The Importance of Keeping Records
This is not necessarily an adoption post but it could be (because even in adoption paperwork is essential).
But, to stay on track, on Tuesday my computer crashed…and I mean crashed.
I was working Tuesday evening; trying to open an Internet page when it went blank. So I tried another one. Blank. Another? Blank. But, I was still connected so I was very confused. I restarted and then nothing came up.
Wednesday morning when I opened my laptop I could not even connect to my modem. Now that had me confused. I ended up spending about 3 hours on the phone with Dell trying to resolve the problem but they could not even figure it out. So, we burned my files and rebooted back to 2005.
In the process of rebooting I lost all of my programs, my Norton AntiVirus, all of my passwords and log-ins for ALL of my websites, and I even lost log-ins for this site. I have spent the last two days cleaning up my computer and trying to get back into all of my programs, thus the importance of maintaining a separate log outside the computer for records. Why do I say outside? Because I also lost my Microsoft Office so I can’t open any Word or Excel document.
How do you keep records and where do you keep them?
I keep prit outs of records in file cabinet. I also regularly burn DVDs or my Documents folder and back my hard drive up on an external hard drive every ten days. I am anal like that.
Till you can get your hands on MS Office you could check out Open Office. It’s free, it’s Open Source, it’s small compared to MS Office and handles MS document types.
Oh, I forgot to add: The only thing that somehow I always forget to get backed up electronically is my genealogy. Luckily I tend to send my files after each update to my brother, so I can always ask him to send them back.