Why didn't I move to a MacBook faster, I lost most of my files!

That reminds me, I need to do backups on our pc's, alot of people do not do backups, it takes a crash and burn to realize.  Your lucky you got the pics back.  I think there is some online backup centers you can upload your data to.  Not sure the name of them.

I should have saved!  Famous last words. It is amazing what things become most important when all is said and done. I had a hard drive go down a while back and it was the pictures I lamanted the most. I try to keep backups of everything but it takes alot of dicipline. I keep wondering if the Mac is the way to go. So many places I go online have either special procedures for Mac owners or say not compatible with Mac. I don't know if it is the answer but those I know that have macs sure like them.

I don't mean to be nasty but why do you think your PC is to blame? Why do you think a Mac Book will be any different? They both have hard drives. Hard drives sometimes go bad. If you have important things like irreplacable pictures that you don't wish to loose you should always back them up to another storage medium such as a dvd or external hard drive.

How old was your computer? What operating system were you running? What software was on the computer? What was your computer doing just before it ate your files?

PC's host most of the internet and most of the internet has a 99% up time these days.

PC's run great if you take care of them. If you hate Microsoft products you can run Linux on them. I am typing to you on a PC that has been problem free for almost 4 years.

I'm sorry for your loss but you cannot blame the PC. Computers only do what we tell them and there are pleanty of mac book people out there who have had many of the same problems PC people have.

 I hope your Post wakes up the majority of computer users on active Rain that don't BACKUP regularly!  Ideally you should back up  all data including pictures to an external source whether that be CD/DVD or the best choice an external Hard Drive. A USB or Firewire Hard Drive 500GB in size will only set you back $100 or less.  Then just incase your computer crashes and your external harddrve burns down with your office, keep a backup off site.  A Free way to do that is to use a FREE secure service that I use called DROPBOX click on this Link www.getdropbox.com They give you 2 GB of storage FREE, gosh did I mention it's FREE.  

I would also encourage you to make the switch to Mac and soon as your able, I made the switch this spring and I don't regret it for a moment.

Bill

Back up is easire said then done. Trust me...I lost two..yes two PCs this year due to motherboard failure. I have been absolutely swamped with trying to get back up and running not once but twice. Needless to say, I feel your pain. I switched to a MACbook and could not be happier. Not one issue and I love the user friendly aspect. MAC is definitely the way to go!

Keisha, A motherboard is just one piece of a computer.
That's a little like saying I lost a car due to the tire going flat.- Replace the tire and you are up and running again.

A motherboard failure is typically a $50 -$100 fix. A motherboard failure has nothing to do with loosing your data, your data is stored on hard drives.

There are thousands of different PC parts vendors and manufactureres out there. To group them all into one catagory and say they all stink is a little like saying one race of people are dumber than others. There are good PC's and bad ones just like there are good and bad people.

If you purchase a quality PC with quality parts there is no reason it should be any more or less reliable than a mac.

If you are preparing to purchase a mac be forewarned that you will have to re-learn a number of basic operations. Buttons are not in the same places, things work differently, it's a little like learning a new language, as another member noted there is a good deal of software that will not work on a Mac. There are a handful of website applications that Realtors use everyday that only work well with Internet Explorer.

Before going out and purchasing a Mac make sure your local MLS works on Safari or you will have to learn to install IE on your Mac which is what most of you were trying to get away from in the first place.

Macs are nice and I'm not bashing them but they are not the solution to loosing data. The solution to not loosing data is to make backups of important information.

Stephane - Thanks for reminding me I need to do a backup. I think I will look into Apple for my next computer.

  Great post.  I agree with you. I don't know the real stats but I'll tell you that I believe over 95% of Web professionals prefer MAC . It's not only more reliable, but the performance, the graphics, the sounds...it's all superior.

Thank you for educating.  The average user would never guess!

Elayna Fernandez  Naples Marketing Blog

Pictures are certainly the most important thing to protect.  Everything else can be redone or will be outdated eventually anyway but photos are forever.  I'm so paranoid about just my pictures that we just went and got an external hard drive to back up with. 

Totally agree that pictures are always the most valuable and irreplaceable things! That's why I always encourage my friends to store their precious files up on the hard drives in the sky! If it's pictures, just join and pay for Flickr to store and share your pics.

If your file archiving needs are a little more sophisticated...check out JungleDisk.com that uses Amazon S3 storage (heavy duty stuff at decent prices). Hope that helps!

Pat Cheung | Townizen.com | Community Advocate

You can also save files to disks as a second back up.  They are cheap, and provide extra peace of mind. Kodak gallery once erased a bunch of my pictures I had "backed up" on their system.

Thanks for the reminder to do my backups!

Have you tried any cloud back ups?  Using a remote service to do backups.  That seems to be the up and coming thing.

I don't get all the hype about a MAC but I might buy one for my next computer.