Lately I've been in an apprehensive mood. I'm not sure if it's the Wall Street meltdown, the vog-filled Kona winds or, the fact that today is October 13.

Perhaps the date has something to do with it. It is two days before the anniversary of “;the earthquake.”;

As everyone remembers, it was on that fateful, muggy Sunday just two years ago that the entire state shut down.

The power grid dried up and anyone who didn't have their own juice and access to their data had their business grind to a screeching halt.

So whether it's a temblor, a tsunami, a fire, a robbery or a meteorite, are you better prepared for the next disaster?

  I'm not so sure that we are ready.

What I've gleaned in conversations with business owners over the last six months is that many firms haven't done much to change the way they secure their data from pre-Oct. 15, 2006.

To remain unprepared is to bury your head in the sand or perhaps in lava rock.

So what to do?

Here are some very basic suggests to consider if you haven't taken care of business:

» Get a UPS (uninterruptible power supply).

A UPS is essentially a battery that provides enough electricity to allow your computer to run after the grid goes down.

Generally software that comes with the unit will save any documents that happen to be open, and cleanly shut down the operating system before the UPS battery runs down.

The UPS will also shields your computer from power surges that might damage or destroy your data once the electricity comes online again.

A business user might consider a gasoline generator as a temporary fix, but Rick Marine, founder of Century Computers, says a generator alone falls short.

“;Heat buildup can fry a computer,”; says Marine, “;and without AC keeping your servers cool, you're in trouble.”;

Even if you do have power, he says, you may not have Internet connectivity. A better solution for a medium to large business is to host your servers in a data center with backup power.

I've previously discussed the option of going solar as a backup, but that's very expensive and still means having a huge, UPS-style battery.

» Back 'em up.

If you don't have your data, you don't have much of anything.

The two most popular ways to backup your data are using a portable, external tape or hard drive or an automated online system that keeps a copy of your data off site.

The operative concept is to store your data offsite, even if it means taking your external drive home every evening.

With high-speed bandwidth nearly ubiquitous, it's possible to store data on the mainland (or elsewhere in Hawaii).

Businesses can use local data centers such as Net Enterprise or Lava Net to store data, whereas smaller firms or home offices can use any number of commercial applications that offer online storage.

I've had a good experience with Mozy which is fast, safe and inexpensive (about $5 per month for unlimited storage). Some of the larger ISPs such as Oceanic Time Warner also have online backup solutions.

As I've said in the past, I'm not clairvoyant, but as long as Madame Pele lives and the gases spew from Halema'uma'u, at some point our islands will suffer a disaster of some sort.

If you haven't prepared for that day, now is the time.