Pointless Waste of Time #573

[llcoolvad]

cicadabug recently posted a PSA to remind us all to backup our important computer files. She's a sysadmin, so she has a lot of exposure to people who never backup and are then violently surprised when they lose a chunk of stuff. At my workplace they have a passive backup system, where when you connect to the network, the backup automatically starts. When you disconnect, it stops. You have no choice in the matter. So that's good. And I am currently using my work computer for everything in my life, so I feel pretty confident that I'm covered.

In fact, I really have the opposite problem. I have an external hard drive. I spent a chunk of time last spring, right before I moved all of my life into storage, putting every file I own onto my external drive. I also burned DVDs of everything except my music files (because I already own them all on CD!) and put those DVDs into storage. I have all of my teaching files backed up to the server at school. It's all sort of cumbersome, actually. I have tons of redundancy.

So a few months ago my work laptop started being fussy. I would close PowerPoint, and I'd get the mindless message "PowerPoint has encountered an error and needs to close!" Amusing, but also annoying. And slightly worrisome, as we all know bugs always seem to multiply. Last month we finally upgraded to Office 2003 (yes, it's 2006, what is your point?) and I was hopeful that the upgrade would fix the problem. For a day, it did! But then the same damned thing was back. So I eventually decide to involve my company's IT professionals. "Hmmm!" quoth they. A fiddle here, a smack there, they decide the best solution (of course) is to rebuild. Clearly it would take time to actually track the bug down, so let's punt and just wipe her system clean and start over.

"Arg!" say I.

You might not know this about me, but I am a complete and utter control freak about my stuff. OCD-level control freak. And the last time we got new laptops at work, the backup program didn't restore things like music files, video files, and even some GIFs. Which is both irritating and dumb — especially since I work in a Design department where we deal with music and video files and GIFs for clients all the time. So, being a generally suspicious and non-trusting type, I've spent this last week moving all my current files onto my external hard drive in preparation for the new HD. Cleaning out chaff, eliminating duplicates, probably creating many more duplicates, but in general some spring cleaning. As I moved things over I would delete stuff off my system. Because, after all, they can rebuild me. Stronger, faster...

During the week I am feeling pretty good about my progress. I know if my external HD fails, I have redundancy. But assuming it doesn't, I know when our IT guys build my new machine I can quickly move stuff back onto it that I'll need, and leave the rest at home. I don't have to trust them to do it, because (control freak) I did it all myself.

So yesterday it was a little slow at work and I finished my sorting and backing up. Deleted the last folder — ironically, the one that had my actual work in it. I wasn't going to bother to back that stuff up because of the passive backup system, but I figured why not? So the laptop is barren. There are no music files; I uninstalled iTunes. There are no pictures; I uninstalled my Flickr uploader. There are no Eudora email folders; I uninstalled Eudora. I'm good to go. I didn't delete my Sudoku app, because I am not made of steel, but mostly everything non-standard has been obliterated. Yay!

I then work on PowerPoint for a while. I finish my work and close PowerPoint, waiting for my error message. It's not there! Wait! I reopen PowerPoint. Close it. No error. What? I do it several different times, several different ways.

Are you KIDDING me?

I IM my IT guy. He's cute, kind of pocket-sized, and I like to pointlessly flirt with him. He is amazed at this development (and I know relieved, because I am convinced he got nowhere with my build anyway), laughs (technically he LOL'd), and says "why don't we hold off on your build until we know if the problem is solved." Clever boy.

So now I have a stripped bare laptop, and somewhere in the recesses of my many many many files (backed up in many many places) I have a troublemaker. Some punk-ass file that fucks with PowerPoint. And I don't know which one! I suspect a couple — macros that we've successfully used for years — but I am unsure because, after all, the problem began before the upgrade and continues after. Starting fresh sounds lovely, but then I'd have to reinstall even more stuff. Favorites, cookies, NoteTab Light, Sudoku, my Treo desktop stuff, Firefox, Google Earth, the list goes on and on. I have new work software I need to install, too, and if I wait for my new build I'll be waiting for weeks!

These are dumb problems, I know! And I am grateful that they're all that I'm facing right at this moment. But damn. Talk about a waste of effort. I think if my error message returns I will greet it warmly and move on.