When your computer's hard drive starts sounding like a Skrillex album, you know you are having some problems. After a couple minutes of crazy sounds and a few attempted reboots, the presiding technician called the time of death on my HP laptop.
After a few minutes of panic and unease, I realized that everything was going to be okay. I was simply left smiling. Why?
Backups are important. I can't imagine what I would be thinking right now if I hadn't done my chores and backed everything up.
Steemit
As you can tell, I'm still able to access Steemit, due to my key being stored in three secure locations... one of which is offline. I used that to log on with my wife's chromebook and make this post. I urge you to write down your key right now, even if you have before.
No key? No SP.
Bitshares
The access to all my BTS, HAIRSHARE, WHALESHARE, BEYONDBITS, GRIDCOIN, LFNCOIN, OBITS, VIRGROW, ZAPPL, BUILDTEAM, INSPIRATION and more would have been lost if I didn't have my bitshares information backed up. Make sure you have your BIN file and brainkey backed up if you are using the wallet model. If you're using the account model, make sure you have your password stored in multiple secure locations.
PeerPlays
This was the one that I panicked about briefly. I have my username and password stored in multiple locations, but I had no backup file for my PPY core wallet. I was assured that I can download a new wallet and my username/password will still work. I will update here if this isn't the case.
Bitcoin
This is one of the first times I've been happy that I had all of my meager Bitcoin holdings on an exchange. I had all of my Bitcoin on Bittrex for easy access to the BCH funds after the fork.
Photos/Videos
All of our media is stored in the cloud (the horror, I know), and we routinely print out and store memorable pictures in case of catastrophic failure.
Next up, I'm going computer shopping. Anybody have any recommendations?
I'm looking for a computer that meets my basic cryptocurrency, steemit and internet browsing needs. Budget isn't an issue, but I don't want to throw away money on features I don't need.
(Images via TheAlmostDone)