TO BACK UP OR NOT TO BACK UP, THAT SHOULD NEVER BE THE QUESTION!

 A late post, my apologies.  Today I will point out the importance and urgency of backing up one’s computer.  Yes, these two subjects are related.

I normally write my posts using my laptop computer. It is relatively new - bought in December 2018.  It is Windows 10 and I complain about a lot about it.  But over the almost 2 years I have had it I have “moved in” and gotten used to it more or less.  

I have a desktop computer upstairs in our office (which just to mention, no real need to do so, is Windows 7).  I don’t like change and often say that change, especially unwanted change, is never good.  I keep my laptop in the kitchen to use in the evening and I use it also when going to out to clients for work - it’s intended purpose, but has been rare use of it this year due to the Covid 19 shutdowns and limitations, as I went to my business client in January and February only - she has been closed since then and taxes were prepared by having clients mail their information to me.  

I am VERY good about backing up my computers and my data.  Husband usually thinks I go overboard.  When he realized I was backing up my laptop also he sort of gave me a “yeah, well, I guess so” about it.

I keep my data on flash drives - you know, those little stick things. I back up the data after each session at the computer onto alternating additional flash drives - I call then A and B to keep track.  At the end of each week I do another data backup onto a weekly backup flash drive -this one I have 6 of each the data backups and overwrite the oldest one each week - I do this because i had a problem with my calendar data once and did not realize it until I had overwritten both the A and B backup drives with the bad data.  

In more recent years, and more important to this saga, I started backing up my entire computer completely to two external hard drives in addition to my data backups. I back up around the 15th of the month (too many things to do at month’s end and start) onto one of the external hard drives. I will back up, say February 15, 2020 for the month of January in a file labeled as 2020 Q1.  I will then back up by updating that file on March 15 and again on April 15, starting a new file for second quarter on May 15. I do this with both my desktop and my laptop computer.

I also make a backup onto the other external hard drive quarterly - so at about the same time I make the monthly backup on April 15 (and so on) I also make an all new backup for the quarter to the other external hard drive. My husband thinks that all of this overkill.

And now the reason I mention all of this -

This past Sunday I used my laptop computer as normal to read the newspaper (we normally get the print edition, but, due to the Corona virus, we did not want the physical paper in the house each day, and are entitled to the online version, so I have reading same - I do not particularly like reading it this way, but as I have learned, at least I was able to read the paper), and I was able to start reading my Monday comics early, play a bit of Solitaire (I swear the computer cheats) and then shut it down to go to bed.

Monday evening after dinner I set up my laptop to read the newspaper.  It would not turn on.  The power indicator light was dark.  The light next to the power button did not come on when I pushed it (over and over again).  Nothing - dead - D E A D - dead. Battery should have been fully charged and even that did not help.  Husband took it upstairs to see what he could do.  He tried a variety of things.  Unlike my other, older laptops it does not have removable battery - normal thing for them would be to remove the battery, while it was not plugged in  and see if doing so and replacing the battery restarted it.  He found online a way to do this with my computer and it did not work.

So on Tuesday I telephoned the store I bought it from (store gives a second year warranty included so it is still covered) and the information was taken and I have to send it to them for repair.  Scares the heck out of me both because of our general problems with deliveries to the house (normally would have it come back to our PO Box, but since we are not picking mail, I cannot do that) and the fact that all of my passwords, appointment book, etc are in it and not on separate data due to the need for them to be on the computer itself and will be available to them to see when they get it running again.

Now, I understand that there is a check list for the employees to follow, but some sense is needed. My computer will not start - she told me I should make a back up - how the heck does one do that when the computer will not start - I pointed this out to her and said that I did have 2 backups about a week old.  (And my data is backed up daily so I have that as my last session on the computer.)  We then received the list of photos we had to take of the computer and email to them - first one, as well as several of the others requested was to be taken with the computer turned on?  A photo of the problem - well here it is a blank screen - and we also took photos of the power lights not on.  My husband had checked the electric cord with a voltage meter, so we know it is not the cord.

We were told that the box they were sending to us for us to use to send the laptop to them was coming by UPS 2 day.  I sit here on the night of the second day after I called and still do not have it.  It should come tomorrow by 9 pm.  Today it was pouring and windy here.  Tomorrow the remnants of Hurricane Zeta will passing through - presuming the box is dropped on our front steps or driveway as is normal it may blow away as well as possibly getting soaked.  

In the ensuing time - I went to sign in on my older laptop (a Windows XP) to read the newspaper on Tuesday night.  Uh oh!  I have never done so before on it - and my password list from my laptop is ..... in a notepad file in the computer!!  I finally found a piece of paper on which I had written down the sign in and password and tried to sign into the newspaper - it does not work.  It works on husband’s cell phone and it works on my desktop computer, but not on my old laptop!  

Last evening when I should have posted to all of you, I could not - as I did not the password to do so.  Today, I copied out the passwords from my desktop computer onto a flash drive and will make a copy of them - and here I am.


THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
If you do not do so - start backing up your computer as soon as possible.  One never knows when one will need it, as I so recently found out.  We have also used backups in the past when something has gone wrong in one of our computers.  And back up your data also and more often.  More than one back up, as I do, is a good idea -just in case.

AN IMPORTANT REMINDER -

If you are able to vote in the U.S. - VOTE!!  It is a privilege to be able to do so and this year more than ever, a few votes one way or the other can make a big difference. I say this not knowing if those of you out there lean the same way as I do and I very well might be sending more votes to the candidate I do not choose, but it is everyone’s right to choose and to vote and voting is a right which should not be taken lightly.  

While speaking by telephone with my 91 year old mother a week ago, after we greeted each other, she told me that she had gotten her vote by mail ballot (she can not go out of her assisted living this year to vote) and her residence had an employee assigned to collect the completed vote by mail forms and bring them to their local polling place for the residents. She then made sure my husband and I had plans to vote - we did so already - as she knows the importance of voting.  (And I am not sure that her national votes will not offset mine, but we all have the right to vote and should exercise that right.)