Confessions of a Digital Bum: I got into personal computers in 1985 when I bought a Kaypro XT. A year or so later I got a job at a computer store selling PCs, later become the sales manager. Part of our sales promise was the training that came with the PC, for free. Three weeks into my job the guy that taught the classes quit and I was handed a three ring binder and told that my first DOS class was the following night. I was caught. I had been bluffing my way through the job until that point. I can sell anything, but when I was told that I had to teach how to use them I was in a bad way. I crammed and did a fairly good job. The second night of classes we took a break two hours into class and I asked if there were any questions over anything at all. One guy sheepishly asked how to turn the computer on. I realized then that some people need REALLY basic instructions. You have all read some of the help desk stuff out there and I can tell you it is not fiction. I have honestly had someone ask where the “Any” key was (“hit any key”) and my dear mother-in-law once complained that her keyboard didn’t have an escape key. I actually thought that somehow she was correct until I asked her to read what the key on the top right said. “E..S..C” a few minutes later we were on to another dilemma.

But, this isn’t about my escapades in teaching and coaching, but is about my own confessions. Let me just warn you, this is like Bob Russell sharing that he hadn’t been baptized, George Bush saying that he had never voted, or Tom Clancy telling the world that he had never read a book. It is one thing to teach or preach something, but it is something entirely different to sometimes do that thing. We all assume that they do that which they teach, but sometimes are very shocked.

So what is this earth shaking revelation from the digital guy? Twenty one years after getting into computers, I did something this weekend that I have never done before. I backed up my hard drive. “What?” you are asking, “You have never, ever, not even once done a backup?” Nope. I am telling you that in 20 years of working on computer I have never backed up. I have copied important files from time to time to some kind of stored media (recently DVDs), but I have never ever done a complete system backup. I am telling you that if I grab a virus tonight and lose it all I can restore it all tomorrow.

Now, to the few who regularly read this blog and know me, or have known me for more than a few years, you will know that I have indeed lost data before due to some hard drive failure or virus (just once). But, it hasn’t ever really been a problem for me. Only once in 20 years have I had a failure that caused permanent loss of data that I wanted. It consisted of a book that I had written (but have a hard copy), and some digital pictures. Every other time it hasn’t been such a bad deal. Over the past 3.5 years I have had 8 laptops. Six of them were Panasonic CF-48s that had screen problems. I just swapped the hard drive into the new unit and everything was back to normal. I had one that was infected. I got a new unit the next day that was fresh, but copied my “My Documents” directory that I had made into a CD the day before (total coincidence there!) and was back up. I had to just download some of the plug ins that I needed and some of my favorite software.

I now use a CD-51, a totally incredible small notebook. But, I was listening to my wife lament the virus problems that she has been having on her laptop and decided that I should back up. Man was it easy! Should have been doing this all along. With the back up drive that I am using (a Western Digital 120g external) it was as simple as plugging in the USB cable and clicking a few buttons). So now I am a new convert to that thing that I told people to do 20 years ago. Feels good!