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is it just me or did 9 years plus of my stories get wiped out?
I just logged in to check a plot or 2 the fastest way I know how and each one of my stories I checked is ZERO words?
is anyone else seeing that?
cause I don't know if I have it in me to days of reposting all of the over again!
Comments
Not Just You.
No, it's not just you.
Probably a server cach problem.
Should not be too long before the BCTS elves get it in order again.
Peace tmf
It's been known to happen
They'll get it cleared up, it's happened a few times before. Our stories are safe.
Donations to keep the site up help, folks - it's amazing what they're able to do as is on so little. <3
Guess
No, nine years of your stories did not get wiped out, so... it is just you!!
:)
Seriously, we have these wrinkles from time to time. It happens to other websites too. Often what happens is that somebody tries to fix something minor and one bit of code no longer meshes properly with other bits of code - for a short while, until it all sychronizes itself. Confusion ensues!
Make backups
I just checked and your stories seem to be available now, but really, for something as important to you as 9 years of your work, you should have your own backups offline, and not (in my opinion) in the "cloud".
If you already have such backups, great. But for anyone else here who doesn't, please start making your own copies.
Lindsay
Yeah ... Backups.
My "rules" are:
- Backups are done by people who used to not do backups.
- Test restores are done by people used to not test restoring.
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All media >will fail< - hard drives, solid state drives, 'thumb drives", CD/ROMs & DVDs ... all of it can, and eventually will, fail.
Heck, maybe even a new computer that can't read the old computer's media. Something important, on a floppy disk? Good luck with that one ...
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The simpler and easier your backup system, the better.
And keep at least one set of >recent< backups "off site". How about a fire that melts everything in your home/condo/apartment complex - and took out your car? When the smoke settles, your only copies may be in your safe deposit box, or with a trusted friend/relative.
Sure, a lot of us have things we don't want others to read. A lot of encryption software easily encrypts things so that it's more expensive decrypt, than we are worth. If I recall, even Micro-Squish Weird can be told to encrypt on save, and then demand your key to open.
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My sorta-system:
I have a second Big disk, and all the stuff I want to backup, I just use the operating system (windows clicking) to copy entire folder/directories to the second drive. "Picking and Choosing" would make me crazy.
Some things, I back up rarely, or not at all: 47 GB of music (once in a while). BOINC, several Java IDEs and their cache files? Nope.
Then, (what I should do is) copy the backups to a second disk that almost always 'lives in my car'.
-
I'm not a fan of special 'backup software' - (much) harder to use, you can get locked into their format, and so on.
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Now it's time for me to >do< my Monday backups, followed by Friday, follow...
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My true story:
The day came for our Collage course Big Presentation. Had all my slides and notes on a thumb drive.
Classroom computer would not read my USB.
Disaster? Nope. I had e-mailed everything to my college account, and I was presenting in under 10 minutes.
Returning to my seat, I got teased by classmates for boasting 40 years in computers, then going 'splat'. I said "Nope. 40 years taught me to have a backup plan. And this (*thud*) is everything on paper for the opaque/overhead projector."
In another life ...
... long, long before the internet existed for 'normal' people and I actually had a paid job, I wrote software for stuff I'd designed. A lot of it was in assembler and some in slightly higher level languages like PL9 or C but I was terrified of losing it as it was all on floppy discs (or even C90 cassettes!) so I usually had 3 back-ups so that all my code wasn't in the machine (not a PC) at the same time. I never lost anything and even 10 kbytes worth of assembler takes a long time to write so I was careful.
I have lots of HDs (including a SSD) in my PC as well as a stand-alone back-up. I've even got a few boxes of 3.5" floppies (I started out with 7" ones!) but I think they're probably redundant and will be thrown out by frustrated relatives in the not too distant future.
So I agree back-up and back-up the back-up as well :)