Business 2.0, the technology-aware magazine published by Time, periodically reminds readers of the importance of backing up computer files. In fact, a 2003 article likened backups to flossing - everyone knows it’s important, but few devote enough thought or energy to it.

It appears that Business 2.0, just last week, got caught forgetting to floss.

Essentially, on the night of Monday, April 23, the magazine’s editorial system crashed, wiping out all the work that had been done for its June issue. The backup server - which was never used, and hence never thought twice of, had failed to back up.

In hindsight, perhaps it would make sense to and a “best practice” to have a separate department solely responsible for performing and validating the “restorability” of the company’s backup.

In this case, the articles in question were recovered via proofs e-mailed out to litigation lawyers for checking. Artwork, on the other hand, had to be frantically recreated. You can check out the original story at on the International Herald Tribune, here.

Now, when was the last time I performed a backup on all the articles on this blog as well as the contents of my laptop’s hard disk…

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