It is fully fifty years since I used my first computer. It was a terminal to a mainframe, and that is the kind of computing I was to access until the day I had a PC plonked on my desk when I was working for Ford of Europe. I have used PCs and laptops ever since, and in fact used to teach people how to use them before we started Octagon Technology.
So you would think I would not get caught out losing a file…
But yes, it happened to me.
It was one of those rush jobs, so I was working on it at regular intervals over a couple of days. I kept it open so that I had instant access whenever I had time to work on it and saved it regularly, as I should, to a location I knew got backed up every day to our secure cloud backup.
So far so good!
Then my computer went phut! and crashed.
I had not quite finished my work on that file, but I knew that it would only be a ten-minute job, so I did not try to open it again until the morning of my meeting with the client to discuss what I had done.
I could not find it!
It was not in the list of recent files in the application.
I looked in the location I had saved it – nothing.
I did a search of my laptop – nothing.
I searched the company network – nothing.
I looked at the .tmp files – nothing.
So I asked the Octagon engineers for help as I do not have access to the logs or the backup myself. Again, nothing.
We went back in our backup to the last date I worked on the file and again – nothing.
The file was gone.
Why?
It took a bit of working through what had actually happened.
As it is common these days with everyone, I am always in a tearing hurry with far too many things to do. So instead of closing down my files when I go off to do something else, I normally leave them open and hibernate the computer so that the files I am working on are open when I start work again.
Big mistake.
If you never close a file it does not get into the backup process despite being saved into a location that gets backed up. Initially this surprised me until I remembered that in the days when I used to do the backup for Ford of Europe Treasury, I always had to make sure that nobody was working and all the computers were closed otherwise the backup would not work!
Close all your files when you stop working on them or at the end of the day.
If you need to make sure you can find files quickly, use the “pin” facility to pin it to the top of your recent files for when you open your application. I shall be doing that in future and shall accept the extra few minutes waiting to start working at the beginning of the day.
So this old dog has learnt a new trick.
If it can happen to me, I feel sure that other people must be doing the same thing, so I felt compelled to write this blog, even at the risk of losing face!
Diana (CEO)
Diana is a founder and Chief Executive Officer at Octagon Technology Ltd.
Twenty odd years ago Diana was teaching IT at a college in Essex when local companies started to come in and ask her for help with their computers. This led to the creation of Octagon Technology alongside fellow lecturer Clive, with a vision of providing Technology Without Tears for our clients.
Nowadays, Diana concentrates on the less glamourous side of the business, dealing with the statutory reporting, the strategic planning, the budgeting, forecasting and cash flow analysis. She also looks after the payroll, together with the human resources policies and procedures.
If you would like to have a chat about any of the issues raised in this article, call (01522 797520) or email me at kamila@octagontech.com and I will organise a video meeting for you, and we will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Kamila (General Manager)
