Computer Angst

[Claire]

OK, anyone have some serious computer problems? I've been away for a couple of weeks because my computer crashed and burned. And I do mean in a serious way. I lost my entire address book! I have an excellent computer guy, so have the new system (yeah, yeah, he's been telling me to replace my ... whatchacallit? CPU? Tower?) for a year or two, and we promised after the first of the year, but it crashed before we could. So now I'm actually calling people and asking for their email addresses! For us, the computer is a minor thing; we don't own a business that requires the computer. It is social, research, entertainment. But I'm still amazed at how much I've come to depend upon it! I'm lucky in that I only have a couple of sites I deal with often and so re-setting them isn't going to be a biggie. But losing everything?

Anyway, I'm learning a few new formats, different ways of doing things. DC has been the best of the sites I've tried to reestablish on, thank YOU!

 

[PrincessFiona60]

OK, anyone have some serious computer problems? I've been away for a couple of weeks because my computer crashed and burned. And I do mean in a serious way. I lost my entire address book! I have an excellent computer guy, so have the new system (yeah, yeah, he's been telling me to replace my ... whatchacallit? CPU? Tower?) for a year or two, and we promised after the first of the year, but it crashed before we could. So now I'm actually calling people and asking for their email addresses! For us, the computer is a minor thing; we don't own a business that requires the computer. It is social, research, entertainment. But I'm still amazed at how much I've come to depend upon it! I'm lucky in that I only have a couple of sites I deal with often and so re-setting them isn't going to be a biggie. But losing everything?

Anyway, I'm learning a few new formats, different ways of doing things. DC has been the best of the sites I've tried to reestablish on, thank YOU!

Get yourself a Gmail account and keep your addressbook there!

 

[roadfix]

When I knew my last pc was on its last leg I went out and bought an external hard drive and saved all my files.
It's obvious to most but that was one of the wisest pc moves I've made. My wife was proud of me.

 

[DaveSoMD]

Get and external USB drive and set it up for backups. External drives are fairly inexpensive these days and well worth the investment.

 

[Zereh]

Cheaper yet is to just purchase a USB memory stick (or three) to put important stuff on.

If you do choose to use Outlook for email it's still advisable to create a gmail account and import all of your contact info. That way when you have another crash you won't be starting from zero again since everything is stored on their end and not on your PC.

 

[Zhizara]

I don't understand losing your email addresses. If you have an email account the addresses would still be there when you access your account.

 

[Zereh]

I don't understand losing your email addresses. If you have an email account the addresses would still be there when you access your account.

If you use a 3rd party / external program like Outlook (which is part of Microsoft's Office suite) you will lose everything. It doesn't store things out on the 'net, it keeps everything local to your PC or laptop.

If you use gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc. you don't lose anything. Because everything is stored on their side (not on your PC). You log into their site and ta da! Everything is there waiting for you no matter where you sign in from.

 

[roadfix]

As far as external email account the same goes for photos you may have on file. There are many free photo hosting sites where you can store tons of photos.

These days you can pick up a 500 Gb external hard drive, for instance, for the price of a couple of 16 Gb flash drives. Your choice.

 

[medtran49]

I second the external drive. You can get one that will ghost your drive, i.e. back up everything, even your operating system, for $100 or even cheaper if you can get it on sale somewhere. You can keep it plugged in all the time and it will constantly back-up or just plug it up once a week or so, which is what I do. The software on my computer even reminds me it's time and it doesn't stop reminding me until I do it...

Karen

 

[megamark]

I back up the smaller files I use a lot on a flash drive, I have an 8 gig that is sufficient but they make them up to 128 gigs now. I also have a removable hard drive that backs up my larger files, like pictures and movies. You also have some options for online storage. It sounds like you have a pc, with Windows. Try the cloud system they are using now.