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At the start of the past week my community suffered a black out for about three hours. Right in the middle of the work day, and for me, right in the middle of a conference call. A quick check with a few neighbord and I knew it wasn't just a few houses. It was an entire portion of the SDG&E power grid that impacts a large part of what is known as North County, in San Diego, CA. This meant no power and no Internet connection as the cable modem was also off.
The first thing I did was immediately turn off any running Mac's that could run on batteries, as well as shutting off the iPad. The idea was to make sure for the longest possible period I could find a way to stay connected. I then turned on one of my three MiFi's- the AT&T network device, which happens to have an unlimited data plan that was grandfathered back to the tariff I had with Cingular for it. I then rejoined the conference call, and began to monitor the power company's site for an update on my MacBook Air, which draws the least power of my three Mac Books. What started out being only to be an hour, turned into two, and then creeped up to three. In the interim, I stayed on my call, still had email access, and wasn't really cut off.
Thank fully, the idea of a backup plan was always in place. This past week, the MiFi and the account that some might consider a luxury, became an essential.
My motto…always have a back up plan.
