For the past week, my main multi-paged mindmap has been held hostage by my NovaMind mindmapping software. It contains project tracking details I’ve been working on for weeks. It worked great until earlier in the week when an update to the Novamind software was released. Now it crashes on open. Emails with tech support have been exchanged, nothing. It looks like my data is lost. The cost to me is considerably more than the $129 I paid for this software.
This brings me to today’s thought we should all pause and consider. How much of your data is locked up in a format you don’t have any control over? Is it in a web service that could close their doors tomorrow without a data export option? Do yourself a favor and give it a thought for a second or two.
From now on, all of my critical data stays in Open Source software (even wordpress is open source) and Open Data formats. I know better, and I’ve been bitten. Shame on me.