and Networking

A big part of growing a family business (or any enterprise) is keeping organized.  

Efficient organizational systems and effective communication are important – especially if you’re forward thinking and looking to grow and improve almost any metric within our lives.  

Today, we’re going to discuss this as it applies to computer systems – specifically file organization systems and the organization of networks.  

This is part of an extended series that dates back to just over a year ago when I finally purchased a computer after a year of savings and research.  

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Discussion Links:

Ep. 172 - Custom Computing
Today, we're going to discuss computers!  Purchasing a stock machine, buying used, building your own, or having one custom built...there's a lot of options!  Join the conversation as Rob shares his 12 month experience and learn what/how/why he made the decision he did! 

Ep. 188 - File Naming and Organization
In today’s episode, I’m going to share with you some best management practices with it comes to file naming and storage – in addition to learning effective methodologies for file and folder organization.

WD 4TB My Book Desktop External Hard Drive, USB 3.0
The My Book drive is trusted desktop storage designed to complement your personal style with a massive amount of space to store your photos, videos, music and documents. 

York Meadow Farm: Lacto-Fermented Foods
Rich in probiotics, our fermented foods are also paleo and keto friendly. Eat a proper human diet.

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Transcript

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Hi there and welcome back to another episode of the All Around Growth Podcast. Today is Tuesday, September 13th, 2022. This is episode number 420 of a show where you join me as I build a life and homestead with my family. In this show, I talk about the five W's and how as I grow along with the family business here on the Homestead at York Meadow Farm. The title of today's show is Computer Files Organization and Networking. And a big part of growing a family business or any enterprise for that matter is keeping organized. Now, efficient organizational systems and effective communication are important, especially if you are forward thinking and looking to grow and improve almost any metric within our lives and any aspect of our lives for that matter. So today we are going to discuss this as it applies to computer systems, specifically file organization systems and the organization of networks. Now this will be part of an extended series, or this is part of an extended series, I suppose, that dates back to just over a year ago when I finally purchased a computer after a year of savings and research. So this is really like a two-year, you know, a multi-year process. Um, I'm no expert with any or all of this, but I like to think that I've done a fair amount of research, and I like to think that I've networked in the literal sense with people that are far more intelligent than me about these matters, so I feel confident in the information I'm sharing with you. And you can validate and verify that information by looking in these past episodes that I will link to in the show notes. Specifically, you can learn more about the computer that I own in episode number 172 titled Custom Computing, and that was recorded all the way back in August of 2021. And then shortly after obtaining that computer, I began doing some research on file naming and organization, which resulted in episode number 188, titled File Naming and Organization, which was recorded, like I said, shortly thereafter on September 7th. Now, at that point in time, I I kind of shifted gears, and my focus turned towards health and overall goal setting, and the all of this computer stuff was put on the back burner. Alright, so accordingly, over the past 12 months, with all the work that I've been doing, I've simply been housing documents and procrastinating on organizing the files and folders on this new machine that I've owned for over a year. I'm gonna take this little bone away from Toby so there's no background noise here and crunching in the uh podcast. Alright, so like I said, I've just been working on this machine, saving documents in a single folder and just sort of waiting to figure it out later. Now I revisited a lot of this earlier in the year when I was, you know, again forced to deal with the overall data mismanagement of my smartphone at the time, which you can hear about in episode number 297, titled iPhone File Transfer and Storage. And um you know, so here we are, September 13th, 2022, and I'm back into the computer organization mindset. So why? Well, recently we've been doing a lot of work in preparation for the York Meadow Farm Online store. Speaking of the store, I will link to York Meadow Farm in the show notes. I would really encourage you to sign up for the newsletter. Uh, that will give you the opportunity to take advantage of the big savings that email subscribers will be participating in when the store opens next week. Online savings. Those savings will be announced Thursday in an email that has or is uh part of a series that's being prepped and delivered and also in blog posts, encouraging people to sign up for the newsletter so they can take part in what's happening here on the farm, which is the launch of the online farm store. And all of the preparation for that has required me to do a lot of work on the computer, looking through old files and creating content in order to get prepared for this launch. All this work has made me realize just how or unorganized I really am and how I should be proactive before my data mismanagement on my desktop machine really becomes an issue. Okay. In episode number 188, titled File Naming and Organization, there is a myriad number of links and resources on file storage and naming. For example, we've got file naming and structure, best practices for file naming, file organization, data management recommended practices, file naming conventions, document storage and naming conventions, naming files and folders, file naming conventions, data management for undergraduate researchers, and then as far as computer folder organization, we've got topics such as how to best organize your computer files, folders, and documents, 11 best practices for organizing your business files and folders, how to organize computer files, electronic file management tips, the most effective way of organizing your files and folders, the best way to organize your files and folders, find files faster, how to organize files and folders, and Zen and the Art of File and Folder Organization. Okay, so I would definitely recommend checking out episode number 188, which I will again link to in the show notes for all of these specifics on naming your files. These come from, these articles come from very reputable sources, businesses, universities, just institutions that are all about efficiencies with