Out of Touch

After being grounded, it's great to be back in cyberspace! The hard drive on my laptop had to be replaced and so I had to go without a computer for almost two weeks! When Matt was home and not on his computer (which is rare), I could check emails, etc. otherwise, all I had to connect me was my cell phone and I hate typing emails on it.

To me everything is and always should be a learning experience. So, here's what I learned having my hard drive crash:

• BACK UP YOUR FILES AND DATA!! While my documents and pictures were saved, all of my digital scrapbooking goodies (i.e. pages, embelleshments, what I had completed of Chloe's lifebook & scrapbook) were lost along with copies of a newsletter I work on and all my specially purchased fonts. I am so crushed about losing my scrapbook items. Matt and I went out and bought an external hard drive to back-up our files and I plan on doing it quarterly.


• RELOADING SOFTWARE IS A WHIP! It's taken me hours to reload my software on my computer. I have had to search high and low for all the disks and product keys. I also learned a valuable lesson--purchasing software on-line and downloading it can be costly if your computer crashes because you have to repurchase the software. For instance, after purchasing my laptop 18 months ago and my initial trial of M*croso*t Of*ice ran its course I upgraded on-line to the full version. Well, when my hard drive got replaced everything was set back to day 1 of my laptop and I lost the full version and without the program or product key I was up a creek without a paddle. Apparently M*croso*t has had some complaints about this and now when you purchase products on-line they will let you purchase a product key for $12.50 more. They didn't offer this option 18 months ago. I opted for the CD version this time instead.

Everything is a learning experience. Its just too bad that I had to loose some important items to learn these lessons. I will be updating the blogs with the latest and greatest info. Stay tuned.