What did we ever do before our current technology?  In my life, I have two pieces of technology that, as far as possessions go, are my lifelines: my green-apple colored laptop and my Canon Rebel XS digital camera.  I love photography, especially when my children are the subjects.  I bought my first Canon digital camera about 8 years ago, and since then, have taken thousands of pictures over the years.  So, you can imagine my horror when my “Green Machine”, my beloved BFF, crashed on me, and I was unable to pinpoint with any great deal of certainty, when the last time was that I had backed it up.  To add insult to injury, my husband, my own personal live in tech support, was away on a business trip and unable to answer my cries for help.  I had no choice but to wait it out, all the while vowing to the computer gods out there that, if my files can be retrieved, I promise I will never disrespect them again by failing to back up.

Anyone who has ever experienced a similar situation I am sure can relate with a knot in their stomach.  After many hours of rebooting, restoring, retrieving, (and reciting a few obscenities), I remembered how wonderful and patient my husband is.  I…ok, HE, was able to retrieve all of my formerly lost material.  As a result of his efforts, I then spent DAYS organizing my computer in a way that, should this nightmare occur in the future, I would be ready to face it, head on.  I was amazed at the amount of useless “stuff” I actually had on there taking up space, and in how many different places that stuff was located.  This organizing process was almost as grueling as the thought of having lost everything, but well worth the days and brain cells lost.  My computer is now fully operational and organized – all pictures in the picture folder, separated by year and date, all documents are in “my documents”, and further separated into appropriate sub folders.  What’s even better is I now have THREE back ups: one on an external drive and two copies each of my photos burned to DVD – one for me to keep and one to keep at my parents’ house, just in case.  In the event my Green Machine fails me again, restoring it back to it’s former state will be a snap.  My green machine is now set to back up automatically, daily!

This was a tough lesson to learn and really could have been way more tragic then the end result.  If you are among one of the diligent backer-upers out there, I bow down to you!  But if you are much like the rest of us tech abusers, I URGE you to back up your files TODAY, especially those which are irreplaceable.  Sure, with some inconvenience, you can replace all those lost email contacts, but lost memories are something you can never get back.  Is that a chance you are willing to take?  Don’t delay, back up TODAY!