*Beep, Beep, Beep* - Backing Up: It isn't just for trucks any more
I am going to be the first to admit, it could have been much, much worse. I know of people who have had their laptops and back-ups stolen (do not keep your external hard drive in the same bag as your laptop). I know of people whose laptops (Macs at that) have died irretrievably, right before they were to give a lecture.
All the same, it has been a tough week. The laptop that my daughter used for four years of college, that I had used as my back-up until my four-year-old Dell died sometime in the late winter, that I knew had a limited life-span, and for which I had ordered a replacement days earlier, died.
We were traveling. I had done a day's solid work planning revisions, and writing about 650 words on those revisions. I had coordinated my full semester's bibliography and had interfiled the entries with the running full bibliography I keep as part of the MFA. Why I did not send it to Dropbox, I will never know. It was late, I was tired. I shut down the computer and went to bed.
The next morning the computer would not boot. We traveled on. I enjoyed our trip, reconnecting with my husband's college classmates and with a cousin who lives in Maine. The suspense built until I got home and could take the laptop to the shop.
The guys at the shop are good. I've used them before. They are my go-tos. They said, we should have it for you tomorrow. That was Tuesday. Wednesday, when I got back from having MS Office installed on my computer (a valuable perk of being an adjunct), there was no phone message. Thursday, when I stopped by to drop off a larger storage device, they told me the hard drive had failed. They hadn't given up. Knowing them, they won't until they've explored every possible alley and secret passage.
I, on the other hand, have gone into mourning. I'm not blaming the laptop. It was six years old, it had survived having water spilled over the keyboard its first semester, several cord issues, and a year being plugged into a converter so it could handle European current. I knew it was going to go. I had planned to spend this last week transferring everything in an orderly fashion to the external hard drive and to the new computer. I planned to dive, refreshed, into more revisions and to get to know Scrivener so I'd be ready to use it for the new project I'm planning.
The bibliographies have been recreated. The 650 words will be rewritten and will most likely be better than the ones that were lost. All the same, I have lost some things I treasured--some very special emails, and, most of all, the writing momentum I had.
Rather than diving back into THREE MINUTES THIRTY, I had to wait until I had the software installed, then see what I had for working drafts (I had definitely backed that up, and valiantly). I had to install all those indispensable programs on the new computer (Tweetdeck, Firefox, iTunes, Adobe Reader). It all ate time and took energy. It wasn't until last night that I could really sit down and absorb my advisor's feedback on my last packet and enjoy the praise and think about how I could incorporate the questions and issues she raised (99 percent of them valid).
But before I wade back into the waters of revision, I have three words of advice:
BACK IT UP!
Ideally, in the "cloud" and on an external thumb drive. Do it every day. And if it is super-ooper-duper important, print it out.
If you have a tale of technology woe, feel free to share it. Misery does love company.
All the same, it has been a tough week. The laptop that my daughter used for four years of college, that I had used as my back-up until my four-year-old Dell died sometime in the late winter, that I knew had a limited life-span, and for which I had ordered a replacement days earlier, died.
We were traveling. I had done a day's solid work planning revisions, and writing about 650 words on those revisions. I had coordinated my full semester's bibliography and had interfiled the entries with the running full bibliography I keep as part of the MFA. Why I did not send it to Dropbox, I will never know. It was late, I was tired. I shut down the computer and went to bed.
The next morning the computer would not boot. We traveled on. I enjoyed our trip, reconnecting with my husband's college classmates and with a cousin who lives in Maine. The suspense built until I got home and could take the laptop to the shop.
The guys at the shop are good. I've used them before. They are my go-tos. They said, we should have it for you tomorrow. That was Tuesday. Wednesday, when I got back from having MS Office installed on my computer (a valuable perk of being an adjunct), there was no phone message. Thursday, when I stopped by to drop off a larger storage device, they told me the hard drive had failed. They hadn't given up. Knowing them, they won't until they've explored every possible alley and secret passage.
I, on the other hand, have gone into mourning. I'm not blaming the laptop. It was six years old, it had survived having water spilled over the keyboard its first semester, several cord issues, and a year being plugged into a converter so it could handle European current. I knew it was going to go. I had planned to spend this last week transferring everything in an orderly fashion to the external hard drive and to the new computer. I planned to dive, refreshed, into more revisions and to get to know Scrivener so I'd be ready to use it for the new project I'm planning.
The bibliographies have been recreated. The 650 words will be rewritten and will most likely be better than the ones that were lost. All the same, I have lost some things I treasured--some very special emails, and, most of all, the writing momentum I had.
Rather than diving back into THREE MINUTES THIRTY, I had to wait until I had the software installed, then see what I had for working drafts (I had definitely backed that up, and valiantly). I had to install all those indispensable programs on the new computer (Tweetdeck, Firefox, iTunes, Adobe Reader). It all ate time and took energy. It wasn't until last night that I could really sit down and absorb my advisor's feedback on my last packet and enjoy the praise and think about how I could incorporate the questions and issues she raised (99 percent of them valid).
But before I wade back into the waters of revision, I have three words of advice:
BACK IT UP!
Ideally, in the "cloud" and on an external thumb drive. Do it every day. And if it is super-ooper-duper important, print it out.
If you have a tale of technology woe, feel free to share it. Misery does love company.