Actually, baby (AKA moi) only had partial backup … for my computer, that is.
And that was, staying on the slightly dated musical reference point
here, a real pain in the backside when, a couple of
weeks ago, my computer decided it had had enough.
Yep, on June 2, after running its weekly system virus scan, my machine crashed.
I knew it was coming. Even though the thing is only about 18 months
old, it had been making a disturbing noise for the last month or so.
The sound was bad enough that only the week before I had mentioned to
the hubby that I needed to look into a full system backup program. Just
in case.
Unfortunately, I neglected my prescience and didn’t get around to it in time.
So I’m sitting here that Friday night, panicking because my PC had gone
into a coma. I rebooted and rebooted, but with only partial success. I
eventually managed to get it to reveal my desktop icons, but I couldn’t
get any of them to open.
I called Dell, where we still had a service contract in force. And
after trying a few more rebootings and hitting F8 and F12 keys and me
uttering a few F things, the guy told me that my hard drive had crashed. Duh!
Long story short — really! — I got a new hard drive the next week and
a local PC place was able to salvage all of my documents. That was a
great relief. I had been backing them up to a flash drive, but not as
regularly as I should have. My latest backup batch was April 25.
But
Congress had passed a new tax bill in mid-May, meaning all the data I’d
collected on that and stored on my PC was, at least temporarily,
inaccessible.
And since it was only Word and Excel and PDF files I’d saved to the
portable drive, I had to reload all my software programs, which led to
more of that posterior pain I mentioned.
You know how it is. You get your computer set up with special little
tweaks and shortcuts and you’re comfortable with everything. Then when
they disappear, you have to recreate them or worse, find that the new
software now on your machine won’t let you do things the same way the
old one you liked so much did.
Better backups: So I am going to get a backup program to store all the
computer recreations I’m still working on. And actually, my delay in
getting one before my PC blew up may turn out to be a blessing in
disguise.
Last week, New York Times tech columnist, David Pogue, wrote about a new
flash drive that hints at "a future where we could abandon not only the
heartache of hard-drive failure, but even the expense, frustration and
obsolescence of PC ownership. … [Where] we’ll store our entire digital
worlds onto cheap 160-gigabyte flash drives … jack into public computer
terminals everywhere we go — taxis, restaurants, airplane tray tables
— and pick right up where we left off."
That future, Pogue says, arrives in July when Lexar PowerToGo software, licensed by Ceedo
Personal, "will turn a flash drive into a portable Windows XP
ecosystem, meaning that you can jack into anybody’s PC anywhere and
find yourself — and your software tools — right at home."
Ceedo has figured out how to get your Windows installer, the thing that
runs your programs, on a flash drive so that you can take your entire
PC with you in the tiny package and operate your PC on any PC — one at
a Kinko’s, in an airport waiting lounge or at a friend’s house. You can
read Pogue’s full explanation here (registration required).
And you can find me at an electronics retailer next month buying a Lexar flash drive.
A computer in every room: The new flash backup system will be a nice
complement to the laptop I bought when my PC crashed. I know, my PC was
only down for about a week, but since you’re reading this I suspect you
are as computer addicted as I.
My dependence on my PC has gotten even worse since I started working
for myself. All my business contact, contract, job specifics, billing
and background information was and is once again on my PC. Plus, I now
have the blog that calls for my constant attention! So I had to have
another machine.
The hubby offered to let me use his, but sharing computers is like
sharing a closet or a bathroom, i.e., nigh impossible. Plus, he uses
his computer for work, too, so that meant I would have to wait until
he’s done for the day and he’s almost as connected to his laptop as I
am to my PC.
Oh, I did give sharing a shot. After being without my PC for about six
hours, I crept into the hubby’s office after he went to bed. Sitting
there with the laptop’s screen as my only light — didn’t want to
interrupt his beauty sleep, you know — I managed to get some stuff
done. But I knew it wasn’t going to work.
That was confirmed the next
morning when hubby, trying not to freak out, asked me what I did to one
of his settings. We got his machine switched back to the parameters he prefers and
headed to Best Buy for my new laptop.
The laptop definitely was not a planned expense. In fact, it blew my June budget all to pieces and right there at the beginning of the month. But I think in the
long run it will be worth it.
It already saved my sanity and probably
my marriage during the PC down time. It also will be a good emergency and backup (though not in this sense again, I hope!) machine and something we can take when we travel.
And since it was purchased for work purposes, I can write off
the sucker on my 2006 taxes. It’s what’s known as a Section 179
expense, the portion of the tax code that allows businesses to
immediately deduct some 
equipment purchases in the tax year they were
bought instead of depreciating them over the equipment’s entire
business-use life. You can read more about §179 and recent enhancements
to it via those aforementioned May tax law changes here.
And please, to paraphrase the advice Keith Mars always gives his
computer whiz kid Veronica:
Always make a system backup!
"Backup" T-shirt image courtesy of Glarkware
