Computers crash, viruses infect, and disasters happen. But they don’t have to affect your ability to continue working if you’re prepared. There are some key things you should know about your computer system and your applications — and things you should do with your data — to ensure that you’re back up in a few hours instead of a few days.   

Kami Griffiths will interview Laura Richardson from Uptime Resources to help you understand how you can get your system back up and running so your staff can continue to do their work as quickly as possible. The discussion will open your eyes to the risks you should be aware of and to the measures that can help prevent data loss.

Josh Catone (@Catone) recently shared a post on Mashable entitled, How To Use the Web for Socially Responsible Shopping. In the post, Josh profiled nine sites that “offer information for the conscious consumer about the companies and products we buy every day.”

Josh did an excellent job highlighting and bringing together an array of awesome tools: Knowmore, GoodGuide, Crocodyl, ClimateCounts, Transnationale, Corporate Critic, Citizens Market, Do the Right Thing, and Source Map.

And then in the comments, the Mashable community shared more great resources: Tuggly, MadeinNations, Business & Human Rights, EthiScore, Vanno, GreenLighted, and Zumer.

As well, there are even more useful sites which feature green & sustainability ratings – like 3rdWhale & GenGreen (who announced a partnership last night) GreenAmerica, Bilumi, BadBuster, & SustainLane. The list definitely goes on!

The thing is, after you read the post – you're left wondering: “Who is bringing all this data together?”

Who's making it easy to search across these sites? Who's working on making sense of the data – to potentially create aggregate profiles or scores. Who's working on open standards and formats so sites can talk to each other? Who's facilitating an Open API (like the Social Actions API & WiserEarth API) – to spread this information where it can be most relevant online? Who's figuring out the business & collaboration models so open sharing can be more likely to happen?

Catone's post changes the game because it forces us to look at the green shopping sector as a whole and wonder how we can help take it to the next level.

What do you think? How can we support and leverage this exploding sector to ultimately empower millions of people to shop in ways that create a better environmental & social impact?

Excited for your thoughts!

Rufus Pollock, co-founder of the Open Knowledge Foundation (and Cambridge University economist) talks about the importance of making data and information open and useful to the world.

A discussion with John Wagner and Isaac Holeman from Squarepeg about their vision of a world of de-siloed information that finds its way to the people who want it the most. Followed by a discussion about why there's no good reason that a 21st century start-up shouldn't create social benefit as it creates wealth.

A chat with Nate Ritter (who is awesome) about Twitter, why the government needs to clean up their data, and Giving Anonymously.

Scott Stadum, User Experience Analyst from Idealist.org talks to us about the importance of data portability and shares his vision of a perfectly optimized online network of volunteers.

Steve Wright, Program and Technical Director of the Salesforce.com Foundation talks to us about how social benefit organizations are improving their operations by using Salesforce.com to gather and understand data.