Dropbox

Sometime after settling into my new home (one I hope to live in for the next half-century or so), I started to think about potentially losing this home. I don't know why this thought never occurred before in the several places I've lived, but it came up now.

I'm good about backing up my important files (which is pretty much all of them ;-) on a regular basis. Being a teacher certainly helps in that regard, since at the end of the semester, I go through my ritual of clearing out and backing up last semester's files. I burn the previous semester's worth of school materials on to a CD, and while I'm burning CD's I also burn my writing onto a CD and everything else I've stored up. (Okay, technically, it's several CD's.)

But then it occurred to me, on the tails of the aforementioned worry of losing the house, that if something catastrophic happened to my house-- fire, tornado, sink hole-- then all those lovely back up CD's that sit in a box NEXT to my computer would be just as screwed as my computer. Hmm.

Then, the internet revealed the answer for me. (Well, Absolute Write WaterCooler and the collection of crazy people over there.) Dropbox.

Dropbox provides off site storage. You download the application. It sets up a folder on your computer during the install process. (Or perhaps more accurately, a box on your computer? Ha ha?) Any file copied or moved into the Dropbox file will be uploaded to Dropbox. You can log into your dropbox account on the internet and access your files. Any files updated are synchronized.

Anyway, I like it. I stuck my Writing folder in there and when I make big changes to a file, I copy them into the Dropbox folder. It's nice knowing that I have a safe back up.

Just in case.

Oh, and I do realize that this active imagination is good for fiction, not so good for real life. This same imagination means I've been sleeping with a nightlight for, oh, twenty-eight years. Now, if I could just make some money off it...