Backup

Do you always remember to back up your computer?
My answer to my question is; no I do not! But I know I should!
I got to experience the pain of not having a back up last week when I happened to have a terrible day. I was in the office, working on my laptop, I thought some coffee would help keep me going for the rest of the day, so I got a full cup of hot black coffee. As I sat down and had a sip of this marvelous caffeine drink which immediately gave an adrenalin kick, suddenly the hot cup fell on my laptop.
All I cared about at that particular moments was not getting coffee stain on my clothes, but other than that it was all about getting the laptop started again as it suddenly went all black. Call me naive or illiterate when it comes to the it-world, but I thought they had made water resistant/coffee resistant laptops (haven’t the Japanese done that yet?:). My laptop was dead, but I was hoping it would just cool down and start over again. I phoned the It-department and talked to few It-guys and each one one of them gave me an assurance of that my laptop was dead, and I probably had lost everything I had saved on it if I had not made a backup. It would cost about 50.000 Norwegian Kroners in order to retrieve all the information. A friend of mine said; why were you drinking coffee? That is for grownups! True:)

I had so much work saved in there, so many deadlines to meet, but I was unable to do anything, ended up working all weekend. I have now received a new laptop, but then that means starting over again having lost all my work and personal documents on my previous laptop.

Do you make a regular backup of your documents? I hope you will after reading about my experience. I miss the time when we had paper pictures, when we received letters in the post and not e-mails, I miss the time when we did not have to think of backup, but the time when I used to keep everything valuable in a box or draw:)

I am all for water/coffee/coke resistant laptops (by the way, did I mention I spilled coke on an other computer just few days prior to this happening, but fortunately the computer tolerated the coke:). I am trying to draw out a moral of this story, and I am understanding the moral is not just having a backup, but it actually also is; don’t drink anything while working with your non water resistant laptop!