A Writer’s Nightmare: Back Up Those Files

error-102075_640 pixabayThe morning began rather well. I had plans for the evening so I baked some cookies to take with me. I’d had my coffee and a bite to eat and the cookies were baking in the oven. Time to get to work – my writing work, that is.

The evening before I had turned my computer off, thinking it could use a fresh reboot in the morning. So I pressed the start button and waited. Disaster. I got a message that told me there had been an error in the shut down. The screen that is supposed to explain the specific problem blinked for less than a second before going to the screen that gave me some options: start in safe mode, start in safe mode with networking, start in safe mode with command prompt, and restart Windows normally.

Hey, I thought, no problem. I’ve been here before. All I have to do is “restart Windows normally”. Er, no. It just kept happening over again. After four tries it dawned on me that maybe this wasn’t going so well. Continue reading “A Writer’s Nightmare: Back Up Those Files”

Dropbox: A Handy Tool for Authors

DropboxHave you ever lost all the work you’d done because you didn’t back up?  I think it’s happened to all of us.  It’s happened to me. After a power surge in my 100-year-old home, I ended up paying a computer forensics company $1500 to get my data back. That was a long time ago.  And believe me, I learned my lesson.

Last Friday, our Rich Meyer wrote a post about the different ways he backs up his information. Everyone needs to do what’s most convenient for them, otherwise – you know how it goes – we just won’t do it, will we? Personally, I back up to CDs and to an external hard drive. Neither of those are greatly convenient, but I do them anyway. There is something better, however. Continue reading “Dropbox: A Handy Tool for Authors”