I had a bit of an argument with my computer last night. It was naughty and not behaving the way it was suppose to and I was frustrated and tired. So I put it in time out for the night and rebooted it this morning. Usually works.
Being OG (Original Geek) and a software engineer, you could probably believe how many times I am called for help especially when something important is lost. A lot of the times I can recover at least some of the documents and files, even if the computer is dead. The best way though is when people are smart enough to have backups.
Everyone needs to back up their life, especially something that you pour yourself into like writing. It doesn’t matter the medium you use. Paper is just as vulnerable as software.
You may be saying to yourself right now “Ha, I am good at backing my files up.” But did you know you need to have layers of backup?
For example, say you are writing in MS Word. You kneed to set the program up to do automatic backups. If you are working in google docs, they automatically back the file up for you as does Scrivener. But then you need to back your computer up. What if your computer crashes and you don’t have my number? Or someone steals your notebook? Or the dog pees all over your papers?
There are a lot of good programs out there that you can use that will automatically back up your computers. The best ones will do one large backup and then only update the changes made. They run a little lighter on your machine so you don’t even realize they are there. I used to recommend Crashplan but they just announced that they are changing their model to more enterprise businesses so I will have to get back to you on what I will use next.
But here is the really important important bit. You need to check to make sure your backups are actually working, and that you can get to them. Before you need to.
Because it would be really horrible if your eight volume master writing that was going to make you famous completely dissipated into the either along with all your family photos.
Have a good day!
Paula