There's one irrefutable computer law that I had burnt on to my brain in high school: backup your files constantly. Computers can turn off at inappropriate moments, catch fire, format discs, and do many other horrible, horrible things to your precious data on a whim.

Of course back when I was first taught this rule, the concept of a USB stick - a small solid state memory device the size of a finger - was pure science fiction. And so for some reason, I thought the rule didn't apply.

Generally USB sticks are great! They're small, lightweight, nearly indestructible and they'll certainly handle a washing cycle or three without issue.

However if you happen to misplace one it will disappear forever. Spirited away by what I can only assume are some sort of gnomish pack rats. And that's exactly what happened to mine yesterday. I went to grab my USB stick and noticed it wasn't in my bag with all my other junk. I had a quick look around the house and couldn't find it, so I assumed/hoped it was at work. Unfortunately this morning I arrived to find my desk a USB stick free zone.

And here's the kicker. On that stick was my completed Script Frenzy entry and several thousands words of my novel. The last time I'd backed it up was about 5 months ago. I put all my trust in knowing the location of the stick at all times, and because of that I've lost everything since.

I'm sure there's a good part to all this, but right now all I can think of are those wasted hours I spent typing out those thousands and thousands of words. And I've only got myself to blame.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 9:33 pm and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.