Applying to my world, Part 3...

This week is the final episode of Triumph of the Nerds. I have never seen the series and really enjoyed it. I have enjoyed learning about the history of computers and where many of the computer ideas have come from. Surprisingly, most of the ideas came from people not associated with Microsoft or Apple, two of the computer giants today. One of the things we discussed was if the "giants" stole ideas from other people or companies. Stealing becomes an interesting word to use here. If people willingly allow others to see their products and share their ideas, can you really think of it as stealing? If one person cannot realize the importance of their product, why shouldn't someone else realize it? If the "giants" hadn't capitalized on what other people were sharing with them, we wouldn't have much of the technology we have today.

Discussing my individual back-up plan made me think about how I am going to protect my computer and my files. This was a great thing for me to do as I did not have a back-up plan in place. I am slowly making myself adhere to the guidelines I set for myself. I also found it interesting to find out what my school district is and isn't doing to protect information and files while researching for my organization back-up plan.

I am looking forward to working on creating my perfect computer. I did an assignment similar to this when I was in my fourth year of college, but computer components have changed dramatically since then. I also think I have a better understanding of what I would like in a computer now than I did seven or eight years ago. I am currently using a laptop that I purchased in 2005. It is the first computer I have owned and still does what I need it to do. However, it is not nearly as fast as it used to be. I am looking to upgrade and it could be helpful to know what I should be looking for.

Finally, I need to answer the question of what would happen if all microprocessors failed? Personally, I would lose a lot of information and things that I consider important. I am still in the process of backing up my photos. Currently, my pictures are housed on my laptop at home and some are housed on my school computer. I hold all of my pictures very dear because they represent memories and serve as reminders of fun and important times in my life. I also store some class assignments on my computer, but have backed them up in DropBox. But others have asked the question, how much backing up is enough? Is there really enough backing up that can be done? When I consider all of the things that could fail or that could occur, I don't think there really is a fail-safe way to back up all information. After all, more could happen than just microprocessors failing. Fires, floods, theft, etc. are all things that could affect backing up. I can only do as much as I think is necessary to protect myself and my files.