The Mind of Kenney Young

Earlier this week I was doing my daily prayers & reading when I heard in the other room the “Dun-Dun-Dah” sound of Windows closing down…I knew something wasn’t good about that…I got up & went to check on it & I saw my computer froze-up on the shutting down screen…I had to completely reboot the computer & then there is was “The Dreaded Blue Screen of Death”…It said if this was the first time I had seen this screen to just reboot…So I did…& there is was again….This time it said to open up in Safe Mode…So I did…& there it was again…Futilely I tried a couple more times but to my dismay…No luck…This was at 2am…I do things pretty early around here…

Well with nothing to do now…I decided to go back to bed…When I woke up at 7am I called my computer guy…He was asleep so I left a message…A couple of hours later he called me back & I told him what had happened…He said it sounded like a hard drive failure…I thought “Oh Crap” It’s been 2 months since I backed up…He told me to bring my Pute by & he would look at it…So I did…Are you seeing the similarities here…

He was out all day on service calls that day…Another night passes with nothing to do…The next day he gets started on it & finds that the boot sector is damaged…How bad he is unsure…He get’s it to boot up with a CD-Rom and is able to save my Desktop & Favorites…I thought with the back-up that would get everything…Boy was I wrong…Then he had to format the whole drive  & see if it would rebuild…New installation of Windows & a few maintenance programs later he called me up & told me I could come pick it up…Oh did I mention we went another night with nothing to do…$100 is the damage…My guy really takes care of me…I have been with him for years…

So Now I get home and hook everything up & get started…But wait…Where are my Applications…Incredimail…Twitter friend adding software…Firefox…All of my Emails addresses & bookmarks…I write a Inspirational Poem every morning with God’s help & fortunately they were all there…a couple of years worth…I just started noticing that all sorts of little things were missing…I’m told that traditional backing up is “Old School tactics”  & that “cloning is the way to go today…Nobody told me the difference…Now I see…

So I guess what this article is about is that you need to do more than backing up…Email your contacts list to a web-based email account you own so that they will be save there…Check into “Cloning” I know I sure am going to…Take extra precautions to protect you information…I had a password manager & all my passwords were safe…Whew that would have been a mess…Well that’s it for now…Take care…Kenney