Backup

No, traffic isn't that bad.

After losing several thumb drives and a laptop, I've found an automatic backup program that is easy to use and works really well.

Everyday Auto Backup

You can set it to backup any files to any other drive hooked up to your computer at almost any time length from minutes to days. Default for hours is three, which works for me. There is not even a noticeable interruption except for the flag that pops up for a few seconds to tell you it did it's thing.

I backup from my thumb drive to my main drive and to my backup drive on my main computer and to my main drive on my laptop. There is only one folder on each with the latest copies in it.

Oh yeah, and it's free.

Literotica is my backup for erotica and porn stories. Amazon/Smashwords/B&N/etc. are my backup for longer works.

TxRad said:

No, traffic isn't that bad.

After losing several thumb drives and a laptop, I've found an automatic backup program that is easy to use and works really well.

Everyday Auto Backup

You can set it to backup any files to any other drive hooked up to your computer at almost any time length from minutes to days. Default for hours is three, which works for me. There is not even a noticeable interruption except for the flag that pops up for a few seconds to tell you it did it's thing.

I backup from my thumb drive to my main drive and to my backup drive on my main computer and to my main drive on my laptop. There is only one folder on each with the latest copies in it.

Oh yeah, and it's free.

Click to expand...

I think we've touched upon this before. Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive (among others) will automatically sync with the cloud with no effort on the user's part. Perhaps not for sensitive documents, but for stories...they are a good alternative. Best part is that you can access them from any device.

Swilly said:

I think we've touched upon this before. Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive (among others) will automatically sync with the cloud with no effort on the user's part. Perhaps not for sensitive documents, but for stories...they are a good alternative. Best part is that you can access them from any device.

Click to expand...

A lot of people use older copies of windows that don't sync.

Also this is a timed backup not something you do manually or have to tell it to do it.

Or just email yourself a copy.

redzinger said:

Or just email yourself a copy.

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Most people would only do that when they finished a story. If you did that each time you quite writing, you end up with a bunch of single e-mails and a bunch of copies of the same story.

I'm still in the floppy world, backing up on floppy disks.

TxRad said:

Most people would only do that when they finished a story. If you did that each time you quite writing, you end up with a bunch of single e-mails and a bunch of copies of the same story.

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I delete them every so often, they have their own folder.
It works for me, though it may not work for others.

Swilly said:

I think we've touched upon this before. Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive (among others) will automatically sync with the cloud with no effort on the user's part. Perhaps not for sensitive documents, but for stories...they are a good alternative. Best part is that you can access them from any device.

Click to expand...

I now back up to another hard drive and then Optical disk (CD/DVD).

TxRad said:

A lot of people use older copies of windows that don't sync.
Also this is a timed backup not something you do manually or have to tell it to do it.

Click to expand...

I don't think mine does. I back up every time I stop to draw breath.

sr71plt said:

I'm still in the floppy world, backing up on floppy disks.

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What a wise move. I've got LOADS of floppy disks doing not a lot.

sr71plt said:

I'm still in the floppy world, backing up on floppy disks.

Click to expand...

I bet some of the younger writers here wonder what the hell a floppy disk is.

Swilly said:

I bet some of the younger writers here wonder what the hell a floppy disk is.

Click to expand...

They definitely wouldn't understand this then...

http://youtu.be/cM_sAxrAu7Q

I couldn't imagine backing up files via floppy disk in this day and age. Copying files took forever! Thumb drives are larger, faster, the same concept (removable rewrite-able portable storage) and doesn't draw power from your PSU while not in use.

TxRad said:

No, traffic isn't that bad.

After losing several thumb drives and a laptop, I've found an automatic backup program that is easy to use and works really well. . . .

Click to expand...

It's well known in IT industry to treat the world as if there are only two kinds of hard drives, those that have failed and those that are about to fail. While I've been lucky through multiple computers, I maintain multiple backups of my most important things on multiple computers and online.

Google Drive saved my bacon a year ago when I forgot to backup my family pictures while moving to a new hard laptop. I nearly lost a couple years worth of holiday photos and birthdays!

