Southern Fried Chicas

So… I wrote this article for my chapter newsletter this month–but seeing how my kids crashed (and is as of yet unrecoverable) their computer this weekend it, I thought it prudent to post…

Okay, now that I have you attention, when was the last time you backed up your work? If you have to stop and think that was *way* too long ago and you’re taking a huge chance with something you more than likely hold dear. Trust me, I know. A few years ago—I will admit I am not the most tech savvy person, but I did have a 32MB flash drive and CD/RW, but I seldom used either—I lost my computer. The hard drive crashed and locked away everything. I did have a few 3 ½ floppy disc but half of them were so old the work was not complete and the one—I stress the word ONE—CD I had w/ my work turned out to be corrupt (i.e. it made a shiny coaster and nothing more). I didn’t have hard copies of anything—I was trying to save paper. Oh how I cried, and cried. I got to start from scratch on many a project. I wished I had listened to those who warned me and backed up my work.

What do I mean by back up? (you’d be surprised that some folks don’t think about this much) Some place other than your computer that you store any and everything you want to keep in the event your computer has a melt down.

After having my desktop computer crash you’d think I learned my lesson when I bought my shiny, new laptop. You’d be wrong. I had the computer a little over a month and had to turn it over to the Geeky dudes for repair, my memory failed. Not mine—well I guess actually it did since I hadn’t backed up my work again—the computer’s memory. As I am handing it over they suggest I purchase some sort of device to move everything over otherwise when they got done I’d have the same thing as the day I brought it home from the store. I *ran* to the department that carried the external hard drives and grabbed the first one I came to and *ran* back to the geeky desk. All was not lost—but all was expensive to get them to move it off—around $100 I think. It was another $60 to get them to put it back on—and it still cost the price of the external either way. Had I had it from the start, I’d be $160 richer—okay really only $100, I wasn’t going to pay the $60 to get it back on the computer—I figured it out just fine by myself. Thankyouverymuch.

Had I backed up at all, I would have saved myself a huge headache. I didn’t lose anything writing-wise, but I lost time and money.

Now, I have many, many ways I back up regularly—it might be overkill, but I don’t care. I have a yahoo group (okay 5) that I created just for me that is private where I can store documents. I have a 4 G thumb drive (okay 4—but 3 are MBs not even Gs) that I use once a week or after a long writing stretch. I have an external hard drive that I update once a month. AND I e-mail myself. I have several domains and they each have e-mail addys. One, with 1 G of memory, is set up, just to receive and store back up documents. Yep, that’s right. I e-mail myself the documents and about once a month go in and clean out the box to keep only the most recent version. I told you it was overkill, but truly I have great trepidation of losing my work. Oh, and I do print work from time to time—it helps with edits, too.

And it’s not just writing. Ask me how hard it is to coordinate a contest for 60+ authors and 30+ judges when your computer crashes and ALL the scores are at the mercy of the geeky dudes to retrieve it. Rolls and rolls of Tums may need to be purchased with the geeky services.

There are also many online back up storage sites. I’m sure I’m leaving out a couple of great ways to have extra copies, but you get the idea here. There is no reason not to back up your work regularly. This is your creation; your artistic blood, umbrella wielding sweat and paper cut induced tears put into a labor of love. Don’t you want to make sure it’s always there (unless *you* want to delete it)?

Carbonite Online Back up as low as $55 a year

Yahoo groups; free but it is yahoo so you get what you pay for.

*External Hard Drives: Seagate for $79.99
                                          Western Digital for $109.99

*Flash drives: Kodak 2 G $14.99
                        Geek Squad 8 G for $43.99

* note: for the external hard drive and flash drives this was one quick search and only on Best Buy—you can find all sorts of products at varying price ranges at any place that sells computer accessories. I do not endorse one product or store over another.