Crestone Creations Blog » PC http://crestonecreations.com/blog Something came to mind ... Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:37:03 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= You don’t need to back up your files http://crestonecreations.com/blog/backup-your-files/ http://crestonecreations.com/blog/backup-your-files/#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:53:40 +0000 Clyde Lovett http://crestonecreations.com/blog/?p=258 If you do not have a backup for your computer hard drive it’s ok. It’s very cathartic to just get rid of everything now and then.  I once lost some items due to a flooded basement area.  I will never have to worry about those things again.  You know the expression, “material possessions, the more you own the more they own you.”  Think of all the file management you do that you would be freed of if you lost your hard drive.  Done.  Check it off the list.  Of course, your list may be gone, too.  And all your emails.  All those photos that you wanted to print but never did – no worries.  Gone.  You can move on. And I’m sure you saved your tax return as a PDF AND have a printout.  So as long as there is no fire, you’re all set.  No more dwelling on the past with a bunch of photos of yesterday or yesteryear.  Free your mind.  Now you can be in the moment and forward thinking thanks to your hard drive “crash.”  Ya, hard drives live, and they die.  It’s not a matter of “if” they will die it is a matter of “when.”

I’m not quite as smart when it comes to this subject …  I have condemned myself to attachment.   I actually backup my files both to an external hard drive and to an off-site service.  It takes up a lot of my time.  No wait – no it doesn’t.  Actually I don’t do anything – it happens in the background with no effort.  My computer is completely backed up both in house and off-site through the internet.

In-house my Apple computer backs up to a terabyte drive using “Time Machine” (comes free with the OS).  So if I deleted a file by mistake last week or 2 months ago I can navigate through my computer using a snapshot of the file contents from the past.  It is truly like going back in time.  I can grab the file out of the past and then transport it forward to the present.  I sometimes enter Apple’s Time Machine just for the entertainment value, but sometimes it has condemned me to going back and rummaging through the past to get that “valuable” file.  Strange values.  Call it a weakness – attachment to the past.  Note: Many external hard drives come with some kind of incremental backup software nowadays for those of you who had to buy a PC :P

Off-site I backup using “Backblaze.”  If my house burns down I can devote the time to saving the children.  My files are safe elsewhere.  The first backup took months because of the size of my drive and my internet connection speed, but now the incremental stuff happens overnight.  Yes, computer running.  I spoke to an Apple engineer about this.  He said the computers live longer if you never shut them down.  (UPDATE MARCH 3, 2010: I have had such good luck with Backblaze that I now have an affiliate relationship with them.  If you are interested in signing up, please do so by using this link to Backblaze Thanks!  Clyde)

So, sarcasm aside – I DO suggest that you backup your files using an external hard drive with software that backs up incrementally and also to an off-site server.  It’s not IF, it’s WHEN your hard drive fails …  what’s your plan?  What are you willing to lose?

Here is a list I came across of some external drives.  This is not an endorsement, but just to get the thoughts flowing.

]]> http://crestonecreations.com/blog/backup-your-files/feed/ 0 I’m an Apple guy … http://crestonecreations.com/blog/im-an-apple-guy/ http://crestonecreations.com/blog/im-an-apple-guy/#comments Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:21:40 +0000 Clyde Lovett http://crestonecreations.com/blog/?p=216 I got a call today to help a client whose email just stopped sending. Bad news, since I personally just set up her new email accounts a handful of days ago. I rearrange my day, drive over; check it out. Yep, it won’t send. The email client (Outlook) on their desktop machine constantly asks for the login info. I finally eliminated all other possibilities (including deleting the account I so very recently installed) and since the error persisted I concluded that it MUST be the ISP – give them a call. So the client called them. To make a long story short – the ISP made changes without telling anyone. My client called and there was a voice mail stating the same. Sigh. Thanks.

All this time, while my client was on the phone, I was exploring their brand new Windows 7 laptop – looking for the email client – such as outlook – so I could setup email on that new computer. I looked, and looked and looked. Am I dumb or what? I can’t find any email client. Feeling quite low IQ, I searched the internet. It seems Windows 7 doesn’t have an email client installed …. :P

Downloading Thunderbird and installing. Nice.
Back to the 21st century.
What IS Microsoft thinking with that?

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