I collected my Fujitsu Lifebook from the tech support center today.

What had been expected to take a couple of hours, finally took a day.

Needless to say, I’m happy to be working on my laptop again.

And upon reflection, there’re a number of lessons learned.

Looking back:

The crash didn’t affect me as badly as I’d thought.

With Web 2.0 type applications like WordPress being hosted on my SecretWebHostingWeapon account, I had portability in filing my posts from another computer, or anywhere else around the world.

If I was working off a web-based email account like gmail or hotmail, or a web-based email for my domain name, I would have had easy access.

Presently, I’m using Thunderbird and Outlook Express for my email.

Given the 1+ GB of emails I have archived, a desktop-based solution works best for now.

Image editing proved to be a bugbear though.

I’m becoming adept at using GIMP.

It’s quite a speedy download from gimp.org too.

Another inconvenience was recalling the FTP settings to FTP the content to my hosting account.

If you’ve everything stored in your FTP program preferences, it might be difficulty recalling it off the top of your head.

Since discovering Filezilla, I’ve not used any other FTP client. The fact that it’s an open source project is great too.

Here’re some suggestions to accelerate your recovery in instances of hardware failure:

• Backup often: The idea of possibly losing thousands of dollars worth of information and software is quite frightening and failing to back up (even on a monthly basis) can cause you a lot of pain and financial loss.
• Have everything ready: Have your guarantee cards at hand. Have the tech support numbers nearby. This’ll reduce some of the scramble when heading out to tech support.
• Solution-focused mindset: Computers will fail. It’s a matter of when. Though it usually happens when we’re in the middle of something big (and putting the greatest strain on our machines). How’re you going to solve the challenge if something happens? Fight or flight? Fight will help you move forward.

I’m glad to be back!