MattOnFire

Dear Matt -

I am deeply saddened to hear of your recent computer issues. Hard drive failures can come at any time and with little or no warning. As I am sure you are well aware of the risks of not having your files backed up properly, there is little I can do in the way of offering you comforting words of advice or show you any sort of sympathy whatsoever.

Since you’re Mister Que-Sera,-Sera, I think you should continue to flip fate the bird and throw caution to the wind as you amass years of precious memories – photos, videos, etc. – and nestle them snugly inside the hard drive of your computer. No need to put them on an external drive or burn them to a disk. I’m sure they’ll be just fine and dandy. Furthermore, I advise you to collect these memories with the INTENT of doing something nice with them – like make a wedding montage or create a home video with fancy transitions and what-not – and then put off the task until you ‘have time’. Because I know how busy you are, being unemployed and all. It’s tough.

Keep backing up those freelance articles, though. Because you’ll never use them again – and most of them are already stored online. Good thing you had your documents folder backed up there, buddy. I’m thrilled to learn that your external hard drive’s .pdf manual is safely backed up on your external hard drive. You, sir, dodged a bullet with that one.

Do you know what’s a real pain in the ass? The whole “Set It and Forget It” thing. You have Apple’s innovative Time Machine and a Time Capsule. Software and hardware that seamlessly integrate to provide comprehensive back ups of all your data. But it’s waaayyyy too tough to open your system preferences ONCE and click the button to turn on Time Machine ONCE so it backs up your files EVERY HOUR without you having to do a damn thing EVER AGAIN. I mean, I know how important it is to make sure you watch that Auto-Tune the News video. Why would you set up your built-in, one-click back-up software when you watch the president sing like a robot?!?

Jackass.

Sincerely,

A smarter and better looking version of you