organization. Now, now that you've got that, now that we've covered that, I'm going to share with you how my brother advised me to set up my files. Okay, so the best way I think I can do that is for me to simply look at the way that I've got this set up, okay? So what he advised me to do is in let me let me just look at my PC. Okay. Um this computer's very simple, okay? I've got one drive, my C drive. It's a two-terabyte drive. Now in that C drive, I've got all of my folders with my operating uh with my program files and and my operating system files and and and so on and so forth. I've made one file there called Rob's files. Okay. Now oftentimes your I'm talking about PCs here, and within Windows, it comes with a default downloads folder, a default documents folder, a default pictures folder, a default music folder, a default videos folder. Now I'm not using any of that, okay? I've got this one folder in my C drive and it's called Rob's Files. I've actually titled it Z underscore Rob's Files, so it's at the very bottom. And if I end up installing a bunch of stuff in here, I will likely just rename the file folder as asterisk rob's files, underscore Rob's files, and that way it'll be at the top. But inside that file folder of Rob's files, I've got everything broken out based on what type of file it is. Like for example, I've got audio files in one folder, I've got uh epublication folders files in another folder, I've got Excel documents in another folder, I've got HTML documents in another folder, I've got KMZ files in another folder, I've got Moby files in another folder, Outlook data files in another folder, PDF documents in another folder, photo files in another folder, publisher documents in another folder, QBB files. I mean you get the point, I'm not gonna sit here and go through them all, but that's about half of them. And in special instances, I will create a secondary folder with all of my tax documents, for example. But this is how I'm getting started because I've over the years I've accumulated over a dozen different hard drives with everything that I've with with information and you know it's it's become very uh difficult to manage that stuff, especially when I knew I was get getting a computer, but you know, so one thing that I did was I bought a small, what is this? It is a Western digital easy store. Uh it's a two-terabyte SSD drive, you know, SIN or solid state drive. And that thing is, you know, it's about the size of it's maybe a little bigger than a deck of cards. A little wider, but that's been extremely portable and a great way to house a lot of information, pull a lot of files, and just take whatever I need to with me wherever I need to take it. Okay. But now that I've got this big desktop, what I'm going to do is import everything into these folders, and I I've begun that and I'm working through doing that. And unfortunately, because I've made backups to backups to backups, I've got a lot of files that are duplicates and a lot of different files that share the same name. For example, download one, download two. So I'm reviewing a lot of this stuff to make sure I'm not overwriting anything important. But this is going to be a one-time thing, and I've already made good progress on doing so. And since I've got a game plan, the progress is going a lot quicker than uh I initially expected. And then once I've actually got all my files into these different folders, I will then further examine all of the links in this past episode 188 to further subdivide out my subfolders in each of those primary folders, more effectively name the uh images and files that I'm, or just simply the files, more effectively name those that I'm actively using and working on. So as time goes on, I've got things better cataloged and housed, right? So with files and folders out of the way, what do we do regarding backups? Okay, so I've taken these dozen or so hard drives that I've accumulated over the years and I've imported all of the files onto this two terabyte C drive inside my machine. So now what? What if the machine takes a crap? What if the barn gets struck by lightning? What if, what if, what if? Okay, here's the plan. Right now, what I'm using or what I have is a four-terabyte western digital uh hard drive. A it's not a solid state drive, it's the old spinny drive. Um, again, I'm not technically savvy, but um, you know, you got the spinny drive and you've got the the drive that doesn't spin. This is the spinny drive, and I don't know if the price has been decreased like this for quite some time, but I just looked it up so I could link to it in the show notes so you can see what I'm talking about and see what I'm using. But it's available for $89.99, and you know, that's far less than what I paid for this a year ago, so this is a great deal. Like I said, I'm gonna link to this in the show notes, and this isn't an affiliate link, but it is a great deal. So check it out. Um, it's not an affiliate link yet, I'm working on that. Um, but uh yeah, right now, just a it's just a good deal that I'm sharing with you. So, besides this external drive that I will back up routinely myself, what my brother is doing is building a network. Now, like many small businesses, we are going to have a computer network up set up and operating here soon. Uh, the server will likely be housed in the barn or in the basement of the cabin. And um all personal computers will have the ability to tie into this network and store files on the server, share files, share uh, or access shared files. And this is also going to include my brother's machine and any other family member who wants to be in the network. Now, just because your computer's on there, you don't have to store everything, and so on and so forth. You you understand how this works, but um this also factors into the additional storage and backups because what's going to happen here on the farm server is the farm server is going to act as a backup for all of the machines off site. And then at my brother's house, my brother will have additional storage and backups at his residence for all of the data stored here. So at the very least, all family members are going to have double and in many cases triple redundancies regarding status regarding status regarding data storage in place. So that's that's pretty cool. That's that's good because we've got a lot of information as a family, and um luckily we've got the resources as a family to make sure that everything remains safe, intact, and secure for the long haul. So if you don't, hopefully, this uh this show provided some information and resources for you to do the same with your computers, with your files, and with your family. So that's it for today's show on computer files, organization, and networking. Stay tuned for tomorrow's show on simple business and personal accounting, where I've taken the complexity out of my bookkeeping, and I am starting from scratch without using any software at all. Alright, have a wonderful day, everyone. This is Rob Kaiser, and thank you.