quote:When Linda Cerniglia went back to school, it took her almost seven years to get through all the prerequisites, the labs, the research. And it took a thief just moments to grab her purse, with the only copy of her master's thesis stored on a tiny jump drive inside.
For anyone who's ever obsessed about a project but forgotten to back up the data, watched a computer screen fizzle just before a deadline or left crucial documents in a cab -- here is a story about backing up, and moving forward.
posted
I did the same thing this semester. I emailed myself a copy of my paper everytime I thought of it.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
I had a complete computer melt-down on my old TRS-80 clone as I was doing the final edits to my dissertation. Backing it up, of course, wasn't really all that feasible since I had access to exactly ONE machine running LDOS and Scripsit, and that machine was eating diskettes.
My "backup" was to print the thing out on a regular basis.
So, when the machine finally died...I had someone scan the entire thing and do OCR on it. Then, I took the resulting MS-Word file in to work and finished it in my off hours.
I spent a few DAYS correcting all the mistakes that the OCR made, but fortunately, it worked reasonably well with the Daisy-wheel solid font that my printer was doing. Phew!
Good times. Good times.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote: And there, at the bottom, was her black leather purse. She unzipped it, reached in, and felt her fingers close around -- her jump drive.
People driving by stared: A 5-foot-4 43-year-old woman jumping up and down in a trash bin, screaming.
Wow, that thief really motored after stealing her purse. And why all the vacuum cleaners?
I remember those god-awful TRASH-80s--what junk. Our school's didn't even have floppies, you had to load programs with a cheap little cassette tape player.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:I remember those god-awful TRASH-80s--what junk. Our school's didn't even have floppies, you had to load programs with a cheap little cassette tape player.
I learned the fine art of disk drive alignment and circuit board repair on TRS-80's. I remember the first time a computer manufacturer told me to simply THROW OUT a malfunctioning floppy disk drive. I was aghast! What? Toss it? It takes like two minutes to adjust the darn thing with a jeweler's screw driver and an oscilloscope.
They LAUGHED at me.
"Sir, these drives cost about $10 apiece and are not adjustable. And our repair rate is $100 an hour."
posted
When I married my wonderful husband, and we were packing up all our stuff in preparation to move to our new home together, I found among his stuff these punchcards. Boxes of them.
"Hon? What are these for? Do we need to take them with us?"
"That's my senior thesis! I'm definitely keeping that! Do you know how much work went into that? Careful! Don't get them out of order!"
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
High on my list of reasons I'm grateful to be born in the eighties is the fact that computers were a little further along by the time I got to college.
One of my coworkers was telling me about coding with punch cards, and I got gray hairs just from imagining it.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Reasoning strikes again! I'm glad she got her thesis back! She should've been a detective. Pretty smart and tenacious lady, it sounds like.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Wow, that thief really motored after stealing her purse. And why all the vacuum cleaners?
Vacuum cleaners can be resold for a fairly high percentage of their value, and they engender less suspicion than buying entertainment-oriented electronics.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
"Vacuum cleaners can be resold for a fairly high percentage of their value"
Why? How come vacuum cleaners can be resold for a higher perecentage of its price than other things? And sold to who? People on ebay? Can you return it to the store?
Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I heard it from a Wal-mart loss prevention officer (basically, the store detective). They keep tabs on these things. One of the way shoplifters make money is to return the stolen goods for store credit. Then buy something that will hold a high percentage of its value and sell it, sometimes on ebay. Some people sell the gift cards on ebay, too.
As to why vacuum cleaners, no real idea. As to who they are sold to, there are a lot more second-hand vacuum shops than I've ever dreamed of.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I usually have a copy of any major paper on my computer, two e-mail accounts, two flash drives, and hard copy. Of course, I'm always panicked I'll lose one . . .
Posts: 1735 | Registered: Oct 2004
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What a lucky and blessed woman to find it like she did. Wodner if she'll back things up more frequently now?
Posts: 1132 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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