(no subject)

[noracharles]

My netbook has finally died. Taking backups was so time consuming that I only made sure to back up my most vital files, so now I can't get at all the important but not vital things I had saved. It's a nuisance.

I also miss sitting in the morning sun while reading the news and checking my mail.

Maybe one of those harddisk readers would work? I'll have to ask in the computer store.

So! I now have a dropbox. I wonder why I never bothered to look at it when I first heard about it. Guess I assumed my regular backup methods were sufficient.

In the two years the netbook has been my primary computer, I've done okay. I had a recent backup of all my install files, and of my bookmarks, feeds and contacts, and of important documents of importance to real life. I don't have fanfic, art and vids I had saved to view off line. Most of it I will be able to find again, and what had been taken off the net by the creators I'm not too worried about.

For some strange reason, I never bothered to back up my own fic. I've been writing mostly for the harddisk for years, and had maybe two dozen fics in varying stages of completion. Finished fics I have "backed up" in that they are published, but works in progress I haven't. I feel a bit nostalgic for lost opportunities, but the reason they were works in progress is that I didn't have enough enthusiasm for the idea to finish them, or they were overly ambitious, or I didn't much like what I had written so far. In a way I feel off the hook.

What I miss more than the WIPs are my notes, because some of my story ideas had realistic potential and I have a memory like a sieve for things like that.

Comments

[calvinahobbes]

You are taking it so well! Whenever technology fails around me (which is thankfully not often) I become a seething mass of anger and resentment.

I hope you find a way to recover all the things :o(

[noracharles]

Haha, believe me, if I didn't have my stationary computer I would be very upset. As is, I've had the netbook for a couple of years, and it's been steadily getting worse and worse, starting up slowly and shutting down randomly.

I hope to be able to recover my files, but the computer itself I'm not very sorry to see go. I had my money's worth out of it :-)

[rivkat]

This will not solve your immediate problem, but I can't resist a pitch for Dropbox. Realtime automatic backup when you're connected to the internet; 2 gigs free. It saved my career, at least, when I was having computer issues. Various losses over the years mean that I use both Dropbox and Mozy, which is a nightly full-hard drive backup in the cloud, but Dropbox is definitely more value added.

[noracharles]

Thank you for the tip :-)

I hate to admit it, but I had actually been told about dropbox before, and still neglected to use it!

But I'll be sure to use it from now on. Maybe. If I remember to ;-)

[carolyn_claire]

I've had every computer I use--two laptops and two desktops--fail in the last year, one more than once, the latptops in the last few months. One laptop had Mozy, but I haven't tried to recover from that, yet--I forgot my password, as usual. All of my fic, except for the ones I have in archives, is gone, because my Geocities backups were on one of the laptops. But I do have a Dropbox which saved some really important documents, so I do love that.

[noracharles]

Oh no, that's some awful computer luck you've had! I'm glad you were able to save some of your documents using dropbox.

That's the danger of password security: if we do as we're advised to and use a different and nonsensical password for each account, they're so very hard to remember.

It's a tragic waste that you've lost your fic. Why did geocities and your computers have to fail so close after each other :-(

[blnchflr]

Argh, poor you! Like calvinahobbes says, you're taking it much better than I would have. Do you have a desktop, or how are you communicating?

[noracharles]

Yes, I have my trusty desktop. Con: no morning sun. Pro: comfier chair.

I learned years ago always to back up the truly important things, so while it's a nuisance that the netbook broke, it's not a calamity.

Also today is a very good day.
Updated status on Project of Doom:

ACCOMPLISHED

[blnchflr]

In OT news today I thought of something I was going to ask you for an update on - "how goes it with x?"-something - not the fic, not the unmentionable, but something else. Wonder what it was.

Read the first chap of the fic already, though, *shakes fist*!

