I've been mostly absent for a while due to a set of circumstances comprised of health, family and technology. Which reminded me to post, while I am thinking about it, a comment about backing up.
Do you back up? How often? Surveys say that something like 75% of computer users don't, or don't do it often enough to be effective. Me, I'm a geek. I back up to a separate drive at home, I synchronize my address book and calendar to a file on an online server, and I back up my writing to a thumb drive like the one pictured here, which I keep on my keychain so that when I am done with a writing session at Starbucks or Borders, I can put my work on the drive before I shut down the computer...just in case it won't start up again when I get home!
I use a Mac, so I don't worry much about viruses, though I'll scan things I download, particularly if they're Microsoft documents, as virus-writers love to hack MS products.
Unfortunately, this particular technological issue caught me off guard. The CD/DVD drive in my computer went bad, not bad enough to stop working, but just bad enough to corrupt everything I installed from it to some extent, including the operating system. Corruption I dutifully backed up.
Ooops.
This means my documents are just fine, thank goodness, (though once I reinstalled the word processing software, my formatting went seriously wonky) but I am going to be missing bits and pieces of stuff for a long time. My applications don't work right, so I have to dig up serial numbers (which is one thing I am really bad about keeping track of) so that I can download new copies of the apps and reinstall them. And I don't know what doesn't work until I need it, try it, and find out it's toast.
Ah, the joys of life in the techie age.
Friday, February 8, 2008
It's 10pm, Have You Backed Up Your Computer Today?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
13 comments:
Oh, there is nothing more frustrating than doing what you are supposed to be doing all for nothing! I hope everything finds it's way home soon.
Thanks, Reb, I do, too!
Thanks to a friend of mine, I've been using a ReadyNV+ NAS RAID unit. It's a brilliant piece of engineering and it's not just Mac-friendly, it's Mac-knowledgeable. BTW, if you also have one of the big desktop Macs, their internal drives can be setup in a RAID configuration.
Now for a question: Is your calendar / address book server public or private? If public, which one do you use?
Thanks.
We use an NAS drive at home as well, though I am not familiar with that particular setup.
I use mac.com as a backup server. I back up my "story stuff" folder there, as well as using the built-in setup on the mac to sync my calendar/contacts/sticky notes/bookmarks...
A writing buddy - can't remember who - said she backs up her ms work at the end of each day by sending it to herself in the form of email. (I assume as an attachment.)
My hard drive cratered Friday morning. My writing is fine but I fear that I have lost many of my digital pictures.
Ouch, Travis.
Laura,
This is why I love you--I almost know what you are talking about. I keep meaning to buy a flash drive but don't exactly understand what it does.
I "back up" my writing by making a copy on a floppy and updating it every few days. (I actually had to buy a floppy add-on to do this since my new computer in NY doesn't have floppy drives.)
Terrie
I email all complete manuscripts to myself at yahoo and file them there.
OK, the reason your new computer didn't come with a floppy drive is that floppies have been replaced as storage media. They don't hold a whole lot and they break relatively easily because of the "in-and-out" wear and tear whenever you have to insert or remove one.
The flash drive or thumb drive, like the one in the picture, is essentially the same thing, but it holds a heck of a lot more and it's more rugged. It plugs into the USB port on your computer. It's still not as rugged as, say, one of these, but you can't put one of those big drives on your keychain unless your purse is REALLY big!
Bear in mind any, and eventually all, magnetic media is subject to decay over time, especially floppies. In Florida, leaving floppies in cars caused lots of erased discs! CDs and DVDs have much longer life spans.
Laura and Leigh,
Okay, I get it. I'll buy a flash drive.
I tend to rely on luck in most things. I guess sometimes luck does run out.
Terrie
I think we're going to jump into the new Apple Time Capsule- when it ever launches, of course. Right now we have a sidecar storage for one of our Macs we dump to, and I need to set up the .mac remote. I just like to get it automated and out to various geographical locations.
Terrie- I've also just burned CDs of finished manuscripts and sent them to friends to hold for safety deposit. But floppies, girl? Another friend of mine has had her heart broken by them, and even when she "scaled up" to a SuperDrive, it's now tough to find anyone with the equipment to do a cheap conversion to CD/DVD for her.
Clare -
Time Capsule is available, I think, and we will probably go that route at some point. At the moment, the software that runs Mike's studio isn't Leopard Compatible, so his whole system is all 10.4.9 and not Time Capsule compliant.
Post a Comment