I forgot, okay? Last week, I was immersed in ThrillerFest, reconnecting with the stunning brain trust that is a conference of thriller writers, and I completely forgot to post a blog. Sorry about that.
But this is a new week, and it’s marked by both great news and terrible news; elation and frustration.
First, the good: A few weeks ago, I posted a blog that I called Serendipity, in which I recounted a customer service triumph involving the Hilton Garden Inn. At the time, I hinted at a coda to the story, and now I can report that Hilton Garden Inn placed an order for 700 copies of my new book Threat Warning, to be distributed to their managers around the globe. We’ll be holding a ceremonial signing at the HGI property in Fairfax, Virginia (near my home) on July 28, and with any luck at all, we’ll attract some media interest. I think it is so cool when random encounters end up in such great results. (I’ve actually never signed that many books at a sitting, so I’ll be interested to see how my hand holds out.)
Now for the bad news: Last week, Microsoft sent me a “service pack” update that turned out to be “corrupted” and contained a “fatal error” that required me to return my computer to “factory settings.” In layman’s terms, I believe that means they poisoned my computer and destroyed 17.6 gigabytes of data. Gone. Poof. Not so much as a “sorry, John.”
In an interesting bit of irony, the only way to access Microsoft’s technical support is through their website, to which I didn’t have access because they, you know, poisoned my computer.
What keeps this from being a total disaster is my new cyber-hero, Carbonite.com. It’s a service that’s nearly free of charge (a few bucks a month) that backs up all your data every day to their system. After this catastrophic loss of data, all I had to do was tap into http://www.carbonite.com/ and sign into my account. Click a few bottons, and a few days later (that’s how long it takes to restore 17.6 gigabytes), I’ll be good as new. I hope. (I’m knocking wood.)
So, here’s my question for the Killzone techies: Next time one of these service pack upgrades pops up in my system, am I supposed to ignore it? Or do I just make sure that Carbonite and I remain friends?
I hate computers.
In a lifetime of working in IT, I learned never to trust technology, especially computers. (When my job was sent offshore and I found I could not get a new one, I became a struggling writer.) One of my areas of expertise was disaster recovery. My mantra is “backup, backup, backup, then backup some more.” And, “Put copies of those backups off site in case your work site goes poof.”
As far as Microsoft updates go, I have had the update devastated my computer thus requiring a reinstall of the operating system, applications, and data. This has made me very afraid of Microsoft updates. So, I backup, backup, backup, then backup some more. And, I keep copies of those backups off site. Doing the software updates can be important, but I admit I do hesitate and worry when I do them. (I also have more than one computer, so if my main computer is turned into a boat anchor, I can move my work to another.)
I have a big smile on my face. I follow this blog because I’m working on my first thriller. But I laughed out loud on reading this because I ‘ve spent the last six years working at Microsoft :). Mail me at me@sriramk.com and I can help out more. But in short
– Do not ignore service packs or updates. They keep your machine safe from viruses and other bad things
– In all probability, if the service pack messed up your computer (I’d really like to find out more about what error you saw , etc), chances are that there was something already wrong. For example, if you had an existing virus silently hanging around, a service pack could cause trouble.
– Apart from Carbonite, I would really recommend using Dropbox. It not only back-ups your data but you can get it from anywhere, any device and sync it across machines. I keep all my data inside Dropbox so if any of my computers blew up, it wouldn’t matter – I’d install Dropbox and 20 minutes later, I’ll have my data again. I have all my photos, videos, personal docs and my Scrivener projects with my unfinished manuscripts ( 🙂 ) inside Dropbox.
Drop me a line at me@sriramk.com and I could help you out further, even put you in touch with the right people at MSFT to help you out.
– Sriram Krishnan
Also, returning to factory settings may not mean you’ve lost your data. It might just mean that Windows was re-installed. Your data is probably intact unless the disk was formatted.
I always like to split my hard disks into atleast two partitions – one has only the OS/programs install (C:
Windows, C:Program Files, etc) and all my data (docs, photos, etc) is on a separate D:.
John, I’m sorry to hear of your PC problems. I’ve had a few problems with MS updates over the years. But I agree with Sriram, it sounds like something else triggered the crash.
I would not recommend ignoring MS updates. They contain the latest defenses in battling bad things out there. Also, it’s too late now, but prior to any MS update being installed, a restore point is automatically created. It’s possible that simply restoring to that point would have cured your problem.
Carbonite and Dropbox are great suggestions (I use DB). But because storage media is dirt cheap (I recently saw 2TB drive for $120), buy an external USB drive and back up to it daily. Rather than taking days to restore your PC, it only takes a few minutes.
