I really need to be more organized
We have all been instructed that it is important to back up our files on our computers. After all, hard drives crash, yadda, yadda, yadda. I know some people who are extremely good about this. I went out and purchased an external hard drive and have backed up quite a few files, even if I don't do it on a schedule yet. Yet, I still seem to never get around to organizing all those files, I just know they exist multiple places.
Sure, this goes along with physical things as well. I know that I have boxes of things that I don't need (hoarder?, just in my garage) and should get rid of. At least when I moved from Arizona, I had a wonderful opportunity to purge. The people at Goodwill knew at the sight of my car that there would be a lot to unload (actually exceeded my IRS allotment for donations that year). Even at that, I know that I really need to purge more and also organize what I have.
So, today, I had my laziness bite me in the rear. I save emails. All the time. Half the time it is because there is something important in them and the other half is because I don't have the time to read them. Well, today I go and sign in to one of my web based emails to find everything gone. They claim that it's because I hadn't signed in for an extended period of time (which I do at least weekly) that my account had been closed and all emails deleted and now had been re-instated. Obviously I was quite irate, but how much can I complain for a free service? On top of that, they then wanted me to use their service to collect the mail from all of my other accounts. Yeah, like that's going to happen (I've had problems with this account ever since AOL took it over).
This was extremely inconvenient for me since I got lazy and used the free email as online storage. This isn't the first time that something like this has happened to me (though I had legitimately forgotten about an account), but this time I lost a lot more important data.
Will I learn my lesson? Who knows. I try to keep up with everything and keep organized, but frankly it gets pretty overwhelming (what's it like to be just whelmed?). So, how does that help you? Will you learn from my mistakes? How often do you back up your information? Do you trust "cloud" computing to protect what's valuable to you or do you keep more secure means like CD/DVD copies in a fire safe? Then again, it starts to come down to what really is important. Should I relegate a lot of my virtual possessions to a virtual Goodwill as much as I do my real things? Probably should.
Sure, this goes along with physical things as well. I know that I have boxes of things that I don't need (hoarder?, just in my garage) and should get rid of. At least when I moved from Arizona, I had a wonderful opportunity to purge. The people at Goodwill knew at the sight of my car that there would be a lot to unload (actually exceeded my IRS allotment for donations that year). Even at that, I know that I really need to purge more and also organize what I have.
So, today, I had my laziness bite me in the rear. I save emails. All the time. Half the time it is because there is something important in them and the other half is because I don't have the time to read them. Well, today I go and sign in to one of my web based emails to find everything gone. They claim that it's because I hadn't signed in for an extended period of time (which I do at least weekly) that my account had been closed and all emails deleted and now had been re-instated. Obviously I was quite irate, but how much can I complain for a free service? On top of that, they then wanted me to use their service to collect the mail from all of my other accounts. Yeah, like that's going to happen (I've had problems with this account ever since AOL took it over).
This was extremely inconvenient for me since I got lazy and used the free email as online storage. This isn't the first time that something like this has happened to me (though I had legitimately forgotten about an account), but this time I lost a lot more important data.
Will I learn my lesson? Who knows. I try to keep up with everything and keep organized, but frankly it gets pretty overwhelming (what's it like to be just whelmed?). So, how does that help you? Will you learn from my mistakes? How often do you back up your information? Do you trust "cloud" computing to protect what's valuable to you or do you keep more secure means like CD/DVD copies in a fire safe? Then again, it starts to come down to what really is important. Should I relegate a lot of my virtual possessions to a virtual Goodwill as much as I do my real things? Probably should.
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