I am such a tech-slave! Not in the sense that I need to carry every gadget in the world but I always have my netbook with me wherever I go. Even when I was heavily pregnant, I had it with me practically all the time. (Actually, the netbook is my yeobo’s. I used to carry around a 14″ laptop but pregnancy forced me to swap with him. Yeah, he’s for portability, I’m all for screen size. We’re weird like that! But then he discovered the beauty of a full-sized laptop LED screen so I ended up getting stuck with his netbook LOL.)
It was not all bad, actually. While I still hated the tiny screen and the low memory, I loved how it was light and how it fit snuggly inside my already full bag. With a full-sized notebook, I had to carry two bags plus what other papers I needed to bring to and from work. So I was coping really well with it.
Until the netbook’s frigging hard disk got busted!
I just finished writing a speech to be used at 09:00am yesterday (I’m a speechwriter, a job description that still gives me nightmares even after almost five years!) . I fired up my email server, ready to send it to my boss for corrections and printing when the netbook stopped responding. I thought it was just acting up (which happens every so often) so I went to check if the kids were done eating breakfast. When I checked back, still no response so I decided to do a hard reboot.
It took much longer than usual but no worries, I still got time. I waited and waited and waited, only to be told: “Disk boot error. Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to reboot.” WHAT THE HECK!!!
Needless to say, I freaked out! I got thrown into panic mode. I’m supposed to send out a speech to be used in a couple of hours. I need to rewrite the thing in minutes?
Good thing, everything turned out fine in the end. I managed to write up a new speech (on yeobo’s laptop) and send it out.
I’m not sad that the netbook was broken. All things will eventually give out. It’s only a matter of time before they do. What frustrates me more is my failure to adhere to a fundamental rule: make updated backup copies of my files. Practically all of my body of work were on that disk and they had been wiped clean. While I can explore ways to recover my files, there are no guarantees I would be able to do so.
But it’s too late now for regrets. I’ll just chalk it up as another valuable lesson learned.
What about you, have you learned a lesson lately?
