This week got off to a shaky start. On Monday morning, I was putting together a video for a future newsletter, when my cat tipped a glass of water all over my MacBook. (Yes, I know I shouldn’t be drinking water near my laptop. Amazing the number of people who are keen to state the obvious after an event.)
A trip to the Apple store (thanks to @teenytinyleanne) revealed that the keyboard and potentially the battery are done. Hello £233 bill.
It’s not a total disaster though. I had an old Dell laptop (plus my trusty iPad and iPhone.) And thanks to the following, I’ve been able to pick up where I left off while my MacBook is in for repair:
- The majority of my documents are on Google Drive or Dropbox, so it’s easy to login and continue.
- The iCloud has all my music sorted (although I mainly use Spotify these days)
- I’m a Chrome user, so all I needed to do was login in again on my Dell, and like magic all my bookmarks, plugins and extensions appeared.
- I use LastPass, a plugin/extension that remembers all your password for you, so I didn’t have to faff around remembering the login details for various sites.
I’m not great at remembering to back up into a portable hard disc, so I’ve set a reminder to do this in this future – there are always a few things that don’t end up on Dropbox or Google Drive.
Overall, it’s made me realise how much I really do rely on various ‘clouds’, which is reassuring in situations like this but also a little scary – what if anything happens to those clouds?
My OH works in IT so constantly goes on at me to backup so, like you, I’ve got a reminder set in my calendar. There’s nothing like an IT failure to help you learn how important this is. My iPhone died due to a hardware failure, got it replaced, plugged it in & everything was there. Backing up is essential!
That’s the beauty of Apple, isn’t it? It’s like you’ve never had a problem.
So does mine. He actually got me an external hard drive for Christmas, and always tells me to back up at least on two external hard drives just in case. I also keep my current projects on Google Docs; and sync Mozilla not only across computers, but on my tablet and mobile.
After a coffee-meets-laptop situation a few years ago I not only agree that backing up is essential but getting contents insurance that covers accidental damage is too. Unfortunately I didn’t have it at the time but I have religiously taken it out since because, as you say, no matter how well we know not to take fluids near to technology we still do it (and I’m very clumsy!).
I think I’m covered too, just need to check the final cost and I’ll be ringing them up (glad I’m not the only one that still manages to spill liquids on them!)
Mozy Home is the essential but missing tool here. Backs up at least once a day to the cloud, and every time your computer is idle for 20 mins. Even gets the stuff you’ve stored temporarily on your desktop.
Just checked that out, looks perfect! Will be subscribing as soon as I get my MacBook back! Do you have a referral code?
Oh that sounds like my worst nightmare! I’m just about to purchase a new iMac, just a quick random question but what programme do you use for blogging? I use windows live writer at the mo. oh and I would be lost without Dropbox for backing up!
I either write it straight into WordPress, use a Google Doc or type it up on notepad on my iPad then email it to myself. I used to use Windows Live Writer, but I’m now basically driven by Google and Apple 🙂