ANTenna Blog -- Hardware & Software

For anyone whose work is tied to their laptop, they know that that moment when you sit down at your desk, cup of coffee in hand, and press that little power button only to hear a scary series of beats and be greeted with a black screen, is a heart-stopping moment indeed. But if you use Web-based apps and have access to another machine, you could avert disaster.

My heart stopping moment was a few days ago. It took a full 10 minutes for it to slowly dawn on me that my hard drive was inaccessible to me. I quickly learned that the series of beeps -- one beep followed by two sets of three followed by one more lone beep -- was actually my laptop's way of telling me I needed a new memory chip. I wasn't going to get one for a few days.

But I did have access to my daughter's laptop -- I could have gone to my local library and used their public computers if I was desperate.

I was able to get on Google Docs and get access to our editorial calendar. I was able to get access my Outlook account through my browser, and I could still post blogs in Movable Type.

Web-based apps prevented me from taking a forced vacation but this experience also taught me something I knew I should do but never got around to: back up my hard drive.

Before the series of beeps were ably translated by my company's IT support department, I thought there was a possibility I could lose what I had on my hard drive. Not a pretty picture.

I know there are a bunch of online backup providers that are affordable and I plan on checking them out. In the meantime, my little USB drive is being put to good use.

And so is my credit card. Borrowing a teenage daughter's laptop can get expensive. Next time, I go to the library.