Well, we got hit. Hit by a virus, or just the computer gods in general disliked us. The hard drive with the mission critical files on it is unusable. The data on it trapped. We can't get at it. Yes, that includes the current book. The book was supposed to be downloading to the hard drive of my computer, but it didn't do it. The book was downloaded to the server but the server is no more. The hard drive with the back up is not accessible. The thumb drive that is supposed to have my back up failed. It's not there, not in a usable form. This is the first book, ever, that I didn't make a hard copy of it as I went along, so I also don't have a complete hard copy of it. I have pieces of it, but not all of it. To say that I was distraught doesn't cover it.
Jon has sent the drive off to a data recovery service. We should know by Friday how bad, or good, the news is. For so much to go wrong I'm thinking enemy action, not just it all broke at once. But then I'm paranoid around tech. But wait, I'm not paranoid, I'm right. Untrustworthy gadgets. When we've worked through this crisis I will be in charge of our back up procedures, and redunancy protocols. And none of the techies here at work will call me paranoid ever again, because the great bad thing did happen. Once upon a time we did two thumb drive back ups daily of the current work. I did a complete hard copy as I went along. We will make sure the book downloads to my main hard drive, and we will also take the thumb drive and physically walk the book to my portable computer and put it on that computer's hard drive, as well. I used to do all this for the last five, almost six years. But Jon and Darla were right, everything worked. I could relax a little. Yeah, right.
What lesson have I taken away from all this? First, the difference between paranoia and prophetic gloom is a slim one. Second, the most paranoid person should be in charge of emergency protocol because we think of the absolute worst case and make sure everyone else is prepared for it. I raise the flag for all us technophobes who work with tech, all us pessimist who knew it would happen, we're not always right, but when we are, damn it's a mess.
Jon has sent the drive off to a data recovery service. We should know by Friday how bad, or good, the news is. For so much to go wrong I'm thinking enemy action, not just it all broke at once. But then I'm paranoid around tech. But wait, I'm not paranoid, I'm right. Untrustworthy gadgets. When we've worked through this crisis I will be in charge of our back up procedures, and redunancy protocols. And none of the techies here at work will call me paranoid ever again, because the great bad thing did happen. Once upon a time we did two thumb drive back ups daily of the current work. I did a complete hard copy as I went along. We will make sure the book downloads to my main hard drive, and we will also take the thumb drive and physically walk the book to my portable computer and put it on that computer's hard drive, as well. I used to do all this for the last five, almost six years. But Jon and Darla were right, everything worked. I could relax a little. Yeah, right.
What lesson have I taken away from all this? First, the difference between paranoia and prophetic gloom is a slim one. Second, the most paranoid person should be in charge of emergency protocol because we think of the absolute worst case and make sure everyone else is prepared for it. I raise the flag for all us technophobes who work with tech, all us pessimist who knew it would happen, we're not always right, but when we are, damn it's a mess.
posted by
at 8:43 AM
