Computers AGH!

I've had a painful reminder this past weekend--back up your data!

I'd known my computer was having problems. It would suddenly shut down in the middle of typing. The power switch wouldn't respond at all when I pushed it. But with a hard whack on its top it usually responded. Eventually we took the side panel off and kept a small fan blowing on it to keep it from overheating, even though its own internal fans were working just fine. That seemed to do the trick. My husband brought the compressor in to blow out any stray dust. But with each sudden shut down we knew its days were numbered.

It was time to order another. The new computer came just in time. The old one stopped responding to life support over the weekend, but my assumption that I'd have time to transfer data between machines was unfounded. Now I have to recreate several book proposals I'd been working on, reenter hundreds of contacts in my Outlook contacts list, including newsletter recipients. Thankfully I had printed that information out, albeit two months ago.

You'd think I would learn this lesson. It's happened several times before. Maybe it's the optimist in me, thinking everything will be okay. But this time I'm making a promise, and I'm relying on you to hold me to it. I'm putting my database in a "safe" location, not only on my hard drive. I'm copying proposals to disks. I am going to learn, this time!

Honest,
Traci