Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Accidents Happen

Which is why you should always have a current backup of your work somewhere. Email. Check. (At least, with some documents.) Flash drive. Check. Internet storage such as Dropbox. Will do. Once I get home and get my new, non-fried computer. (Keep reading.) And the good ol' hard copy. Check. (Though, they may not all be the most current versions.)

Why am I reminding you of this? You've heard it a million times, right? I mean, come on, Brooke, even you're getting tired of hearing it.

Because accidents happen.

As I mentioned previously, I'm currently visiting my out-of-state grandparents. Yesterday, I was talking to my mom on the phone when she informed me my computer has officially fried.

Give that a moment to sink in. My. Computer. Fried.

My mother plugged a flash drive into one of the front USB ports, forgetting they don't work. Usually, nothing happens. But oh, not this time. This time it sent a power surge through my computer. Ctrl+Alt+Del was not going to fix that bad boy. So my parents unplugged it. And it now refuses to power back on.

What did I tell you? Accidents happen.

Luckily, my dad thinks the hard drive is still good. And if it isn't, I uploaded current versions of all my writing documents onto my flash drive before I left. We also have computer insurance (I didn't even know that existed let alone that we had it. Guess someone told my mom accidents happen.) which will buy me a new computer.

This accident didn't turn out so bad. Hey, I'm even going to have a computer with working front USB ports. But that doesn't mean the next one won't. Or that yours won't.

So backup your work. Now. Twice. Naw. Four times.

12 comments:

  1. Good reminder. I'm going to backup my blog right now! Haven't done that in a few weeks.

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    1. Oooh... blog backing up. Yeah... I've never figured out how to do that.

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  2. Ahhhh! So sorry, but glad you backed up before leaving. I'm going to back up again right now. ;)

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  3. Excellent advice. I'm sorry you are having computer issues. I read your review and love it Brooke! Thank you so much for taking the time :) May all your writing come smooth and be retrievable.

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    1. Ah, I'm glad to hear it, Michael. I added a paragraph today about Kathy's arm. I forgot about it last night when I was typing up the review. And I wish you the same.

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  4. Wow that's terrible luck about your computer, but I'm thrilled that you backed everything up.

    Once though, I lost 40k words WHILE backing them up. I wanted to hunt down the idiot who wrote the writing program I'd trusted with my work. :-(

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    1. Yes, I've seen you talking about it on your blog. That would indeed be terrible. I think I might have cried. For an hour. Or two.

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  5. Ooh, how scary. I'm glad you have backups and backup backups. May your new computer be a good one.

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  6. Ah! Leave it to Brooke to remember to back it all up. I was actually just thinking about this! If this sucker decides to give out, all those embarrassing poems I wrote when I first met you are going to be gone forever. . . And I guess I should be concerned about my current stuff, too. xD

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    1. lol But I'm glad you value the "embarassing" stuff, too. Personally, I liked that stuff. And it's good to value how hard you've worked to get to where you are now. So go back up your stuff!

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  7. I was prepared to give my condolences, but wow, you were prepared. Several years ago in the age of typewriters, the prolific writer Dean Wesley Smith had a house fire. The only manuscript saved was one that happened to be in a metal box.

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    1. Oh my gosh. 0-0 I always have that fear that my house is going to burn down and destroy everything! Now I have a reason. I'm keeping everything in metal boxes from now on!

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