2006 Story Set
| Date: October 2006 Published: Silicon Valley Romance Writer's of America Newsletter October 2006 (Volume 10 Issue 7) pg 10-12 No one (not living in a closet) has missed the MAC vs. PC ads. The poor PC, hiding from viruses, in a cast from falling off a desk, in pieces waiting assembly, spoofing the lack of creative art packages for the PC, and others - they have become cult favorites. What they have not yet exploited is the different philosophy in selecting hard drives. And there is a difference. Low-end PCs have traditionally chosen lower-cost (read inferior) hard drives to keep the price low. This is called false economy. (High-end PCs are a little more stable. My $3,000.00 Toshiba has been doing great. Older systems, owever....) PC hard drives will, eventually, crash. This is inevitable Oh, they may need a reboot periodically (recommended to be done once a week, even Apple recommends you do that), but I mean the ugly, unrecoverable crash. The one where the entire text of your latest novel, its research, its plot files, its character studies, et al, is lost forever in bit-hell. Along with photos of the family dog and all your tax information. Who all isn't storing all those digital family photos on their hard drive these days? Resuscitation is impossible. Data-recovery is expensive. And not completely successful. Sometimes----- data is just lost. It all depends on the actual mechanism of the "crash". If you run without Norton or McAfee virus protection, Spyware protection, and a firewall, the crash could be due to a bad bug that wiped your hard drive. MACs OS has a firewall. Norton has a firewall. (The firewall has to be turned ON, and the virus and spyware programs auto-updated.) So ---just how do you protect yourself? Forewarned is forearmed. As part of my job, I am actually training design engineers on this very thing. DESIGN ENGINEERS, who use the computer as a tool, don't know a thing about it and make all kinds of assumptions about how secure their data is. Just like us. Here's how to stay safe. Rule 1: NEVER run WORD without auto-save ON Tools > Options > Save tab * Select "Always create back-up copy" * "Save AutoRecovery info every:" and choose 5-10 minutes Many people ASSUME it is AUTOMATIC. Nope. Do NOT choose "Fast Save". Auto-Save can save you from too much pain should your system hang-up and need a reboot, or when WORD suddenly "finds an internal error and needs to close" as it often does. (Did it while I was writing this. Something about bullets sends it into a frenzy. Bad Mommy! Forgot to hit ctl-s first! But I HAD set back-up.) Rule 2: NEVER run WORD without backup ON Same control tab This backup will be in the SAME DIRECTORY as the working file. It will be on the same drive (C:). But it could save your skin if you do a global replace and don't recover your wits fast enough. If you do not see "Backup of Another thing to note, WORD sometimes leaves little temp files running around. They should go away when you close word. You can just ignore them, or, if WORD is closed, trash them. WORD has trouble with garbage-collection and clean-up routines. It's a PC thing. Rule 3: Learn ctl-s and use that command often, even with Auto-Save ON. I teach the guys that you should hit save whenever you have done something you do not want to have to do again. In our case, when we write something brilliant. You would be amazed at the people (like Vice-Presidents) who write huge 50-page fancy PowerPoint presentations, slave over them for hours, never, ever hit a save command (menu or ctl-s), and then have their system crash. If they never saved, we cannot help them. (I try not to be the person who has to explain that to them. I did that once. They turn red and sputter. You run and update your resume.) If you have saved, and you can reboot, you can rescue most of your file. In fact, sometimes WORD (or PowerPoint or Excel) "repairs" a file. (Handle that trick with care.) This is a case for the auto-backup file. Sometimes, knowing WORD as well as I do, I put a 1 or 2 at the end of the filename and save a file twice, even on the same drive. If it is a large file, a complex file, a precious file. Saved myself many times doing that. Rule 4: Use Remote (off-site) Back-Up. Remote back-up means back-up files located outside your C: drive and outside of your house. You are not just preparing for a system crash. You are also preparing for computer theft, a house fire, flood or a freak tornado. Or violent ex-husband. If you have a second hard drive, very good. (I use three computers, copy back and forth. I often plug in a second drive, mirror my main drive, unplug it and store the thing elsewhere, but then, I am paranoid.) A second hard drive - unless you unplug it and take it someplace bedsides your house, is NOT remote back-up. It will, however, if you mirror your C: drive, OS, programs and all, allow you to boot when the C: drive crashes, and keep on running. (A "mirror" is an exact copy. A second drive can mirror the first, or not. A server site is often mirrored on a site geographically thousands of miles away.) If you have server space outside your house, you can store files on the server. (I have multiple websites, so I have 150MB storage in Arizona, at least, I think it's in Arizona.) This is called off-site storage. This is perfect. Server farms run daily transaction (change) back-ups and weekly (at least) full dumps. They can recover. You must routinely update the copy stored there if it is a work-in-progress. You can make a DVD and put all your writing on one. A DVD holds a lot of pages on a side - depending on the format - but DVDs change format on occasion. I am moving G4 DVDs to G5 DVDs. Ugh. And here comes a new format lurking in the wings. CDs, Zip disks, etc., also suffer changing formats over time. But it is useful if you keep up with things, and change media over in a timely manner when necessary. If you are storing photos, put them on their own DVDs. Keep your writing separate. By the way, do NOT use funky CDs like the square ones, the rectangles, or the small circles. Most newer computers cannot load them. They do not use CD trays. Also, don't leap at new technology immediately until it is determined it will stay around. Let the geeks run and debug it. (I use that rule on operating system updates too.) The DVDs (CDs, Zip disks) need to be removed from your house to be considered remote storage. A handy thing is to take them to work, if you have a desk there, and store them in a locked drawer. This is also called off-site storage. Some people email to friends and family. Fine, if they NEVER erase their emails. Or people mail it to themselves. This is NOT off-site storage. This is just another form of backup on the same drive. USB devices: Those cute slim things that can hold 1-2GBytes and fit in your purse. First, get a long tether so you don't loose it. Second, it also has to be taken off-site. I take mine in my purse. (SanDisk makes the Cruiser - 2Gigs, about $120. I work for SanDisk.) USB devices are remote or off-site storage only if taken from the house. Also, these devices are NOT designed for long-term storage. They are designed for file transfer. They will DEGRADE over time. So, don't think you can keep one loaded for months and months. You could be very unhappy. Back-Up: How Often?* Autosave - constant* Auto-Backup - Constant (and check it is doing this for your files, each file.) * Second drive, DVD, or other device for storage other than the C: drive - at least weekly or when you have something precious * Off-site storage - monthly or whenever you have something precious * Hard copy - keep a file for your writing. Like finished novels. Tax records. If push comes to shove, you can have it re-typed. (This is rather drastic these days, but us older folks... .) The rule I use? Save it off-site if you can't bear the thought of losing it. And update that copy! |
www.Donnamaie.com my home page
Main Story Index (top-level current year)
WhitePubs.com (Technical Textbook/Reference book publisher)
eBooks-n-Stuff (Fiction eBooks - under construction)
Jettison Saga (Jettison - Hellsfire - Kali's Song)
The Naked Housewife (Americanized Bridget Jones) (watch your typing )
Fabio International Fan Club (also see the Yahoo group)
Manta's Media My late son's pages and artwork
Copyright 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000-1984 Donnamaie
E.White.
Material may not be reproduced without written permission of the author.
For information about this file or to report problems in its use email donnamaie@sbcglobal.net