25 Jan
2002
25 Jan
'02
10:48 a.m.
One tactic I use with journal material that has been accumulating, usually daily, on my computer for nearly 20 years is to shift everything to a new drive from time to time. That refreshes it, I think. Also I back everything up onto floppies -- you know, those antique plastic gizmos that are about 3 1/2 inches across. I keep some of the floppies in the basement in a relatively magnet-free environment. As far as I know I haven't lost anything. I try to print out journal entries too, and that is the best strategy for long-term preservation. But I like to go through and correct spelling and punctuation errors when I do so, and that takes a lot of time. So the hard copy version is only current to about 1990. -- Joe Bauman