Tuesday, December 19, 2006

My Early Christmas Present!

FOR THE WEEK BEGINNING DECEMBER 11, 2006

Inspiration for today:
Every cloud has a silver lining
~ Mom

Don't Forget to Plan

This past Friday I set my computer to back up. Nothing unusual there as with most people, right? Well, I come back from dinner and my monitor is black. I try to turn on/off the power button and nada. Deep breath, heavy sigh. Okay, I just need to let the monitor breathe for a while. It's been on for over 24 hours.

Wake up Saturday morning. YIKES! The monitor responds to my laptop but still no picture. Now what to do? Let's see. First, cuss wildly to communicate on a different plane with the monitor. Second, start having chest pains. Third, go into emergency mode and find out if anyone I know has a monitor. Fourth, fight the impending emotional breakdown. Fifth, get an old monitor from a friend. Heavy sigh. Sixth, allow the stress to course through my veins and go to sleep.

Sunday morning comes. It's 7:00 am and a flash of brilliance. Wait a minute! I have all the software to rebuild it. Six Million Dollar Man comes to mind. Thankful for this insight (i.e. freaky dreams) the next thought is how am I going to recover everything that was originally there? YIKES! Thanks to some colleagues for suggesting about 2 months ago this great online backup option called Mozy (www.mozy.com). All the documents for the past year - saved!!!

But wait there's more! Now what do I do about my Outlook Archives? Yes I don't keep everything in my inbox but actually file away. Mozy to the rescue yet again. Software. I admit it. I had old software that was not illegal before it was illegal to copy from someone else's program. Now what am I going to do? I really need to create PDF files no matter what happens. Ebay to the rescue! I purchased a download version of PDFNow (including a CD to be sent later) for under $25.

Regardless the time, regardless the situation, my only thought is that there is nothing more of a blessing than being prepared. Buy your software because you never know. Backup your important files and choose the system that works best for you whether it's a zip drive, online backup or an external hard drive. Finally, never throw out the box of software that comes with your new computer.

I can't WAIT to see what's in store for Christmas Day!

posted by The Office Grapevine at 8:28 AM  

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