10 reasons I’m kicking myself in the butt

I bought an Apple iMac a little over a year ago and I also bought a 500 gb external drive to back up my files.   Last week, I moved my computer and because I have the 21 inch iMac, it’s a bit heavy.  To prevent it from falling, I laid it on it’s back (thinking if it lays flat, I’m fine).  I think….however, that laying it on it’s back is what caused the current issue….my hard drive is bad!

I was referred to this Apple Store location by an phone tech (1-800-my-apple).  I was apprehensive when I couldn’t reach them by phone, but it was a beautiful sunny day so I decided to just drive down (1 hour away).  That’s where I met Jim, The Genius   Yes, he works at the Genius Bar and the title on his business card is “Genius”. Jim was very pleasant when asking, did I have an appointment?  I said, “no, I was referred by your online Apple tech, who didn’t mention that I needed an appointment and I have driven an hour to get here!”  He smiled, “said, no problem, if you can wait about 30 minutes, I’ll get you in somehow!”  I said, “no problem” as I sat at a desk with not one but two mac books begging me to test them out!  While sitting in the Apple Store, I checked in on Facebook, sent a few emails and finalized my notes for my presentation for Goodwill Industries tomorrow (send them to myself via email)… #pow!  Within 30 minutes or so, Jim came back to greet me, picked up my huge machine, carried to the counter and unpacked it and began his magic!  While his magic didn’t work (it’s not his fault, my hard drive is bad), but I was hoping he has some special powers to fix my computer.  I walked out of the Apple store without my computer, but with a sigh of relief and feeling satisfied with not only my purchase, but also my experience in with the Apple Store!

While I had a great experience my first time visiting the Apple Store,  I am still kicking myself in the butt for a few reasons!

1.  With all my wisdom, I cannot even began to give an excuse for not backing up my work!

There’s no excuse…so there’s nothing to be said about point one!

2.  Macs have a feature called Time Machine

Time Machine is the built-in backup that works with your Mac and an external drive (sold separately) or Time Capsule.  Time Machine automatically backs up your entire Mac, including system files, applications, accounts, preferences, email messages, music, photos, movies, and documents. Do you know why I’m not using this?  Me, either!

3.  I purchased a 500 gb external drive!

This 500 gb external hard drive is all I needed to work beautifully with the time machine on my mac. The external hard drive on my machine has an AUTOMATIC feature that allows me to set the times that my system backs itself up.  So something as simple as plugging my external drive to my mac nightly would have saved me from this nightmare (and the nightmare I experience with the “authorized dealer” that I encountered prior to driving to the Apple Store (to hear my horror story, see the video below).

4.  I pay for online storage.

Yep, I do…I have an online filefolder and a dropbox and I have not been sending my files to either.  I have been working overload on multiple projects this year and have not been taking the time to back up any of my work. All of these projects are on…. you guessed it… my mac!

5.  There’s nothing wrong with backing up on a disk.

The reason I purchased a mac was to improve the overall quality of CAREER Magazine and to bring the design portion in house.   When we were paying a graphic designer when we started out, they would give us a copy of every issue with the PSD files on a disk.  At best, I could have been copying everything to a disk just as a copy! UGH UGH UGH!

6.  Email is a friend of mine.

When I first started learning to design in photoshop there were a few things I still didn’t know how to do so I would send the photoshop files back to my designer for them to finalize the file for me.  Nope…nothing is in my email. For pete’s sake, email is free..and the storage is huge…I could have used email for storage if I didn’t have all the other items that I have already listed above!

7.   $900- 2300 is the starting point for retrieving my data!

While I believe that price is grossly overrated because we are close to silicon valley, I believe the business we called can get that kind of money from some people who MUST have that data.  As for me, I’m hoping to recover my data with another vendor.  If all else fails, I’ll just re-create what I need (as time permits) if for any reason I am unable to have my data recovered.  I have two very good mac buddies..that told NOT to pay the $2300…as that is bassackwards!

8.  My work is too value to be careless – especially about backing up the work.

One of the things I teach my client is the value of their time.  Well in all my teaching, I forgot to give myself the memo.  True, I am typically talking about my clients not allowing people to take advantage of their time, there’s NO WAY, I can get back all the time that I have put into the projects that I have been working on for the past year.

9.  I will be working the last two weeks of the year!

Even when I was an employee, I took the last two weeks off every year!  But this year, I will be working and playing catch up on a few things that I have not been able to complete as a result of my mac computer being down all last week. I was so looking forward to shutting down my offices on Dec 15 and spending time relaxing…but it looks like I’ll be working on the Jan/Feb 2013 issue of CAREER Magazine… again…

10.  This is one lesson, I did not have to learn!

What I learned from this experience is…if I had done my due diligence in backing up my files every night…at best, I would have not lost any files.  I started to say, I would have only lost a days worth of work, but I had not even gotten started when I was moving my computer.  So if I had backed everything thing up the night before, I would be fine!

There is hope, the Apple techs may be able to recover my files, if not, they will be replacing my hard drive and returning my original hard drive to me to take to a vendor of my choice.  I think I’ll drive back an hour to my part of town and take it to someone without a silicon valley address!

***I’ll be sure to update you once my computer is returned in the next few days***

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