The Dangers of Using Two Computers at Once

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Written by Kodi Wolf at 5:31 PM

I'm still in the process of transferring stuff from the old computer to the new one, which means I'm going back and forth between them to work on different things depending on which program I need at the time.

Well, let me just say that's been a little dangerous for my sanity. Here's why.

I have both computers hooked up to the same monitor, so all I have to do to switch between them is change the input on the monitor (I leave both computers on all the time). I then have two keyboards in front of me along with two mice, and I've found it's quite easy to forget which keyboard I need to be using in order to type into the correct machine.

So the other day, while I was in the middle of trying to work with some of my story files, I accidentally started typing on the wrong keyboard, but before I realized that, I had noticed I'd made a typo and automatically hit delete and then space to correct the typo and continue typing. Only then did I look up and finally realize I wasn't on the right keyboard, but I didn't really think anything of it.

Well, then I did it again. Again, I didn't think about it, but when I eventually switched back to the new computer, I found my entire Stories folder, the one with every single one of my stories in it (both posted and unposted), had been almost completely deleted. The only thing that hadn't been deleted was the Lights of Life folder because I had several files in that folder open, which prevented the computer from finalizing the delete command.

I nearly had a heart attack.

As far as I can tell, when I hit the delete key, since my Stories folder (or one of the story folders in that folder) was selected, it probably popped up with an alert asking if I was sure I wanted to delete that folder, and then when I hit the space bar, that must have selected OK, and so it deleted everything it could. When I did it again, it must have defaulted to the parent folder (Stories) and done it all over again, wiping out all the story folders inside it, except for Lights.

To say the least, I panicked. I immediately went to the Recycle Bin to restore the deleted files, but for whatever reason, it didn't work completely, so back to panicking. I hadn't manually backed up my files in over a week, which meant all my latest work wouldn't be there, but I knew I had a daily automated backup, so I hoped and prayed it would have everything.

Well, it didn't. But it did have almost everything and it had the most important stuff, the actual story files, so all I ended up losing was a couple of my most recent note files. Unfortunately, I had just entered the text from my handwritten notes and was in a particularly efficient mood, so I'd already shredded the handwritten version, meaning there was no going back (my shredder is the kind that makes virtual confetti and I'd shredded a lot of different items, so there was no way I was going to try to recreate them by finding the bits and piecing them back together).

Anyway, lesson learned and now I have a new system. Since I'm on the new computer the most, that keyboard is always in front of me and the old keyboard is pushed behind it, but when I need to use the old computer, I move the new keyboard to the side, so I won't accidentally start typing on it while I'm on the old computer. I'm also trying to get better about doing manual backups whenever I edit any of my story files, so even if something like this happens again, I'll be covered.

I hope I never have to face the prospect of losing all my hard work with just a couple of accidental keystrokes again. It was terrifying.