Never Lose Your Homework (or other important stuff)!
2 April 2008
OK, so yesterday’s post about the Custom Time back-dating feature in Gmail was a little April Fool’s joke from Google. But here’s a handy trick that involves Gmail (or whatever your webmail app of choice happens to be) and I use it frequently.
Here’s the scenario: you’re working on an important paper or document and a deadline is looming. All of a sudden your hard drive crashes, your computer is struck by lightning, or some other unnatural disaster occurs–and you lose your work. It’s happened. And, as a teacher, I’ve heard this one before. Far too often. I’m going to let you in on a secret:
It’s preventable.
How?
SESOSO
SESOSO stands for "save early, save often, save offsite." Let’s say I’m working on a take-home exam (like I was, actually, just this week). It’s very important that I complete it before the deadline and my professor (or boss) won’t take any excuses. I’m working on the exam over several days and I want to make sure I don’t lose it. So I save it early (like right after I begin working on it) and I save it often (usually every few minutes). Then maybe after I finish an entire problem, section, page or whatever interval I feel is appropriate, I’ll e-mail the document to myself with Gmail to get it offsite. As I continue to work on the document, I’ll reply to that original message and attach the updates. Here’s what the message thread looks like:
Why not just save it to a little USB flash drive? Because I’m paranoid. I don’t believe digital data exists unless it’s physically/geographically in two places. Sending it to myself in Gmail ensures that it’s on my computer as well as on Google’s Gmail servers. If my computer dies, I can get the file from my Gmail account by using someone else’s computer. You can use Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, or whatever you use–just get the document offsite.
So remember SESOSO: save early, save often, save offsite.
Any tips or tricks that you use to prevent data loss? Post your ideas in the comments.
Filed under: Lifehacks by Michael
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