I know what you’re thinking, you want to give me extra points for having a title that is relevant and that rhymes. I know, I know, its a gift.
Well I’m back from Europe now, and the trip, in all senses of the word was eye opening. Especially in the technological sense, which is the reason behind this post.
One week into the three week trip, my Mac Book Pro died. Now when I say died, I mean that it would not get past the gray apple loading screen, and would not boot from a restore disk.So, for the rest of my trip, I had a beautiful aluminum brick to lug around Europe. As it turned out, the hard drive partition got corrupted somehow between Germany and the Czech Republic, and a simple wipe of the hard drive and repartitioning solved the problem. In the end, the only thing I lost was 12 photographs and 2 videos from the trip, and the rest I was able to either recover from the hard drive or alternative sources. I was lucky. I brushed over it just now, but let me say it again: I had to completely erase my hard drive and repartition it. All of the data on it – gone. Let me now explain what I did right, what I did wrong, and what I learned as a result of the whole traumatic experience.
Let me first explain what I did right:
- As an avid proponent of backing up everything, I made sure to back up my entire hard drive to my MyBook external drive before leaving. That way, all of my data that was on my computer at the time of my departure would not be lost. In fact, it was backed up using SuperDuper, which means that I had a fully bootable backup of my Macbook’s hard drive.
- Since we had internet access on the trip pretty much every night, I uploaded a number of photos from each location to my Picasa Web Album, and used their photo mapping feature to give people a better idea of where the photos were taken (this is a great little feature).
That was about it for correct action on my part. Here’s what I did wrong:
- On the trip we used my Macbook Pro for GPS guidance which, while the Macbook Pro worked, was sweet. The way I did it was using Microsoft’s GPS Locator and Microsoft’s Autoroute Europe 2007 running in Parallels Desktop for Mac. While on the surface this may seem like a good way of getting GPS driving navigation, think about your hard drive spinning while bumping around the broken Czech Republic roads, and you have yourself a recipe for hard drive failure (which I subsequently experienced).
- After being very careful to back everything up before leaving, I proceeded to import my one of a kind trip photos onto my laptop every night, not realizing that if my hard drive died, it would have taken my photos with it, never to return.
- In trying to keep up with all of the technology news while traveling, I installed a program that was beta. This too might not seem like a big deal, but see below.
I look back at that list and I just want to kick myself for it. I guess life took care of that however. Here’s what I would have done differently:
- Running a laptop in a car is just a bad idea, laptop or anything else. I should have just invested some money in a TomTom or the like, and gotten my GPS guidance that way.
- I should have uploaded all of my photos, not just some, to my Picasa Web Album or the like. I could have even split it up, keeping the ones for everyone to see in the album I was using, and uploading the rest to a private album just for safe keeping. With the gigabyte of storage (currently, and Upgradable), this is more than enough for a three week trip, especially since you can lower the quality slightly with Picasa’s iPhoto Uploader.
- I should not have installed ANY software (including Apple software updates) while away from an accessible full backup of my system. This is just a bad idea, and can lead to diminished system stability at the very time you need it most.
- I should have backed up my computer’s hard drive not only to my MyBook but also to an online storage provider. Although it takes quite a while for your machine to back up initially, a quick daily online backup can provide the comfort and security that my MyBook provides at home. Furthermore, an online backup (one that is secure), allows you to have full access to ALL of your files while traveling – with your computer or not. This is a GREAT feature I wish I had.
Well, these are all things I now know and have begun to practice. I am currently 15 gigabytes into a 130+ gigabyte backup of my entire system online. I am doing it through a company called Mozy, which offers very affordable backup with the ease and security I have become accustomed to on my Mac. I paid $55 for a year of unlimited backup, which is quite a deal, especially given everything that Mozy offers. Mozy has a free version of their software too, which offers 2 gigabytes of backup space without paying a dime. I highly recommend both Windows and Mac users check them out (the Mac client is currently in Beta, but has come a long long way). Also, don’t believe everything you read – although I read otherwise, Mozy’s technical support is VERY helpful and responsive.
Well, looking back at the post above, I guess you could sum up my advice with one word: redundancy. If you only have one of something (such as a photo), do everything you can to back it up. You never know what can happen, especially while traveling.