I've recently taken to writing via Google Documents through the Chrome browser and storing my stories on Google Drive. 1) The backups happen as I'm writing. 2) It's accessible from any computer, which has value to me because I use multiple computers. 3) Since it's in the cloud and password protected, I don't have to worry about someone poking around on my computer and finding something I don't want them to find. Once I log out, it's gone until the next time I want to access it.

All that said, I am a bit concerned about someone else hacking an online account, so I use multiple accounts for different activities. Banking, for example, happens from a different account. And none of my computers save passwords for next time I log-in.

As for Google reading my stuff? The only way to keep a secret is to never tell it to anyone and never, ever write it down, right? For now, I trust my Google overlords enough with the things I've shown them.

sr71plt said:

I'm still in the floppy world, backing up on floppy disks.

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It makes so little sense to me why you would choose to use such fragile and antiquated system when so many longer lasting, faster, and more permanent solutions exist. I'm going to assume you were joking and smile at the idea.

On the outside chance that you're serious - I'll point out this CBS 60 Minutes story (Link to 60 Minutes Story) that shows parts of the US Nuclear Arsenal still using 8" floppies!

BuckyDuckman said:

It makes so little sense to me why you would choose to use such fragile and antiquated system when so many longer lasting, faster, and more permanent solutions exist. I'm going to assume you were joking and smile at the idea.

On the outside chance that you're serious - I'll point out this CBS 60 Minutes story (Link to 60 Minutes Story) that shows parts of the US Nuclear Arsenal still using 8" floppies!

Click to expand...

I use what the publishers I work for use (and were using when I was doing a lot of mainstream editing). Most are on a shoestring budget--they don't update just because Microsoft wants them too. PC Word. Nothing higher than Word 2003, and they have a boatload of floppies to put stuff on still.

Beyond that, it obviously doesn't slow down my production to use the simple known technology rather than devoting a bunch of time to being jazzy and arriving at the same result.

I don't use a cell phone either, except for the possibility of needing AAA when I'm on the road. And, guess what, I'll bet my quality of life and productivity is higher than those bogged down with all this electronic crap.

Nice of you to care, though. (I guess)

sr71plt said:

I use what the publishers I work for use (and were using when I was doing a lot of mainstream editing). Most are on a shoestring budget--they don't update just because Microsoft wants them too. PC Word. Nothing higher than Word 2003, and they have a boatload of floppies to put stuff on still.

Beyond that, it obviously doesn't slow down my production to use the simple known technology rather than devoting a bunch of time to being jazzy and arriving at the same result.

I don't use a cell phone either, except for the possibility of needing AAA when I'm on the road. And, guess what, I'll bet my quality of life and productivity is higher than those bogged down with all this electronic crap.

Nice of you to care, though. (I guess)

Click to expand...

I've encountered the "Please submit as Word 2003" guideline in the past. I haven't seen it in years. I'm amazed any publisher would continue to use a floppy disc in this day and age. It's limited in space and physically fragile by comparison to a flash drive.

For a bit of perspective, Dell stopped including floppy drives as standard in their computers over 11 years ago! (2003). In 1998, the world used 2 billion floppies a year. By 2007, PCWorld, the one of the largest computer retailers in Europe, stopped selling floppy discs. I have one legacy computer I keep because it has a floppy drive and runs some legacy software. Otherwise I just checked, I no longer own any discs. I backed up the last of them years ago. (Which makes me wonder why I still have that old machine!)

I have to imagine any publisher still using floppies or adhering to the Word 2003 idea, would either be a very small shop or generously catering to a favored cantankerous author. How does it work? Do you email the story and they download it to disc or do you send a telegraph to the Pony Express to come pick-up your disc? (Yes, I'm being my usual sarcastic self and hopefully appealing to your sense of humor, Pilot.)

It's sort of like being cautioned against sending in a manuscript printed on the dot-matrix printer!

As for your unwillingness to pick up a cell phone, I'm sure there's a good many of us who wish we could throw our cell phones out the window, preferably while travelling 70 mph! I feel like a dinosaur because I still have a home phone.

I have a home landline phone. But I don't answer it. Don't even have my cell phone turned on. Not sure I'd know what button to push to answer it if it did ring.

Guess I'm really old world. I have a housekeeper who answers the phone. (It gets answered if she's there. If she isn't, they have to leave a message.)

