You do back up... Don't you?

I've been working with computers for a long time. A very long time. I was in the first class in my school to do any form of IT. We had to take an IQ test to get in -yes I passed - and we're taught about punched cards and BASIC.

Since then, I've taught computing, from spreadsheets to accounts to web design. I train and help people as part of my job and with relation to my writing. About 15 years ago I appeared on Sky TV to discuss online publishing as opposed to traditional methods and around the same time. 

So it's been a while. 

Before my company really had a fully fledged network system, routed through Paris as it now is, my department had a local one and I used to do the nightly backups onto tape. 

Backups. So important, especially in these days where we record so much of our daily lives. There's notes, calendars, photos, documents and so much more. I regularly insist to those I'm helping that they make regularly backups of their data. 

Well, you would, wouldn't you?

Yes indeed. 

Ah. I mean no. Well, it's not so much practice what I preach as do as I say, not as I do. 

Gone are the days of difficulty in saving your data. No more tapes, not even, really, the need for saving to disc - either CD or DVD. Now there's flash memory in the form of memory sticks, and these are getting cheaper for more capacity by the day. There's also the Cloud, an abstract mist of noughts and ones way up in the stratosphere. 

Well it's not really like that, but it's not physical to your PC. It's not plugged into you. It's somewhere out there accessible from pretty much any device you own.

Easy, no?

So whyohwhyohwhy do I not use it?  I have accounts with Skydrive, Google, Bitcasa, the Box and Asus. Gigabytes of virtual filing cabinets. Surely I use it?

You'd think. 

Part of the problem is time. I have so little. Another is that I write on my work computer during my lunch onto my memory stick. I don't have Internet access there, though I do have email. As such, my memory stick has almost everything. Of course my phone has photos and a lot of music. I have a separate hard drive plugged into my home PC with all my albums. But my main, important stuff (other than my family photos, which are important too but in another way) is on my stick. 

And only on my stick

Gutted, was I, when I lost it. As I mention in a previous post, all my writing, covers, part complete stories and the sequel to Sin were on it. 

And it was gone. 

Thanks to Cindy Harper, I managed to recover most of Sin 2. Thanks to Zoe Adams, I hadn't totally lost another important document. But the rest was gone. 

Except, a couple of months ago I actually did back it up to my Skydrive. I bought a new memory stick - 32gb for the price I had paid for 16 previously - and transferred it all to the new one. Phew. All was not totally lost. But then it was burning a hole in my pocket. Like Sin's 2p coin, I was always fiddling in my pocket to check if it was there.

It was, but for how long?

I have a Windows 8 tablet and have the apps for my cloud accounts. I also have an all-in-one app to accommodate most. Unfortunately, with each if these and, in fact, their 'proper' web-based alternatives, you can't upload a complete folder. Or I couldn't figure out how to, at least.

Last night I was almost home alone. My eldest daughter was sleeping out and my wife was on a girls' night out in Leeds so I wouldn't see either until today. My two year old was asleep in bed. 

The perfect time to write, something I need to do.

Except I had this memory stick burning a hole, trying to escape. 

I had no choice. I had to properly back up. So thus began the painstaking and painful task of creating my full directory structure and uploading all my files into each folder. What a nightmare!

But it's done. And hopefully I'll make sure it stays done. I wouldn't bet on it but best intentions and all that. 

Remind me, every so often, would you? Just to make sure?

Losing a limb...

I had my right arm cut off the other day.

 

Not literally, though it was, perchance, as painful.  I felt as if I'd lost a limb.  I felt a twist in my gut and a pull in my heart.

 

No, I hadn't lost my phone.  I can see why you may have thought that.  My phone, nowadays a portable computer giving me social, net and personal contact across the globe, is almost part of me.  Pretty much surgically attached.  But it's debatable whether losing my it would be more or less agonising than losing this... my memory stick.

 

Yes.  I know.  Disastrous.

 

During the day, at work, my memory stick is plugged into my office PC.  At lunch time I'll write a bit, when the chance prevails.  I'll work on the various author interviews that Sin carries out when he hijacks this blog.  My book covers, blurbs, part completed stories and all sorts are stored thereon.

 

You'd think, of course, I'd backup.  Regularly, considering what's at stake.  I have Skydrive, Google drive, Dropbox and others.  Lots of Cloud storage at my disposal.  I've worked with computers for over 30 years.  I tell others to backup all the time.

 

So.

 

Why didn't I?

 

Well, I did, but that was a couple of months ago.  That was before I'd worked on interviews.  That was before I'd written more of Mortal Sin, the sequel to Sin.

 

Do I feel like an idiot?  Yes.  Have I berated myself?  Oh yes.

 

I unplugged the stick from my PC when I left work, as I always do.  I put it in my pocket, yes, like I always do.  But when I went to it later that night, it was gone.  I'd been in my car, but it wasn't there - I checked.  I'd taken my girls to the park, but that was a large area so there was little point in looking there.  It wasn't at home.

 

It also wasn't still poking out of my PC the next morning, as I'd hoped.

 

It was gone, along with everything on it.

 

Thankfully, Cindy Harper, a fan and friend, was the holder of my salvation - or a part of it, at least.  I'd sent her, up until a week or so ago, what I'd written on Mortal Sin.  She sent it back and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  Granted it was only around 10,000 words or so, but it had been written over a couple of years - I'd paused in the story to write Dark Places.  I couldn't reproduce it, so I was hugely relieved when she emailed me the files.

 

The rest, I will have to download from my Skydrive when I get a new stick.  Still, there'll be bits missing.  My blog entries.  A couple of stories I was working on.

 

I could kick myself.  I should.  I should also heed my own advice.  Maybe I will from now on.  If you could email a file direct to your own Skydrive storage, that'd help.  Maybe you can - or to one of the other Cloud storage places - but I don't know how.  I should make the time to find out.

 

So.

 

Backup, people.  Or risk amputation of the most painful kind!

Oh, hopefully you see the relevance of the image up top. Just a little joke from me.  Also, you can see Sin's interview with the aforementioned Cindy Harper here: http://flipandcatch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/cyn-by-any-other-word_29.html. Drop by there as a thanks for saving Sin!