Back up your files (friendly reminder)

I have two older Lenovo Thinkpads I use. One is a 15" and the other a 12". These are virtually clones with all my important stuff. I only use one at a time, generally the 12" because as you can imagine, it is easier to take with me.

I too use Dropbox and other online backup applications. At the end of each day I upload whatever files I feel I may need that way I have them to download to my other laptop when I get home.

Easy.

 

if your computer savy. it's not that hard to replace the hard drive. laptop or computer.

i have windows 7 on a usb stick. activation bypassed. will load up any computer.

if you have a manufactured computer. there SHOULD be a way to make your dvd's. so that you have the operating system to install on a new replacement hard drive. or you can order from the manufacture. usually runs $15 last time i ordered 3 years ago.

any shop will be able to retreive your data. but it will COST.

when i get home i'm going to shop for a usb tera drive though.

 

I, my wife, and my children run linux on all our computers old and new. Linux doesn't need anti-spy anti-virus, or any protection software. My kids and wife are not even very computer savvy, but they will say to their friends eeeewwww you run windows?,...doesn't that cost money?,...boy your computer is slow, I thought you said it was the fastest out right now?,...watch this,...and mine is 3 years old (as their windows friends get jealous of the lightning speed and animated desktop environments that put windows to shame).

With a linux machine you only have one folder to back up. Its your home folder, and there are many free cloud services that will sync it so it never gets lost. Heck, my neighbors son (all their computers are linux too) runs linux from his memory stick at school on their machines and does his homework from the cloud, and a synced desktop no matter what the base hardware is.

Just throwing it out there so that others will know that there ARE alternatives to the bloated dead money hungry fish that windows has become.

Oh yea, cover your webcams too,...microsoft is going way too far...

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/1...goes-big-brother-will-spy-on-you-for-the-mpaa

 

to me. and 99 percent of the world. windows is user friendly. linux is not.

i haven't played with it lately. but if it's still anything like it was in the past. i have no desire to learn something that complicated. great for everyday use. but that was as far as i got to learning it.

getting it to install was a pain the butt alone. although, it's much easier today. took me a year to figure it out when it first came out.

linux if free and will always be highly recommended. but if the whole world were capable of learning it so easily. there'd be more people running macs.

 

I highly recommend anyone running a laptop purchase a --DC-- power supply (runs off of cigarette lighter plug) specifically to provide the voltage the laptop wants. Running an AC power adapter off of an inverter to power the laptop is just asking for problems somewhere down the road caused by poor voltage. Don't give the power supply good AC voltage (few inverters do), the power supply can't output good, steady DC voltage. The DC to DC adapters are much more forgiving of DC voltage drops then AC to DC adapters are of AC voltage drops. And today's electronics are becoming less and less forgiving of poor power supplied, especially if you have a larger, "gaming" type rig that requires A LOT of quality power.

I'm not saying voltage had anything to do with the HD crash the OP experienced, but I'm just taking this opportunity to mention this.

I'm using "the cloud" to keep much of my non-personal/private data files stored if I don't have to access them frequently. I have a dedicated hotspot device but don't want to be in a position I have to rely on it to access something critical that I need right then, but with syncing capabilities that can be leveraged, you can run off the local file and it will sync (overwrite/backup) next time you connect if you set it up correctly.

 

Not to mention, it draws much less than the inverter.