The Value of a Backup Plan

As technology continues to invade our lives, we become increasingly dependant on it. Whether it's for work, school, connecting with friends, communicating with a faraway loved one, or just having fun, technology is appreciated, and many times, necessary.

And when it breaks down, our lives go haywire.

Take, for example, my life today. Internet is out at work, but I had several things to email and some numbers to get online. I usually watch a show on Hulu.com over lunch, too. In the evening, my laptop died. Something's wrong with the power cord.

All this could have made my life extremely stressful over the next few days. But it won't. You know why? I had a backup plan.

Electronics break. Often. You may as well expect them to break every single day - so prepare for it. Have a plan B - and a plan C. Go as far down the alphabet as you need to, just not far enough that Hardison from Leverage dies. I would miss him.

Even more than electronics break, batteries die. At the worst possible moments. Growing up I had a great portable CD player. Finally I didn't have to listen to my parents' music on long car trips (and living out in the country, it was a half hour or more to almost everywhere). I had rechargeable batteries to save money, but after one trip with them dying, I bought a couple regular batteries and kept them in my purse. I had a backup plan.

When I switched to an mp3 player it was the same. My first (very cheap) one ran on AAA batteries. My second didn't. So when the new one ran out of juice, I moved back to my old one. And if that failed, I had a headphone jack adapter so I could listen to a sibling's music. And then I had a book, and a notebook to write in, and a funny game on my pen. I was NOT going to get bored on a car trip. Oh, and I had backup headphones as well.

What about you? What backup plans do you have in place?

For your cell phone, do you have an extra battery? Do you keep a charger in the car or at work? I don't use my cell that often, so I just have an extra battery in my purse.

What about your camera? Extra batteries, extra memory cards? I have one extra of each that I keep in my camera case, and in a pinch I can take a picture with my phone or my webcam.

What if your GPS system dies? Can you call a friend or get GPS on your phone? Do you still have a map somewhere in your car if your cell phone's out of range or dead?

You may have noticed that I said my laptop died this evening, yet I'm still typing away - on my old laptop. It weezes and the hinge is broken, but it does in a pinch. I wish I would have had a backup power cord for my new laptop, though. And, the most common of "backups" - all my new computer's data is on my external hard drive, and my most important documents are also in my mostly unused email account.

Oh, and the rest of today's problems? I was able to check emails on my phone, and I took my laptop into work and moved the files I needed to email onto it. Unfortunately, I didn't get the files sent before the computer died, but I was able to attach them, and since my web mail account saved the draft, I could email them from this computer. I had a couple TV shows on my computer via Amazon Unbox and the like, so I watched one over lunch. And I used this old computer to order a new power cord.

The best part about backup plans is that they force you to think creatively about your problems, and they let you control your technology instead of it controling you.