My computer crashed and I lost everything … I know you told us to back up our computers but I didn’t … Could you please resend my Food Storage Made Easy Binder file?

And that is the part where we say “I told you so!!!”. In our BabyStep Checklist program the VERY first thing we tell people to do is to have some sort of backup plan for their computer. This doesn’t seem like a typical recommendation from a food storage/preparedness site, but it is the MOST common “disaster” that people have and it is absolutely devastating when it happens. To lose all of your work and school files, not to mention family pictures and videos … it has happened to me and it is awful.
 

Well today I had a serious computer emergency myself. I was working on my laptop at a little table in front of my couch and had a nice full glass of ice water sitting beside me. My five year old son wanted a turn to hold my 2 month old baby, so he came and sat down beside me on the couch and tried to situate himself to comfortably take the babe. Well, in the process of doing that … he kicked the entire glass of water right onto my computer keyboard.

Needless to say I FREAKED OUT. I hurriedly put the baby down and tried to salvage the computer. I burst into tears because my MacBook is my other baby and it is only about a year old and it was FULL of WATER. My 2 month old was screaming because I scared him by putting him down so fast. And my five year old started crying because I was so upset and he was worried about the baby. Plus my three year old girl kept saying “What’s wrong, why is everyone crying?” It was quite a scene.

I thought the computer was completely ruined, as it kept doing crazy freak-out things whenever I tried to use the keyboard. But it appears to work ok if I use an external keyboard and mouse plugged into it. So I’m writing this blog post on my poor flooded MacBook and crossing my fingers that it will still function tomorrow.

The funny part about this is that I was not at ALL worried about my data. The very first thing to cross my mind was “Thank goodness I finally transfered my Mozy account to this computer (after procrastinating for almost a year).” I only had to be sad about replacing a $2400 computer, but all my non-replaceable files are safely stored in my Mozy account and were accessible to me all day while MY computer was drying out.

Use coupon code OCTOBER for an additional 10% off your subscription!

So don’t let yourself be one of the people who emails us and says “I know you told me to get a Mozy account, and I should have, but I kept putting it off … and now my computer is fried … can you please resend my checklists?” (Have we mentioned that we have to do those manually and it is HARD to keep up with!) Those emails are the saddest because it is so cheap and easy to get an account and the amount of pain it can save is immeasurable.

Can you tell I’m a BIG Mozy fan? (Julie is too, you can read her story here).

The one part of getting started that we haven’t addressed until now is getting your computer backed-up. Chances are you have a lot of important stuff on your computer like financial documents, email, digital photos, music and more. Unfortunately, computers are vulnerable to hard drive crashes, virus attacks, theft and natural disasters, which can erase or destroy everything in an instant. I want to share with you my absolute favorite system for backing up files. It’s an online back-up system called Mozy. There is a free version that gives you a limited amount of space, but I HIGHLY recommend Mozy Online Backup for $5.99/Month. Most of the time the free version of a website or program is good enough, but let me tell you in this case … so not true. $5.99 a month to back-up my ENTIRE computer! WORTH IT!!! Use coupon code FSME for an additional 10% off your subscription!

Mozy is a simple and safe way to back up all the important stuff on your computer. A copy of your data is stored in a secure, remote location for safekeeping, so that in the event of disaster your data is still retrievable.

When you sign up for Mozy, you tell the system what files or folders you wish to have backed up (like “My Documents”). After the initial sign-up you never have to do anything, your files are backed up automatically daily, including the new files in those folders. IT’S SO EASY!

I am Mozy’s BIGGEST FAN! 2 computer crashes will do that to you! Sorry this video is a little corny, but if you have ever had a computer crash you will understand!