(Og så deltog jeg noget spontant i et 10K løb i dag - dvs. jeg opdagede det og meldte mig til tirsdag - og kom ind i en tid, der må ligge omkring 01:05:15 - jeg havde håbet på 01:05:00 eller derunder, men jeg havde bare ingen spurte-power til sidst; jeg var godt brugt. Og jeg havde glemt, hvor latterligt øm i hofteleddene jeg bliver på 10K-distancen, gah! Underlaget var så også beton 95 % af tiden, hvilket selvfølgelig ikke hjalp. Men det er da en PB, så det er jo fedt :oD)

[noracharles]

Det er superflot! Tillykke med din PB :-D
Det lyder meget hårdt (haha) at løbe på så hårdt et underlag 10 km, det var flot du kunne, og så så hurtigt! Bare du ikke er alt for øm de næste par dage.


Jeg skal nok læse den fic du har reccet. Nu hvor jeg er i bedre humør føler jeg mig mere rustet til den. Jeg fik din sms, var det det du ville spørge mig om? Xim siger hun har svaret, og svaret er det samme fra mig, du skal være så velkommen :-D

[blnchflr]

Jeg var meget øm :oD ! Har kun løbet en lille kort tur siden, og ikke cyklet da min cykel blev stjålet (GAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH), og fået nye løbesko, så jeg laver nok ikke en PB på 5K'en i morgen.

Glæder mig stadigt (ja, med t - stadigt, konstant, *g*) til at høre, hvad du synes om den - læs bare første kap.; det er kort.

[noracharles]

Din cykel er blevet stjålet! Åh nej. Det var da utroligt træls D-:

Hvordan skal jeg kunne læse tudefic når jeg snart får min yuletide opgave!?

Og når jeg heller ikke har "Agnete og Havmanden" med Povl Dissing selvom jeg virkelig, virkelig har brug for at høre den lige nu?

[blnchflr]

Ja, det er så fucking træls - den var så god, og kun 3 år gammel :o(((

Nå-ja, Yuletide, så er der vel ikke tid til dens slags frivoliteter.

Jeg har genopdaget "Scooby Road" - Luminosity's vid epos over Buffy/Abby Road, og fået lidt væde i øjenkrogen over den.

[jalendavi_lady]

There are computer cables that can connect a drive to a USB port on another machine. There also needs to be a power cable to the drive.

Dad used his set to get things off my old laptop when it died.

[noracharles]

That sounds promising! I was wondering if there would be a way for me to safely supply power to the harddisk. I'll ask the experts in the store about it, maybe they sell a cable like that.

[jalendavi_lady]

His looks like this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000UO6C5S/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B002HH27YG&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1P4ZJWDEMAGMFRVNPK1Q.

You'll need to know what physical size the disk is and what kind of connector is on it (laptop drives are pretty standard, though). The advantage of that style of cable is that it has both sizes of connector on it, rather than just one of the two, so the cable that can transfer from a laptop drive can also do the same for the larger-sized traditional desktop drives.

[noracharles]

Thank you for the link, very helpful!

That looks a lot like the harddisk readers I've seen on the shelf, except cheaper. It would be very convenient to be able to get at my old data both from the fried netbook and from my old desktop, and I'd even be able to use the old harddisks as extra storage.

[jesse_the_k]

Having also experienced a hard drive crash recently, I found that there was actually something refreshing about it.

(Another DropBox fan: they have clients for Mac, Linux, Windows, many phones).

Then again, my only creative works is inherently transitory (food) or highly tangible (jewelry).

[noracharles]

There really is :-)
It's like a blank slate, almost. Except I used this computer as my main computer before I got the netbook, and I keep looking at my settings and going "What was I thinking?"

But it's been fun tweaking all the settings and making a new desktop wallpaper and installing everything.

Mmm, food. What kind of jewelry do you make?

[noracharles]

There really is :-)
It's like a blank slate, almost. Except I used this computer as my main computer before I got the netbook, and I keep looking at my settings and going "What was I thinking?"

But it's been fun tweaking all the settings and making a new desktop wallpaper and installing everything.

Mmm, food. What kind of jewelry do you make?