in the IT business for 13 years...countless amounts of user data...not following basic best practice principles to have an off-site back up and subsequent redundant tape or NAS...priceless Sorry to all those who lost their data and to Avsim but this is a perfect example of IT administration FAIL, I suspect the IT manager lost his/her job pronto

I would suggest getting involved in some open source projects, its great experience and allows you to find out what kind of programmer you will really be and what interests you!