Oh no, not again. (original) (raw)
footpad extrinsically depressed
May 10 2008, 12:39
If reading this post makes you feel safe and smug then it's not addressed to you.
To everyone else:
One day your computer is going to break, probably without warning. You can't tell when it'll happen. Computers don't get old and decrepit like people or cars. One day they just die. It could happen tomorrow, or you might be good for the next ten years. It might be fixable, or it might be a total write-off. But understand this: sooner or later your computer WILL break and you WILL lose everything saved on it.
How many years of effort will that cost you?
Please, please, please, back up your important files. Just find the things you spent days or months working on, and save another copy of them somewhere. It doesn't matter where—anywhere that's not on your computer will do. Burn them to a CD. Stick 'em on a USB thumb drive and keep it on a shelf. Shell out a fistful of dollars on an online backup service like iBackup (maybe there's something cheaper too). Arrange to swap your work with a friend, each keeping copies of the other's stuff.
How you do it is up to you. But whatever you do, make sure you have spare copies somewhere. Because entrusting everything to your computer is like keeping your portfolio under a leaky roof. It's just a question of when the rain will come.
And us poor geeks are so, so tired of seeing all that lost and ruined work.
If this post makes you feel unsafe, then good: you are. If you need advice then you are welcome to ask.