Remember to Back It Up!

Just did! Thanks for the reminder.

Alphasmart users: do a dump to your PC/Mac on a regular basis.

If you have one, make a file in your GoogleDocs (or similar) account.

If your word processor has the option, do an auto save every 5 to 10 minutes. Yes, that often. You'll thank me later.

Thanks for the reminder. Last night I did my first transfer from my Neo to my desktop, it took at least five minutes to transfer 2200 words, so it's definitely something I'll be doing on a daily basis. (It was king of cool watching all the lines appearing on the screen, like some speed-typing ghostwriter).

Thanks for the reminder. I've saved (I need to check how often my auto save is set for... any idea how to do that for Word 2003?), sent it via email to myself and my husband and stored it on my flash drive.

Thanks for the reminder! I've uploaded everything from my Neo to my laptop and I've saved an extra copy on a thumb drive.

BenPanced said:

Alphasmart users: do a dump to your PC/Mac on a regular basis.

If you have one, make a file in your GoogleDocs (or similar) account.

If your word processor has the option, do an auto save every 5 to 10 minutes. Yes, that often. You'll thank me later.

Click to expand...

I'm doing a daily Alphasmart dump onto my PC, and starting a new NEO file each day since I can't figure out how dump anything but an entire file at once. I can just see trying to delete the redundancy and deleting too much.

I appreciate the reminder to email it to myself. I'd forgotten that trick.

Oh, I've learned this the hard way. My old laptop died on me about two years ago and took A LOT of writing with it. Tons of short snipppets, story ideas, etc. Worst of all, it ate me '50k-in-a-day' challenge I did with another nanowrimo member.

Sadness.

Since I don't trust my computer AT ALL I'm doing backup overkill. I email myself a copy every night, and then have 3 additional copies, one on a usb flash drive, the other uploaded to my online storage dealey which I update every night as well.

Devil Ledbetter said:

I'm doing a daily Alphasmart dump onto my PC, and starting a new NEO file each day since I can't figure out how dump anything but an entire file at once. I can just see trying to delete the redundancy and deleting too much.

I appreciate the reminder to email it to myself. I'd forgotten that trick.

Click to expand...

Use the Alphasmart Manager. There, you can copy-paste extracts from the files. Also, the copy-paste thing makes it much faster to transfer the files from the Alphasmart to the PC, instead of having to wait AGES for it to type up the novel (especially if you're transfering 9k chunks like me).

BenPanced said:

If your word processor has the option, do an auto save every 5 to 10 minutes. Yes, that often. You'll thank me later.

Click to expand...

That's... too long actually. I have it set to autosave every minute. I've still lost important information.

I use Google Docs, so I feel pretty comfortable about the safety of my words.

cjharley said:

I use Google Docs, so I feel pretty comfortable about the safety of my words.

Click to expand...

Even so, download a local copy frequently, and email a copy to yourself.

DamaNegra said:

That's... too long actually. I have it set to autosave every minute. I've still lost important information.

Click to expand...

That's actually not a good idea. You're risking overwrites that way because your disk is writing all the time, and is also doing system level caching.

Every five is probably about the maximum you should use for an auto setting.

I'm lovin' yWriter4 -- it auto backups almost constantly. But I should email myself a copy just in case the hard drive goes--it'd be just my luck to get to 49,999 words and have the thing crash...

And thanks for the tip, Lisa. I'll check to see just how "constantly" my program's doing backups.

Ha! Just took a look, and the automatic setting is every time I edit a file, meaning delete a word or something.

That's about every forty-five seconds for me.

I changed it to every five minutes.

cklayne said:

Thanks for the reminder. I've saved (I need to check how often my auto save is set for... any idea how to do that for Word 2003?), sent it via email to myself and my husband and stored it on my flash drive.

Click to expand...

For Word2003
Go to Tools--> Options
Go to the Save Tab. In the middle you'll find the spot to adjust the amount of minutes in AutoRecover.

And, just in case anyone wants it:
For Word2007,
Go to Office Symbol--> Word Options (very bottom right of the menu)
Go to 'Save'


And I like to set a filter on my email to put all email with subject "Back Up" into it's own folder. So I don't *have* to do anything with it when it comes into the inbox.

Don't forget to back up your other files and such too... =)

Keep in mind that one of the neat things about a Yahoo or Google or other Web based email account is that you thereby have an "off site backup" if you keep a copy of your email with file on the Web server.

DamaNegra said:

Use the Alphasmart Manager. There, you can copy-paste extracts from the files. Also, the copy-paste thing makes it much faster to transfer the files from the Alphasmart to the PC, instead of having to wait AGES for it to type up the novel (especially if you're transfering 9k chunks like me).

Click to expand...

Thanks, Dama. So far my chunks have been less that 2,000 words, but I may try the AlphaSmart Manager. I haven't read through the user manual all that carefully yet.

I use Google Docs too, plus I save a copy to a key. But being a paranoid b**ch that I am (theoretically, the whole of the Internet can go down, can't it? ), I'd love to print out hard copy at the end of each session. Isn't it Uncle Jim who does it? But I'm so ashamed somebody might see this drivel before I have a chance to edit it, I don't. But I should. Everybody should.

I can't backup
I put a new re-writable disc in, (Memorex CD-RW - 4X - 700MB - 80 min) it said it needed to format it first, after about forty minutes during which time it said it had just over a minute to go, when it counted down to around five seconds remaining, it said it couldn't do it! "Word cannot complete formatting" or similar.
I spent good money on these discs and now it seems I can't use them!
Any techies out there with an explanation/suggestions please?

Yes! Back everything up! I send myself a copy via email, I have a flash drive, and I have a copy on my harddrive.

Good luck ya'll!

Don't depend solely on Google and its apps as your back-up. Several people have been locked out of their GAccounts entirely with no cause. A few have gotten back in, but don't put your words in one electronic basket--it could unravel!

I email it to my yahoo account then download it on my work PC (I know, shame on me), so I have it at home, in Yahoo mail and on work PC.

The NaNo site says it's "National Back Up Your Novel Day" today.

Do it!

Now!

I have it on the laptop hard drive, email it to myself and put it on a flash drive. I'm always worried about losing it, even if it is drivel.