Anyone ever .... a computer question

[Claire]

Have any of you ever totally and completely had your computer crash? So badly you lost all of your email addresses? Thanks to the DC staff, I'm back on my old name, etc., here But I've lost all the email addresses for my friends and family, and am systematically calling them, and my old email address was no good!

How many of you actually bother to write your friends' and family's email addresses is your written, hard copy address book? I should know better! What an idiot!

 

[Alix]

Claire, create a gmail account and sync your regular email with your gmail. You'll never lose email addresses again. Google is the best thing EVER.

 

[pengyou]

Also, most email programs - even webmail programs including google - have a means to export your addressbook as a csv file. What I do once a month or so, is to export the file and then email it as an attachment to myself. Of course, I save the email then if my email system crashes - or I loose the password to google or someone hacks it (which can and does happen) all i have to do is open the email, download the attachment and then upload the list to my email page/program again. It takes just a few minutes to do all of them. BTW, websites like Google, yahoo, and MSN are not perfect. They, too, have computers that have hardware programs and disks that crash periodically.

 

[justplainbill]

Some people might not know that a CSV file is a comma delimited Excel spreadsheet file.

 

[justplainbill]

Claire, you should consider buying a device like the Toshiba 640 GB desktop external hard drive for about $79 and perform monthly or quarterly incremental backups of your C-drive.

 

[jabbur]

We had a crash. Fortunately my son was able to remove the old hard disc from the computer and pull data off it after installing it in a working computer.(our mother board burned up) Perhaps something similar can be done with yours. We moved to a web based email system a long time ago (we use yahoo) so I always can access my email from any computer that is hooked to the internet. We used to use Juno but found that when traveling, we couldn't access our emails from other computers.

 

[GB]

I am with Alix. Use Google. That way all your important non confidential information is stored in the cloud and you are not relying on one piece of hardware to save that info. If you have a crash your info is still there.

 

[GrillingFool]

Speaking of backups, does anyone have suggestions for a easy to use backup program?
Windows' Vista doesn't want to let me pick and choose easily and Norton's 360 one is slower than a turtle climbing Mr Everest backward with an elephant on his back.

 

[roadfix]

Simply put, your email account should have a contact list. You need to populate that list with email addresses and phone numbers of your friends. Many people don't do this (including myself). That contact list under your email account is always available to you from any computer.

 

[CharlieD]

My first computer crashed. I lost everything then. I back up everything nowadays. And my e-mail is with Comcast, but lucky for me I keep all of my stuff on my works network. The stuff that I missed most was my recipes. E-mail addresses I was able to recover thru calling friends, etc. But recipes were gone for good. This was a biggest lose. The one I never recover.

 

[GB]

The best way to back up recipes is to post them here.

 

[CharlieD]

Yeah, that was before this place, unfortunately. I especially miss the recipe for Real Russian Bliny. I cannot find one enywhere, not for the Real stuff.

 

[pengyou]

good information! Yes, Google is a good service, but as I mentioned, Google also crashes. It is best to have multiple options in this area. Use Google. Download to a CVS, which (thanks ) can be used by Excel, or some other spreadsheet program. Back-up programs will be as slow or as fast as you choose. The first time through they will be slow, because they are backing up everything. But each backup program has settings that will help you make subsequent backups faster. For example, you can choose to only back up files that were created or modified after your last backup. When you get your new computer - or hard drive - one good way to manage your data is to have the computer technician divide your hard drive into two pieces - not literally, but virtually. Have him/her install all of the software on the C: drive and then, when you use the computer, make sure you put all of your data on the D: drive. If your computer has a DVD burner, all you have to do is burn all of D: to your DVD. If you buy a whole new computer, you can usually ask the shop to do this for you, or order one that has already had this set up. Dell used to charge $25 for this service, or sometimes gave it away as a freebie. I am not putting in a plug for Dell - neither good nor bad - just using them as an example. With computers and backups, having 2 options is the best way.