Time Machine saved my life!
Posted in Helpful Hints on February 17th, 2010 by liz – 2 CommentsJust imagine this:
You’ve spent a whole hour interviewing someone by phone for an article. You typed it out on your computer while talking, instead of relying on hastily scribbled (unreadable) notes. How professional of you! Then you moved on to a different project. Then you called your tech-savvy friend to see how to get rid of some annoying pop-up messages and a few other issues. The fix for one thing was to empty the Trash. So that’s what you did.
Your tech-savvy friend had been extolling the virtues of Time Machine (We’re Mac people; you PC people can go do something else for awhile.). You: “Hm. Interesting.” While barely paying attention. When would I ever need THAT?, you think. I save absolutely everything. If they ever have a writers’ version of “Hoarders,” I’ll be on it. Thanking your friend, you hang up.
Dissolve to next day –
You open Word files related to the article you were working on. One after another. Looking for your interview notes. Uh-oh. Search the Trash folder in vain. OMG! I THREW AWAY MY NOTES! you cry. Am I going to have to call that poor woman and interview her all over again? OH NOOOOO.
Then you remember a few words your friend said about Time Machine. You bumble around for a few minutes, then stumble upon the right button. Suddenly, a 3-D depiction of the last, say, 20 backups it did (once an hour) appears to leap out of the screen at you. Wowsers! You click one toward the back, and in a couple more clicks, there’s your interview document! SAVED!
After a couple more simple maneuvers, you’ve restored it to your desktop as a Word document, and voila! It’s as if you weren’t an idiot after all.
Time Machine saved my tuchas. Someday it may save yours.
This has been a public service message from one relieved writer to you.
