Sunday, April 24, 2005

Lessons Learned

I have a friend who works for a major software manufacturer.  He told me once that they were working towards having a truly paperless society. Everything would be stored on servers somewhere - your calendar, bank records, business documentation, personal records - everything. I told him I could never go for something like that because it gives control of these important items to someone else. What would happen if something went wrong? If a server was down, would my information be unavailable to me when I needed it most? Could I potentially lose it all?

As of yesterday morning sometime, my journals were restored to Hometown and my FTP space seems to be fixed. However, this issue and what happened to Armandt was a wake up call to heed my own intuitive advice and not rely on something or someone "out there" to maintain my information without having a back up plan. By doing so I give up control, and no one cares about your personal data as much as you do. Some probably think, "What's the big deal? It's just a journal." But, this is a record of my life over the past year and a half. It's an artistic endeavor in some respects. I had pictures in my FTP space that I had deleted from my hard drive and hadn't saved anywhere else because I reasoned they were safe and accessible. If you ask someone if his or her house were ravaged by a fire, besides loved ones, what would the person try to save? The answer is usually the same, pictures and momentos of their life. My journal and the pictures I've shared here have the same importance to me. I would be heart broken if it were all lost.

As such, I went through my journal yesterday and copied all of my pictures to my hard drive. I will now burn them to a CD. A while ago I set up a site on Blogger to create a mirror of my journal here. I've been lax in transferring my entries over there. I have renewed my efforts to get my old entries transferred and will post my current entries there as well as here as I post them. Pam found a free program that will create a mirror site on your hard drive. As time permits, I will investigate that option as well.

So what have I learned?

No one cares about my personal data as much as I do. My email to FTPMaster has still not been read.

Check the archived entries from time to time. I had entries in which the pictures were loaded through "Add Pictures from Hometown" that were not appearing and had to be reinserted.

Our data on the 'net, specifically here on AOL, is not safe from being lost or corrupted. Back up your data!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great reminder...thanks!  JAE

Anonymous said...

Beautiful collage.

Jackie

Anonymous said...

Robbie, what a gorgeous flower collage, holy moly.  
Thanks for all of the useful info here.  I just might look
into storing my journal stuff somewhere else.  

the rain finally stopped here, and the sun is peeking out !
yay!  have a good day.   ~Phinney

Anonymous said...

I feel the same way! I have been actually PRINTING out my journal entries. Talk about slow boat...eeesh.

Anonymous said...

Seriously, I need to get right on this.  I, too, would be devastated if I lost my journal...it's seen me through A LOT in my life.  And it's for my kids....

Thanks for the recommendations.  I'll try to figure this stuff out.

Love,
b

Anonymous said...

I totaly agree with you.  Very sad that we have to go threw all that trouble to feel secure but that is what the deal seems to be.

Anonymous said...

I totally agree Robbie!
I have the link to that site that
creates a mirror of your journal.
I'm going to have to check that
out, and soon!
Love the graphic!
Connie

Anonymous said...

Not true - we the reading public care much more about your personal data than you do - after all, you already know all about you!

If what you meant to say was that you care about all OUR comments, that's a different story.

I understand completely and feel your pain.  I'm a big beliver in backup plans and alterantive recordkeeping and I'll be damned if I will relinquish control to a "mystery person" out there in cyberspace.

Good luck!

C

Anonymous said...

they took your journal down too??????? Virginia has spent hours backing my journal up on disks. Trust no one. judi

Anonymous said...

Gawd! Is EVERYTHING better in California? Those crocus are so pretty, mine bloomed for a tiny bit of a day and are now just tiny little stems poking out of my dirt.