October 8, 2014

Back Your Stuff Up

I lost everything on my phone the other night.  All I wanted to do was plug it into my computer so I could download all my music onto it and boom.  Everything gone.  It restored to June 2013.  My old phone.  I'd gotten a new one in November 2013 and was told then that none of my stuff could transfer because it "wasn't backed up the right way".  So I started with a clean slate last November and I was a little disgruntled about it.

So, back your stuff up.  If you listen to anything I ever write, this is it.  I'm sure there was some clicking and not reading things through on my part when I plugged my phone into my MacBook on Monday night…of course this happened on a Monday…but regardless, all.  gone.

In an attempt to fix it (funny), I downloaded the new OPS 8.  Which just led to me staring at my phone for 2 hours while it updated.  

Back your stuff up.  If it's not on Instagram or my blog, it's gone.  So many dog pictures.  Sniff, sniff.  Thank God for iPhoto and this blog.  Thank. God.  

However, let's talk about what I gained.  While I may have lost everything from the last year, including contacts and photos, I did gain something besides a lesson learned.  I got all my old pictures back.  When I switched phones last year, I lost everything from 2011-2013.  Those last 2 years in Alaska, gone.  However, when my phone restored/reverted to the old version, I got it all back.  All my pictures.  

This is the first picture I ever took with my iPhone.  September 2011.  


We're on a Parking Spot shuttle at LAX.

This is a project I did with my class in September 2011 to show fault lines in Alaska. Pudding and sugar cookies.



JoePa's last Penn State game in October 2011.  The only picture I took that night.  The weather was terrible.  See the snow on the steps?


Seward. May 2012


Temperature pictures. There were about 25 of these in that old camera roll.  All nice and blurry because I took them in the dark.


I was nearly in tears as I looked through all the hundreds of pictures.

Missouri was really hard on me for a few different reasons.  I didn't grow there.  I didn't really thrive (other than as a teacher…as a teacher, it was an experience). While I will always cherish the friends I made there and I hope I run into them again, maybe it's best that that year of pictures is just gone.  I mean, do I really want the billions of selfies I took of my own face just to see what my skin looked like each day?  No.  I don't.  The best thing, for us, that came out of Missouri was Scout and I have still have plenty of DSLR pictures of him.  Jett too.  Though I'd hardly call him the best thing to come out of anywhere…kidding.  
I do regret that there's a lot of Colorado pictures on there, but there's a lot of Colorado pictures on my DSLR too.  Such is life I suppose.  I'll have to take another picture of our new microwave to demonstrate that we do have a microwave now for the first time since May.

Seriously though, back your stuff up.

12 comments:

  1. because of you I put backing up the latest photos on my computer on my to-do list for tomorrow. But how cool( and very strange, because technology is not my strong suit) that you got even older photos back! I know what you mean about not really thriving in a place. I had a pretty similar experience with Michigan--makes it easy to leave without looking back.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm always so afraid of this. When I switched phones a few weeks ago, the guy started to explain HOW to back everything up to transfer over to my new phone and my eyes just sort of glazed over. Luckily, I was doing the transfer at the apple store AND I happened to have my computer in the car (I was heading to my parents afterwards) so he was kind enough to help me through the process. I've lost so many pictures over the years in similar situations. And it's always a little sad because like you, we aren't in one place too long so pictures are all I really have of whatever version of myself I was wherever we called home at that time. As much as it sucks--I'm happy that you got some of your old photos back!

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is SO bizarre!!! SO let's just hope 2 years from now this might happen again (after you remember to back up everything from here on out) and you'll get the missing couple years back. I'm so sorry!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh, friend. I know how much that would have devastated me. But I love your positive spin on the whole thing. Ha, and Meg's comment above is funny. You could totally find all of these pictures two years down the road. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I always back up, and I also transfer photos to my computer and upload them to snapfish often. I'm afraid of this. Great reminder.

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is one of my nightmares. And thanks for the reminder that I need to download to my laptop and then back up to Snapfish or something else! It's been awhile since I've done it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh man, how frustrating! Do you have the setting turned on that makes it so your phone automatically backs itself up to the Cloud every time it's plugged in and locked??

    ReplyDelete
  8. Its almost as if you are happy that you didn't back your stuff up because you magically ended up with some lost photos that you missed. Perhaps backing things up is not the right answer. Eh, I don't really know and I'm expecting to lose everything too. Google saves everything for me. (Apparently, I am a "no-reply" blogger. I'm tired of fixing it so here's my email:estherdavison@gmail.com)

    ReplyDelete
  9. I have something where every time I do something on my phone it automatically backs up. I guess eventually I need to log on and see what all I'd there!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I am always afraid of this happening!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hey there, just stopping by from Becky's blog and wanted to say hi! Oh my gosh, this has happened to me, too! Not my iPhone, but my iBook hard drive crashed a few years ago and I lost years worth of photos. Now we back up all our photos from our phones onto our computer, which is then also backed up to an external hard drive. I'm glad there was a silver lining in you getting back all those other old photos, though!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Any photos I take on my phone stay there and on my computer until I have them printed! Then, I can usually feel ok taking them off of my phone. I'm glad you saw the bright side that you got your old lost stuff back!

    ReplyDelete

Comments make my day!