I used Carbonite, but had trouble with it and had to reinstall every couple of weeks by letting them into my computer remotely. It still comes up when I restart and tries to connect. Pain in the ass. I bought an external hard drive and I back up when I can find the power cord. The cheapest way to back up what you are working on is to email it as a document to yourself. Build a folder for the latest update.
Also use a Mac as viruses are RARE.
Sorry to hear about your problems, John. What I do is back up new files, etc. (writing, music, and uh, photos) to a thumb drive on a daily basis and then back up everything to an external hard drive every week. That gets the job down.
As for Windows updates…I learned the hard way about those when I came downstairs one morning to find all three computers in the house exhibiting the blue screen of death, or whatever it is called. I was able to correct by going into safe mode and using system restore but it was still a white knuckle moment. What I have done is disconnected the automatic update feature. I hang back a week or so and look for notices about problems with recent Window updates. If there aren’t any, I install them. In other words, I don’t ignore them; I just wait several days to install them. There’s no chance I’ll forget as a pop up screen keeps reminding me about them.
Anyway, sorry about your problems. Great news about Hilton Garden Inn, though!
I use Dropbox and a backup hard drive. I’m a tiny bit sloppy about backups, although the backup hard drive backs up work automatically. (Thanks for the reminder. Now off to Dropbox).
Also, knock wood, I use Macs, so I haven’t had any problems with viruses and corruption problems yet, although that was chronic on my PCs.
I love that we have great readers like Sriram who can help us out in a tech crisis! I signed up for Carbonite a while back, and I’m very happy with it. Before that, I emailed my drafts nightly to avoid getting nuked by any rogue corruption.
My solution to crashes and comes from my professional life outside of writing. At work I am a systems administrator and help desk tech for Microsoft products (Windows, Active Directory, Exchange, etc) after troubleshooting windows stuff all day every day for most of the past 18 years I don’t want to deal with it as much at home. Therefore even though Win 7 is turning out to be a pretty decent OS, put your fingers in your ears Sriram, I’m a Linux geek at home. No crashes, no viruses, no cost and nowadays you don’t even have to be that much of a geek to get on with it. My recording studio is Ubuntu Linux, my laptop is a dual boot system of Win 7 and Ubuntu.
I even have Ubuntu Linux on a thumb drive that I can boot to for help recovering crashed Windows systems. That being said I also back up to Dropbox and an external hard drive. The nice thing about Dropbox is that I can update my manuscript on a pc at work, edit it next on my laptop, then if I am at a friends house without my laptop I can use theirs to access my mss and do more work while they drone on about whatever it is they are droning on about.
I am presently considering having a Linux embedded chip planted in my frontal lobe so I can edit my mss while walking down the street and save it to Dropbox using only my brain. Thus far the implant project hasn’t worked as well as I hoped. Last prototype chip logged in just fine, but everyone someone uses a microwave within fifty feet of me, I pee my pants.
To paraphrase my old IRA relations:
Up With Technology!
I’m a software developer and am ashamed to say that I don’t backup my data on a regular basis. I have a pretty large network drive that has all my documents, pictures and important things.
A storm recently fried the power supply in my old PC and I whined and complained to my husband that I needed a new machine with Windows 7.
Then I had my son slave up my old hard drive into my new machine and I was able to get my data from my old PC onto my new PC. Now I have the network drive and my new PC with Users Diane and DianeOldComputerData. Hahahaha!
I use a flash drive to put all my current work on, then I update to my PC on a regular basis to sync everything up. I carry my flash drive with me everywhere I go, just in case I have an idea and need to use a computer, pop it in and update…then pop it back out.
Unsafe, I know. Like a doctor makes a bad patient, something like that.
better switch to Mac!
But anyways, the cloud is great. I use dropbox, and write worry free.
Yikes!
The best part of that post was the Serendipty story. What an excellent follow-up to that original post, John. Hope your hand holds out signing all those books.
I back up my work on flash-drives.
Reading all the tekkie fodder has me suspicious my work habits need an overhaul…
Thanks folks,
Paula
I read this on my Mac and nothing happened.
I use Carbonite, so it’s nice to know it’s not a waste of money. I hope all your files are restored properly!
After Mozy and I parted company after a rather loud argument, I have been using a pair of external hard drives. I exchange them out once a month and put one in my fire safe.
Part of my job is graphic design and all of the packaging work for my company is on that credit card sized hard drive. It would put me out of biz to lose it.
Howevah, reading this reminded me I need to look at offsite backups as well and have heard good things about Dropbox. Will try it!
Uggghhh!!! Nightmare!!! Ahhhhhh!!!!! I can’t even think of this happening to me.
I have a separate backup drive already, but Drop Box, Carbonite, here I come!