BACKUP YOUR COMPUTER

I had two close calls in one week. By close call I mean that gut-clenching moment of dread when the only thoughts are, “Have I just lost my computer?” “What about my book?”

Yeah. Those. Twice.

The first one was entirely my fault. I know not to open unfamiliar attachments on emails. I know not to be enticed to follow some shady link into the unknown. I know better…

So, what got me? The appealing allure of a cute cat video. Yes, they’re always lurking over there on the right side of my Facebook page. I’ve indulged in the past and have been fine. I think. At least nothing bad happened. That I know of. However, this time I clicked on one and I instantly got a strange looking screen, frozen controls, and no choice but to summon in my expert IT guy. Who looked at the damage and said, “Well, I haven’t seen that before.”

At least I had a husband to help me. If I hadn’t—things would have gotten very ugly very fast. I have little patience for computer problems. Goes along with my lack of technical knowledge. I’m sure neither of my children would have welcomed a frantic call from their mother in this case. There are some tech pros down the street. That would have been embarrassing and expensive.

As it happened, I was saved by the good old standby: control, alt, delete; and ignoring a request to “refresh” the page.

I’ve heard lots of horror stories about viruses, ransomware, and worse. I got off easy.

A couple of days later, without me doing anything (I swear): my desktop icons disappeared, another screen came up, and I again lost control of my computer.

I feared that this was somehow related to the first incident. My writer’s imagination turned it into a scenario where foreign baddies had covertly waited for me to let down my guard and then swept in to reclaim my computer.

Little did they know how unimportant my data was … except for my writing, my novel, a complete personal and business history documented with hundreds and hundreds of photos—a big chunk of my life.

Fortunately, it was just a massive Windows update.

So, the lesson learned here: no more careless clicking on cat videos.

And in any case, be sure to have a way to backup data. Paying for a service that stores the information offsite can be money well spent. During my crisis, I knew I had a paper printout of my novel. It would have taken me a couple of weeks to type it all back into a new computer. Not an entirely comforting thought to say the least.