I recently
had a problem with my computer that caused me no end of grief. Grief, in the
fact my password list, WIPs, and more are inaccessible to me because of the
problem with my newest computer, causing me to start over from the beginning
with everything.
There are
many places one can use to save work to access anytime from anywhere, which I
should have done. There is the cloud, memory sticks, CDs, or any type of
removable hardware that allows you to access your hard work in case the
computer crashes.
This post is
to enlighten you to the possible damage which can be caused by a computer glitch
or worse. You could lose everything. From personal experience, I can say that starting
over from scratch sucks.
A memory stick
that plugs into a USB port is cheap compared to the time spent on projects. I
will be using some type of storage device that can be removed from the computer
and stored in a save place so I never lose my work again.
I recommend
anyone working on a book or list of some type spend the money and get at least
a 2 Gigabyte flash card for saving work to make it safe from hackers if you use
the cloud or some online storage site. Personally, I don’t trust my information
to someone I only know as a site and no one behind it.
Please save
your work so you never have to go through what I have been for weeks.
Robert Medak
Freelance
Writer, Editor, Reviewer, and Marketer
Good advice; however, I've discovered that some USB thumb drives are not dependable. I now have a 1 TB external hard drive that is small and portable. I use it.
ReplyDeleteGood for you, Vivian. I plan on having a backup to my backup.
DeleteExcellent advice, which we all would do well to heed.
ReplyDeleteAnd also, make sure that your backup copy is good and you are able to upload it.
As a professional computer software engineer who has been in the field for many years (many, many), I have a large collection of data disaster stories, some of them problems at the places where I've worked. One of them was a major New York bank.
No one is immune to this. Back up your work. Save it somewhere that's NOT on your computer.
Margaret, computers are great when they are working at 100%. But they can mess things up big time when something fails.
DeleteDropbox or google docs are good places for backups. At least you can access them from any computer.
ReplyDeletemood
Moody Writing
Mooderino, those are good, but I have a problem with putting my work on a site where someone might have access to it other than me.
DeleteI just went through a hard drive replacement, myself. Luckily, my data wasn't lost, but I had to reinstall everything, and I cried more than once fearing the worst ...
ReplyDeleteFlash cards are good, I would also encript-zip your writing files and email them to you, so they are available for you to download if, say, you laptop and your usb stick were burned together in a fire.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear of your trouble, Bob. We back up the server in our house every night. We have too much information we don't want to lose to take the risk. My hubby also has it set up so that we back up remotely to http://mozy.com/ on a regular basis. That way, if we ever had a fire or a natural disaster we would still have access to our data. Can you tell I married a computer guy? :)
ReplyDeleteI have an external hard drive that automatically backs up. (Remind self to check it.) I also email my files to myself so they're on AOL Most of them I keep on my lap top as well as my desktop. Thanks for the reminder.
ReplyDeleteI too have horror stories of losing work. And, I've had two zip drives fail. I use dropbox and a zip drive. I'll also be getting another offsite backup like Carbonite.
ReplyDelete