Your idea about writing blogs and such ahead of time is a really good one. I’m going to have to put that to use next time my workload slows down.

As far as computer crashes, thumb drives save my sanity often. I had one laptop’s motherboard (which to me sounded too close to being a mothership) melt down suddenly and another fade out slowly like yours. Both times I had to take my hard drive to a tech friend to get my files back, because I hadn’t backed anything up. Now I use the thumb drive before I shut down each day.

But at least when I go out to get another one, I know why my wife is rolling her eyes at me (usually I don’t know the reason).

Our local library has internet, but they limit the amount of time you can spend on any of the computer stations, so there’s no point in wasting the gas. In these cases, I simply call the people I write for, tell them what’s happened, and usually I’m far enough ahead on deadlines that it doesn’t matter if I lose a day.

I back up my projects, but there are other files that it’s difficult to lose. I had to reformat my hard drive once and thought I’d backed up thoroughly, but it turned out I’d lost some old emails that I wished I could refer to later.

As to preplanning my blogs…boy, I really need to do that. Ideally, I want to update my author’s blog weekly, and it’s just not happening. I’ve got all kinds of resistance to updating it regularly.

What does Mozy.com cost?

On top of that, my laptop is networked to my desktop so that all the files are on my desktop computer. Since I have all my eggs in one basket (all my files in one place), I signed up for Mozy.com, which backs up my files for me on their servers once a week for an unlimited amount of space. They not only back up the files but encrypt them so that prying eyes cannot be nosy.

I second backing up your data and having battery packs on hand. I have been in Information Technology for over 12 years and I have seen even the newest of computers meet a horrible and quick death – taking with them the most priceless of documents.

But if dealing with floods, like many in the Midwest are (I just got done taking care of some minor seepage in the crawlspace — other floodproofing has already cost me $10,000 in last several years), an online solution is best because it’s stored remotely. Security is better for these files than it used to be.

There’s still a place for pencils and paper in my arsenal of writing tools; I started freelancing while at endless baseball practices in a WV county famous for its lack of Internet and cell phone coverage.

It happened to me so many times already. It’s especially hard since I only have a desktop so when the lights are out, my business is also is.

There were also times when my DSL provider is down and I had to hussle in the dead of the night to find an open internet cafe.

As for Internet access, I have both DSL and wireless access, so when one fails I use another. Many of the restaurants in the city also offer WiFi spots + there are a number of Internet cafes operating in my suburb. So access isn’t a problem.

Then last summer, my laptop fan died and I had to send my computer back to the manufacturer. It’s my main machine, but thankfully I still had my old laptop (500 MhZ!) to use as a backup.

I also have a large jump drive (4 GB) that I use to back up my work frequently.

I live three miles from a college with wireless connection that I’ll also be attending, effective tomorrow. If I go ten miles from my house, there’s anther wireless college that I attended for the past two years. I live in a cozy little suburb—retirement home capital of my state—one street from the boundary of a decent-sized (read: rapidly-growing) city. I live smack between two libraries and a few more miles out from my city’s main one.

So if anything goes wrong, I have a lot of places to try if one of my many friends can’t help.

Sharon Hurley Hall
About your often-down service, do you keep track of the downtime to have that taken off your bill?

Power spikes can kill your computer, while smaller power fluctuations can kill it slowly. Always run power to a backup battery, then to a computer.

Have backup offices like coffee shops. No, you can’t be as efficient, but at least you have a backup plan. I like Kris’ idea of a network of friends. Doesn’t work for me because friends aren’t close enough geographically.

Consider joining a Chamber of Commerce, which might have offices with Internet hookups that they’ll let members use at a low rate. I did this for three days before buying a generator in 98.

As for backups, there are also Web-based backups for a low price. If you back up to a hard drive or USB, that doesn’t do a lot of good in case of a fire or flood.

Cable or DSL going down is a big problem, too. But the coffee shops help there as well.

Another thing I attempt to do is to be well ahead of deadline. If not a power problem, then a car will give out and I’ll have to give my wife a jump or change a tire.

In addition to the internet cafes and wireless coffeeshops, I also have a small group of friends who are my back-up internet service providers. If the power ever goes out in my area, I’m taking my laptop straight to their houses.

I’ve had some bad experience with power outages causing my production server to crash. That was a nasty affair. Took me three days of trying every trick in the book, i was lucky to salvage some of my data. Some of it vanished .

However Deb, i don’t think you need to be really worried about the lines on your monitor. Those happen all the time with LCD monitors. Even if the display vanishes, your data is going to be safe in your hard drive. What you really need to worry about is a hard disk crash.

So backup your data, CDs and DVDs are good. but here is something better.

Just posted an entry in my blog about how to secure data without ever losing it. Hope that helps some of you.

Oh yes this is the same guy who keeps this site running smoooth