I’m sharing a bunch of my favorite writing how-to books over Nov/Dec in case you want to buy yourself a great holiday gift:>)
Great Writing Book of the Day: Seeing the Blue Between: Advice and Inspiration for Young Poets, compiled by Paul Janeczko. Fantastic heart-felt letters from wonderful poets to aspiring poets. I read this at least once a year. And yes, it’s aimed at young writers, but who cares? Some of my favorite writing books are! From Janet Wong’s letter: “Some poems seem to beg for the whisper test. The best ones make me smile, or cry, or nod and hum. The best ones make me think, yes, I know this, too. They feel like a secret.”
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Now, onto Carbonite, which has an awesome Refer-a-Friend program going on right now. Worst thing that can happen to a writer? Losing your files. Even losing one file! Why is it that the file that gets corrupted is the one I most need?.
I used to make backup DVDs every 4-6 weeks, which worked fine, but was a pain. In 2010, Randy (my husband and personal IT desk:>) signed us up for Carbonite. Now all our files are backed up continually online. And restoring a corrupted or accidentally-deleted file is a piece of cake. And you can access all your backed up files from anywhere! So cool.
With Carbonite’s Refer-a-Friend program,?if you purchase?Carbonite from my link below, we each get a $25 Amazon giftcard. I know some good books and/or holiday gifts I would put such a card to use on! You probably do, too:>)
Anyway, if you’re in the market for a backup system, check out Carbonite, which starts at $59/year. And if you’re not, just make sure you’re using some kind of backup system! I’ve had complete system crashes before (“No! Not the blue screen of death–aaaaaaarrghhh!”), and so have fellow bloggers/writers, and it is NOT pretty when a writer loses all her documents and disappears from the kidlitosphere for months to recover!
I love Seeing The Blue Between, Laura, & actually all of Janeczko’s works are wonderful! Thanks for the Carbonite tip. I have a back up system, but this sounds interesting.
Isn’t it just a wonderful book…sigh. Glad you have a backup system!
I love Seeing The Blue Between, Laura, & actually all of Janeczko’s works are wonderful! Thanks for the Carbonite tip. I have a back up system, but this sounds interesting.
Isn’t it just a wonderful book…sigh. Glad you have a backup system!
Seeing the Blue Between sounds lovely. I think we already have backup and I hope it’s automatic, because I certainly haven’t used it 😉 Great deal though, Laura.
Hehehe. I hope it’s automatic, too! It’s nice not having to think about it, isn’t it?
Seeing the Blue Between sounds lovely. I think we already have backup and I hope it’s automatic, because I certainly haven’t used it 😉 Great deal though, Laura.
Hehehe. I hope it’s automatic, too! It’s nice not having to think about it, isn’t it?
I use Dropbox because it immediately syncs to all devices…iPhone, iPad, and any computers that I have it on. I can sign in from any computer and access my files. Right now, I ‘m not using nearly all of my free 2.25 GB. I only backup my writing folders currently. I use Picasa to save photos because I have it set up on my iPhone and iPad too for easy upload. If I need more space, I can get 100 GB for 9.99 a month which is more than Carbonite. Anyhow, that’s what I do. And here is a link that may interest you because this fella switched from Caronite to Dropbox and this tells why. I think as long as you have a plan, that’s good! I, too, had a computer crash and didn’t even have to sweat for a moment due to my backup plan 🙂
http://www.pocketables.com/2012/08/why-i-dropped-carbonite-for-dropbox.html
Ooh, thanks for the details, Penny. Very interesting! We have too many documents/photos, etc. for Dropbox to be viable for us, but it sounds like a great option for those backing up smaller numbers of files.
I was using Picasa, but here’s why I don’t like it for my purposes: I was putting pictures on my blog, using their Picasa url, but then later they would disappear. I came to find out, eventually, that pix in Picasa migrate sometimes and the urls change. So then you end up with a big blank box and red x in your blog. Ugh. Now if I have a picture I might want to use in a blog post, I email it to my blog and put it in a draft post. It just sits there until I am ready to do something with it. It’s a bit clunky, but at least I know the pix won’t disappear.
Glad you have a system in place–you are absolutely right: as long as you have something that is working for you, then your plan is perfect for you!
Oh…that’s good information about Picasa. I will keep that in mind. Thanks!
Oh…this was a question I wanted to ask you at NCTE and forgot!!! I was CURIOUS!! I like to show kids some of the former pics and poems….are you planning to go back and “fix” this? (I mean when (if) you have time????)
Sadly, no. I can barely keep up with my new content and am wildly behind on a million online tasks. Since I put up a new pic and 15wol post every week, going back to fix old ones (I only used them from Picasa for a couple of months before I realized things were disappearing on me!) is way, way down on the priority list. Sorry!
That is totally understandable!!! Glad you shared this very valuable info about how you can get them to last!!! It helps to know how things work out here in tech land…..and also that you figured it out….always something, right????
I use Dropbox because it immediately syncs to all devices…iPhone, iPad, and any computers that I have it on. I can sign in from any computer and access my files. Right now, I ‘m not using nearly all of my free 2.25 GB. I only backup my writing folders currently. I use Picasa to save photos because I have it set up on my iPhone and iPad too for easy upload. If I need more space, I can get 100 GB for 9.99 a month which is more than Carbonite. Anyhow, that’s what I do. And here is a link that may interest you because this fella switched from Caronite to Dropbox and this tells why. I think as long as you have a plan, that’s good! I, too, had a computer crash and didn’t even have to sweat for a moment due to my backup plan 🙂
http://www.pocketables.com/2012/08/why-i-dropped-carbonite-for-dropbox.html
Ooh, thanks for the details, Penny. Very interesting! We have too many documents/photos, etc. for Dropbox to be viable for us, but it sounds like a great option for those backing up smaller numbers of files.
I was using Picasa, but here’s why I don’t like it for my purposes: I was putting pictures on my blog, using their Picasa url, but then later they would disappear. I came to find out, eventually, that pix in Picasa migrate sometimes and the urls change. So then you end up with a big blank box and red x in your blog. Ugh. Now if I have a picture I might want to use in a blog post, I email it to my blog and put it in a draft post. It just sits there until I am ready to do something with it. It’s a bit clunky, but at least I know the pix won’t disappear.
Glad you have a system in place–you are absolutely right: as long as you have something that is working for you, then your plan is perfect for you!
Oh…that’s good information about Picasa. I will keep that in mind. Thanks!
Oh…this was a question I wanted to ask you at NCTE and forgot!!! I was CURIOUS!! I like to show kids some of the former pics and poems….are you planning to go back and “fix” this? (I mean when (if) you have time????)
Sadly, no. I can barely keep up with my new content and am wildly behind on a million online tasks. Since I put up a new pic and 15wol post every week, going back to fix old ones (I only used them from Picasa for a couple of months before I realized things were disappearing on me!) is way, way down on the priority list. Sorry!
That is totally understandable!!! Glad you shared this very valuable info about how you can get them to last!!! It helps to know how things work out here in tech land…..and also that you figured it out….always something, right????