Confessions of a Saving Queen

By Margo L. Dill

margodll@aol.com

www.margodill.com

A bright blue computer screen full of white letters and numbers in a strange code, instead of the opening page of Windows XP, is a frightening thing for any computer owner. When that owner also happens to be a writer, it is sheer terror. I experienced this horror at a local coffee shop a couple weeks ago when I accessed the Internet with their free Wi-Fi. After taking a terribly long time to get connected and go online, a message popped up: “A Trojan Horse has been detected.”

This, I knew, was not a good thing. Not because I knew a lot about computers, but I did remember the actual Trojan Horse story and how the Greeks used it to catch the Trojans unaware. To make a terribly brutal long story short, my laptop did not work after I saw this message, except for an annoyingly bright blue screen with the strange white code--only decipherable to people who speak computerese. SO, I immediately took my laptop to a computer shop and said, “Help!”

When I called my husband to let him know what had happened, I was remarkably calm. He was surprised, and I was even more surprised at my demeanor. Then he pointed out, “Well, you do have it all backed up, right?”

And you’ll all be glad to know my answer was, “Yes. On that Geek Squad online backup thing.”

Then he pointed out another fact so simple and true, “This is really just an inconvenience, then. Not a big deal.”

Now, I knew he was right. My desktop computer had crashed before a few years back, and I did learn my lesson about saving my work. (Although the wonderful computer man in Columbia, Missouri, saved all my files, and I lost nothing.)

But still the paranoid writer in me kept racking my brain, going back over my steps of the last day, week, month--did I save my book every time I edited it? It has to be turned in by Dec. 31. Do I have time to type the whole thing over? I did save it. I know I did, didn’t I? These obsessive thoughts haunted me until I got to a computer and checked my Geek Squad account.

For those of you unfamiliar with Geek Squad, they are a group of computer geniuses or computer repair people, whichever way you want to look at it, that work for Best Buy and drive around in little white Volkswagen bugs. I have no opinion on them one way or another. But this online backup service they offer is the next best thing to thin crust pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms, and onions. For under $10 a month, you can back up all your files, wherever you want, 24 hours a day, and then access them from any computer at any location. Your life’s work is saved somewhere out in a secure, cyberspace place that the Geek Squad owns. I don’t claim to know how it all works. I just know it is extremely convenient and easy to use and I love it.

Anyway, I digress. So, I went to check to make sure I had been backing up all my files on Geek Squad’s online backup while my laptop sat at the computer shop. When I logged in to my account, I kid you not, there was NOTHING there. NOTHING. I then panicked. I wanted to call my husband and tell him, “This is a little more than a small inconvenience now, buddy. It’s seven years worth of brilliant writing.” (I could call it brilliant if it was missing because no one would ever be able to read it and say differently.)

I called Geek Squad immediately, and the first little agent said, “Did you try to refresh your screen?”

“Yes,” I said. “And nothing came up.”

“Oh,” he said. “Ummm, could you hold on just a minute?”

Time stood still. Sweat trickled down my chest. I almost stopped breathing. When he came back, he said, “My supervisor is having the same problem. It will be fixed within 24 hours.”

I breathed again, and it was actually fixed in a few minutes. When I logged on, my files were all there, happy to be read, but no longer claimed as brilliant.

As it turns out, the computer store did not fix my laptop because it was still under warranty, so I called the company to help. I had to wind up reloading Windows XP and erasing all my files saved on my computer. I admit I shed a few tears when the consultant on the other end of the phone said, “Ma’am, you do understand all the files in your documents folder will be erased?”

But I was lucky because I had backed my stuff up—all my stories, articles, and novels-in-progress were on Geek Squad.

So, my point of all this is NOT--don’t use your computer at a coffee shop and scream and shout if you ever see the words TROJAN HORSE on your screen. Instead, take the time to back up your files because you can be surprised at any time by those creatures on the Web. Your work is important!

My husband has me overdoing it a bit, though. Of course, this is the man that buys EVERY warranty and insurance known to man. Salespeople at appliance and electronics stores LOVE my husband and his eagerness to sign on the dotted line for the extended warranty. I actually had to stop him from buying insurance on a foosball table we bought on clearance.

Anyway, just in case, I am now saving my work on my hard drive, online backup, CDs, and a flash drive. Some of my stuff is even saved in email. But I’d rather have a little inconvenience, than a black hole any day.

Keep writing and keep saving!

Margo L. Dill