The Virus Ate My Blog
by Sariah S. Wilson
I've mentioned my connectivity issues recently, and that we've switched to another internet provider.
But this style of connecting didn't have the firewall we were accustomed to. So despite having multiple protective software programs on my computer, I got infected.
And not just any little old infection, but a great big raging one. Some of the more famous viruses out there, including one that even my computer guru husband couldn't get rid of (it was a hijacker; which meant that whenever I clicked on a link some new, fun window would open instead. Mostly they were "harmless" in that there was nothing to see but if you did what they asked you to more viruses would have invaded, but a couple of times there were very, um, inappropriate windows opened).
The only thing my husband could do was completely blow away my computer and start from scratch. Because of his technical know-how I was able to move my all my files and documents and pictures over to a computer that we use solely for data storage. He wiped the whole computer and started over.
And as anyone who has done this knows - this is not a short nor easy process. So I have been without my computer for the last week and he finished it up last night.
Which got me to thinking - this could have been much worse. I might not have been able to save my files and Word documents that have my writing in them.
But I've been trained to save everything in more than one place when I'm working on something important. So when I am writing a book or writing down ideas, I save them on my computer and our storage computer so that I never lose anything.
What do you use as backup? How do you make sure you don't lose your work? Have you ever lost anything significant because of computer problems?
I've mentioned my connectivity issues recently, and that we've switched to another internet provider.
But this style of connecting didn't have the firewall we were accustomed to. So despite having multiple protective software programs on my computer, I got infected.
And not just any little old infection, but a great big raging one. Some of the more famous viruses out there, including one that even my computer guru husband couldn't get rid of (it was a hijacker; which meant that whenever I clicked on a link some new, fun window would open instead. Mostly they were "harmless" in that there was nothing to see but if you did what they asked you to more viruses would have invaded, but a couple of times there were very, um, inappropriate windows opened).
The only thing my husband could do was completely blow away my computer and start from scratch. Because of his technical know-how I was able to move my all my files and documents and pictures over to a computer that we use solely for data storage. He wiped the whole computer and started over.
And as anyone who has done this knows - this is not a short nor easy process. So I have been without my computer for the last week and he finished it up last night.
Which got me to thinking - this could have been much worse. I might not have been able to save my files and Word documents that have my writing in them.
But I've been trained to save everything in more than one place when I'm working on something important. So when I am writing a book or writing down ideas, I save them on my computer and our storage computer so that I never lose anything.
What do you use as backup? How do you make sure you don't lose your work? Have you ever lost anything significant because of computer problems?
Sariah Wilson — 5/24/2010 09:38:00 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I'm so glad you were able to save everything and that your computer is working again.
I like to email my current w-i-p to myself as a backup. Then if something goes wrong with my computer, I can retrieve it off Gmail.
I have two separate memory drives that I use to back everything. The big one I do the entire computer with. The small one is for my WIP or important documents. And on occasion I will backup all my writings on a CD and put it in my journal. As for photos I try to put them on CDs every few weeks.
Thankfully I've never had any problems (I hope I didn't just jinx myself!)
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