Friday, March 12, 2010

Bursting at the Seams


Um, so here I am this morning . . .




I had a very scary thing happen yesterday. I had decided to visit one of my novels that I hadn't looked at since last fall. It is a middle grade novel that stars a main character who is similar to the main character in my picture book.


She's full of sass and mischief, and she has a bit of the devil in her.


So, I did some new writing on my book and hit "save". I got a message saying that I couldn't save my work because my computer was full. FULL!!!! After a few moments of panic, I saved my wip to a memory stick and got online to look for a way to backup my files off-site. I do have a hard drive that I use to backup my laptop, but if I delete files from my laptop, and they're only on my hard drive and then my hard drive crashes . . . . okay, sf, calm down.

I found a great site that would allow me to download unlimited amounts of data for a flat fee, and I set it to download the entire contents of my computer.

This was yesterday at noon.

When I checked the status bar this morning, I had backed up a whopping 3% of my files. At this rate, I'll be downloading for a month . . . meanwhile panicking that my computer will crash, dealing with slow emails and internet--and, here's the kicker, I can't turn the thing off while it's downloading. Soooo . . . I can't close my laptop and walk out the door or else the whole thing will have to start over again.

Proceed to Plan B. Now, I am going through my computer and looking for specific files that I can live without. I am backing those up and then deleting them. Everyone say a little prayer or have a moment of silence to help ensure that I can free up enough space on my computer so the evil message doesn't appear again.

At least this didn't appear:





Any of you who have been using a Mac forever will surely recognize this talisman of doom.

Right after the bomb appeared, your screen would shatter into a million little pieces. I'm speaking virtually, of course. That would really be something if your computer actually exploded! The last time I saw this evil little sucker, I lost a 30 page research paper (it was in college).

All righty, I'm going to check my status. Let's hope my new method has gotten me beyond 3%.

sf

11 comments:

Tamika: said...

Scary! This is a true writer's nightmare!

I really need to do some research on all the ways to back up my work. Thanks for the reminder.

Corey Schwartz said...

Yikes! Well, you can also put some stuff on Google docs. It'll be there forever.

Bethany said...

I feel ya, girl! I used to have a pc, and of course every couple of years I would get a catastrophic virus. So, I bought a 500GB hard drive and back-up, then I was always paranoid that the virus would copy on to there then every time that I would reload from the HD to the pc I would be afraid the virus would go right back on there. I always felt like it was never backing up fast enough.

P.S. If you haven't seen the Sex & the City episode "My Motherboard, Myself," you absolutely must! Go here --> http://bit.ly/23PW8v --> It's on YouTube.

Sherrie Petersen said...

Oh, be still my racing heart! I sympathize with those backup nightmares. I lost everything when I dropped my computer last year. Now I'm anal about backing up. I bought an external hard drive and use Time Machine to back up regularly.

Good luck, sf!

Hardygirl said...

Bethany, I just watched the Sex and the City episode. Too funny!! Whew. I hope I never get a "sad mac".

Yeah, it is a little scary. I didn't lose anything or even come close, but anytime your computer starts acting weird, those alarms start sounding.

I did realize that I haven't emptied my trash since . . .well, ever. So that helped. I've now stored a bunch of files and deleted them from my laptop, and I'm back in biz-ness.

Ahhh.

sf

Shannon O'Donnell said...

Ugh! That sounds so stressful. I think I could have a panic attack just thinking about it too long. Poor thing! My fingers are crossed for your success! :-)

storyqueen said...

You are inspiring me to back everything up this weekend. Yikes!!

Shelley

P.S. I think we are agent buddies....I signed with Joanna this week!

lisa and laura said...

Holy crap. I didn't even know you could actually fill a computer. Well, I guess i knew it but I've never known anyone who's actually done it. Bravo!

Katie Anderson said...

Whoa, sister! What a nightmare! I am so glad you halfway got it fixed. I'm thinkin of driving up to the apple store next week and getting my extra hard drive fixed.

shooo weee!

Kelly@ JustWrite said...

Yeah, I'm just impressed that your computer is FULL!! Wow, that's totally awesome! How many people can do that?????

Fingers crossed for you :)

Little Ms J said...

If you have a Mac, can't you back up to the online MAC thingie called Mobile Me? I just log into www.mobileme.com from anywhere, log in and can access my docs which have been uploaded from my laptop to their secure server. It came with my MacBook and I back my docs up to it.

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