The Downside of Web Writing #1 - Technology Dependencies
I guess it’s bound to happen at some point in any internet-based worker’s career - the crashed laptop. My laptop didn’t exactly crash, though it is, in my definition, inoperable. For some reason, my laptop’s fan stopped working. So, there’s nothing to cool off the internal hardware of my computer. Fortunately, computers are built with a self-protecting auto shutoff mechanism that keeps them from overheating. In other words, my computer turns itself off whenever it starts to get too hot, which is after about 10-15 minutes, if it’s started up from cool. Then, once it’s hot, it won’t come on again until after it’s cooled down. Bummer.
I have not been backing up the way I should have been. Luckily, I was able to have my laptop on long enough to put my important client files and my inbox on a thumb drive. Otherwise, I would be completely out of luck. Once I get my laptop back, I’m going to start doing two things.
First, I’m going to place a backup copy of all my documents in a folder on my webserver. I’ll just create a shortcut to the FTP folder on my desktop and drag and drop the folders there nightly. How can you do it?
- If you have Windows, go to My Network Places.
- Click on Add a New Network Place.
- Select “Choose another network location.”
- Enter the path of your FTP folder, e.g ftp://ftp.yourdomain.com (add a specific folder using /folder name)
- Click OK
- Cut and paste the link to your desktop (or leave it there if you’d like)
For me, putting the link on my desktop is a lot easier because most of my folders are on my desktop anyway.
The second thing I’m going to do is check the box in my Outlook configuration that says “Leave a copy of messages on my server” (or something to that effect). If I’d left my messages on the mail server, then I’d be able to access them with any computer that has internet access. Instead, to access my old messages, I now need a computer that has Outlook because that’s how I exported the messages. The good news is that I can catch any new messages via webmail.
Overall, it could have been worse.From now on, I’m going to prepare for that worst.
Have you had a technology scare impact your freelancing business? Tell us about it in the comments.
