I had great plans to write about my half marathon experience from last weekend. Alas, the logic board died on my computer and it has been sent out for repairs.
This presents an array of problems, most concerning to me is the fact that I'm an idiot and I don't have anything backed up. Saved? Yup--I save my stuff all the time. But that's not the same as backing up. In a separate, safe, accessible location. Lesson learned, but hopefully not the hard way.
So while my computer is at the Apple Doctor's office, I'm using a very old machine for work that doesn't like gmail, blogger, or just about any other site I frequent. I'm trying to stop by some blogs, but bear with me.
I hope to be up and running soon. And I'll have ALL of my files. (*Power of positive thinking.*)
[Seriously, folks: find a way to save your work someplace other than your hard drive. Dropbox, jump drives, gmail accounts, clouds, whatever. Do it. Do not put yourself in the position I am in right now where I am facing a worst case scenario that all of my books are gone. Yes, all of them. If you need me, I'll be over here in the corner with my dummy hat on.]
You tell me: How do you back up your work? Email? Jump drives? Any sites you like? Please share in the comments as this will be my #1 priority when I get my computer back!
UPDATE:
Thank you for all the positive vibes and back up/storage suggestions. I'm so happy to report that I picked up my computer the other day and EVERYTHING IS HERE. Commence happy dance, right there in the middle of the Apple Store. Yup, I'm that girl.
Everything is now safe and secure in both a DropBox account and a jump drive.
This makes me so sad for you :-( I hope all the worrying is for nothing and they get all your data restored. I am crossing all my fingers and toes. It happens to everyone, even people who back up their work.
ReplyDeleteI love Dropbox but I am not as good at remembering to use it as I should be. I do use 2 flash drives, one that stays home and one I carry all over the place with me. So when I come home I do a quick copy paste of the files onto my computer and then onto my other flash drive. Kind of overkill probably, but it's a habit now.
Every few weeks I email changes to my husband to read, so then I also have at least a version in my email box.
I think as long as you've got two very separate locations for backing up your work, you're probably ok. I work on different computers throughout the day, so one of my options has to be a flash drive, but I would like to get used to using Dropbox instead of a second flash drive + computer.
I'm sure you haven't lost anything - don't worry!
ReplyDeleteI have both an external hard drive and a thumb drive. I back things up at least once a month; once a week when I am writing.
Ugh. I feel for ya. Hope it all works out and everything gets salvaged. I usually back up my writing on an e-mail site and sometimes to a flashdrive. You've just reminded me that I should probably double check to see if everything else I need is backed up too.
ReplyDeleteFingers crossed for you! I bet you'll be able to get it all back.
ReplyDeleteAck. That's a scary feeling. I know, 'cause I've been there twice, and luckily had everything recovered.
ReplyDeleteNow I have an external hard drive I back up to every day, DropBox (which I manually back up to once every few days), and just in case, I have another external hard drive I back up to once every few weeks, and also burn a CD or DVD once a month. Which I should really store someplace else.
Thanks everyone for your comments and positive thoughts! Still no word but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. In the meantime, I'm making lemonade and am working on new scenes and rewrites of old ones. I hope to share a sigh of relief soon!
ReplyDeleteThat stinks! Bad computer!! I lost 37 pages of a novel once, it was so upsetting.
ReplyDeleteWe run back-ups each night. I use to save my novels to Google Docs, but after finding out they con publish anything they want that is saved there, my husband told me to get it all off there.
I remember reading a warning about the Google TOS and what they considered "their property" but I didn't know they could publish anything they wanted that was saved on their program. How scary and frankly, how dumb. I wonder if they ever have followed through with that threat...
DeleteAlso--yay for the new book cover! Love it!
Think positive thoughts!
ReplyDeleteI back up to flashdrives, but not as often as I should.
I'll keep my fingers crossed that everything comes back to you.
Besides saving my stuff periodically to an external hard drive, I also email it to myself. Then I can access it from any computer. I've also just saved it to my work hard drive, so I've got it on another computer. Oh, and my laptop.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm paranoid.
Donna, you say paranoid, I say prepared! Once the dust settles, I want to get into a habit of emailing myself the most recent version of what I'm working on. I don't need to send EVERYTHING in my books folder though, so I need to do some file management/house keeping, first.
Deletesorry to hear that happened. I had that happen a few years ago to me too. I do an external drive now but I pretty much only save there once a month...
ReplyDelete