A New Year Reminder: Back Up Your Material!
Hello all,
Greetings from a snowy Southeast USA. I love having a desk near a window. I can look outside and see fat white flakes falling past dark green pine needles and woodsy clusters of trees and think “Aaaahhhhh. Relief.”
Of course, I wouldn’t be thinking that if it weren’t for my jump-drive. Or flash drive. Or whatever you want to call those little things – the external drives where you can keep your important documents so as to back them up and be able to access them from any USB port.
Why?
Because my computer has decided to die yet again. It’s been ill lately; my neighbor who works wonders for the price of beer (Note: this is a great thing) had given it some updates the last time it fell ill, and unfortunately, it has come closer to dying again.
Sooooooo…
1. Yes I’ll be talking to the neighbor once more, and picking up his favorite brew.
2. I’m looking into another laptop because mine is old anyway.
3. I am not pulling my hair out because I had everything backed up. I even had my recent novel changes on a jump drive.
The solution? I am borrowing hubby’s laptop and plugging in my jump drive into his USB port. Voila! Instant material, like it never left me. I even got some writing done today.
It may sound simple, but trust me. Take the time. Back your stuff up. On CD, a jump drive, anything. It’s handy on a jump drive b/c then you can easily work off of another machine. But definitely back your stuff up! I have been able to get some things done today because I didn’t lose any recent changes.
My high school English teacher used to say, “Stupidity won’t kill you, but it sure can make you sweat!”
True. So don’t sweat. Back your stuff up and keep on plugging…
Elaine
Amen! I learned that lesson the hard way years (and laptops) ago but now I do the back up out of habit. Pretty darn good habit I’d say. I think its a no-brainer now.
~Sherry (poetphoenix on twitter)
I have a friend that tells me I’m an idiot because I have only one jump drive that I back everything up onto….as she says “What if you lose the jumpdrive?”
She’s right you know: 3 times over the last 6 months I’ve had to go, on a Saturday morning, to the classroom where I last taught, to get my jumpdrive out of the instructor computer. Since I have my name and phone number pasted on the jump drive, you would think that some other instructor would be nice and call me to let me know I left it behind, but no, no one ever has.