You can read why Emma declared it such here. And Alison could probably use some hugs, since she’s the one whose hard drive crashed, and she lost just about everything except her WIP that’s currently on deadline.

It’s easy to get complacent. I do, because I have 2 computers networked, so I save my data on both when I end work for the night. I usually send a copy of the WIP to an email account or two every night as well. But, according to my IT Guy, I’m supposed to do the following:

1. Get 7 CD/RW’s - label them by the days of the week. Every single night, back up your data on the appropriate disk.

2. Get a big pack of CD/R’s - every single week, do a backup of all data. Label and file appropriately.

3. Set Word to backup your current file every few minutes while you’re working.

This is the method the corporation he works for uses to backup their data. I think, following this method, you’ll never lose more than 12 hours worth of work, even if something’s wrong with one of those CD/RW’s. He said the CD/RW’s can be used over an over again for 6 months to 1 year.

So please, back-up your data. I’m just glad Larissa was able to get her laptop up and running before she evacuated. She saved all her files from her desktop, transfered them to the laptop’s hard drive and saved them on a jump drive as well. Oh, and I got a quick email from her this morning - she and Bryan spent all day yesterday pretty much gutting the house. They ripped out the carpeting, drywall and insulation and they’ve managed to salvage a few things, but mainly, everything’s totally lost. She said they definitely got at least 9 feet of seawater inside the house.

Okay - what are you still doing here? Go back up your files RIGHT NOW.

Steph T.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 10th, 2005 at 7:50 pm and is filed under Writing Process. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.