IMS_Blog

It’s getting scarily close to deadlines. So, if my laptop explodes, just how many backups of the big book do I have? Well, the thesis lives on the laptop. There’s also a copy on the desktop machine. Then there’s the main backup, which is actually a compact flash card that goes everywhere with me. Then there’s the main backup CD. Of course that’s not it. Oh no. There’s the odd and even sequence CDs which get alternatively updated, one of which tends to live in the car. Finally there’s the finished CD, which gets an update when a chapter gets finished.

I’m beginning to think this might be a little over the top. I’ve actually had very few problems with any sort of data loss. Doesn’t mean I’m about to relax the regime though—not this close to the deadline. I do think my normal maintenance backups have probably suffered some–there’s only so much CD burning a boy can take–but hey, what else could be important?

Anyway, I suppose if everything else fails there’s paper copies of chapters. I could employ an army of monkeys to reproduce them. If it gets that far though I just know they’d endlessly produce Shakespear instead.