I have external floppy drives for both of my computers. I trust I'll be dead before I have to learn a new system for that (and, as I posted already, my backup system is to publish everything.) Academic presses are the ones most cash strapped and old-world oriented.

Thank you, TxRad that looks really good, I used to write directly in google docs but my internet connection can be patchy so it doesn't always work out. A thing that automatically backs up my files every 24 hours sounds great

Swilly said:

I bet some of the younger writers here wonder what the hell a floppy disk is.

Click to expand...

I use punch cards

Swilly said:

I bet some of the younger writers here wonder what the hell a floppy disk is.

Click to expand...

<c:\>cd UR
<c:\UR>Arrogant.exe

redzinger said:

They definitely wouldn't understand this then...

http://youtu.be/cM_sAxrAu7Q

Click to expand...

Damned good find, that.

Rozalin_0123 said:

I couldn't imagine backing up files via floppy disk in this day and age. Copying files took forever! Thumb drives are larger, faster, the same concept (removable rewrite-able portable storage) and doesn't draw power from your PSU while not in use.

Click to expand...

Forgive me please, but do you generally move at such velocity that drinking a good slurp of tea/coffee [insert drink of choice] while the floppy gets writ ?

BuckyDuckman said:

I've encountered the "Please submit as Word 2003" guideline in the past. I haven't seen it in years. I'm amazed any publisher would continue to use a floppy disc in this day and age. It's limited in space and physically fragile by comparison to a flash drive.

Otherwise I just checked, I no longer own any discs. I backed up the last of them years ago. (Which makes me wonder why I still have that old machine!)

Click to expand...

I still have a load of 1.44 floppy disks. As I like building my own PC, I make sure that there's at least one floppy drive fitted (as an alternative there's a neat thing plugging into the USB port). It does not take forever to store a story on floppy.
That said, when talking large files, I use a CD or even DVD.

soflabbwlvr said:

I use punch cards

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You have a large house, then.

PayDay said:

<c:\>cd UR
<c:\UR>Arrogant.exe

Click to expand...

C:\>del*.*

You don't think it's possible that some people on here have never used a floppy?

soflabbwlvr said:

I use punch cards

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Let's see, I started out with the 80 column punch cards, then upgraded to the 96 column punch cards. As time wore on, upgraded to an 80 column magnetic punch card.

Then they came out with 8 inch floppy. What a boon. You could fit ten magnetic punch cards of data on the floppy. The next upgrade was to a 5 inch floppy, a little smaller with a lager capacity.

Then came the ultimate upgrade in floppy technoloy, the 3 1/2 inch floppy holding whopping 1.44 mbytes of data.

Then the penultimate technology arrived, flash drives. They can now hold Multiples of Gigabytes of data. I have several 64GByte drives on my desk right now.

I have had any number of these floating around my house over the ages.

For back up now, I use flash drives. Twice a month I back up my stories folder, websites folder and a couple of other necessary folders to flash drives. I then copy them onto my laptop. I have ordered a 1 Tbyte hard drive for an external enclosure I have, which will also hold backups of files I need if something should go wrong with the hard drive on my machine.

The cloud as back up???? Not just yet, thank you. Too many clouds getting squeezed dry lately.

Swilly said:

C:\>del*.*

You don't think it's possible that some people on here have never used a floppy?

Click to expand...

Implication.

I started on 5-1/4 floppys, worked through 3-1/2 floppys, zip, and now use a combination of flash drives and a cigarette pack sized seagate backup thingy.

I keep my working copies and ideas in one folder, and have a sub folder with the completed and posted stories. (Plus a bunch of folders for non Lit type stories).

I try to save to my flash drive when I finish a session, but in reality I backup to a flash drive every week or two. I do a complete backup of my entire laptop every few months. More often if I've done a lot.

I'm not so worried about completed stories, I do backup as soon as I post one, plus Lit has it. It's the uncompleted ones that that I worry about, I don't always back up right away. I have been lucky though. I've had two laptops completely die on me, plus I had to replace a hard drive, but luckily each time I had done a full backup just beforehand.

I recommend

I use EaseUS Todo free backup. It works great and is pretty simple.