Work as if it’s 2001


Asus

One beauty to having new tech, even if it stretched my budget, is how my use of the desktop and laptop computers is more efficient. I don’t just mean the speed and stability (since the previous computers were both Windows 7 machines that had been upgraded to 10) but the way I use the programs on them.
   Some things are constant: I’ll happily edit fonts or magazines on both since they’re both equipped with the same software. It’s now a breeze to copy everything from one machine on to a portable hard drive running USB 3 and putting it all on the other machine. While I can copy them on to a network, this hardware-based method is still faster.
   But where things have really changed are with email. I’ve never seen the benefits of having email on the cloud, especially with how a company can unilaterally take everything away from you. Google is notorious for this—last week I saw many complaints about a service they have removed—so I’ve never seen the problem about having an email client, into which you download your messages.
   Since the end of the last century, I archive old emails on to an optical disc, initially CD-ROMs, later DVD-ROMs. I keep roughly a year on a computer at any given time. It’s sufficient for over 99 per cent of cases.
   When I first started travelling with a laptop in 2001, at a time when I would be the only passenger at the airport gate looking at a device (the reverse is now true: everyone but me is on one), I used to take my email with me. All the email folders from my desktop machine would be duplicated, and I would use Eudora on the laptop for the next weeks. I could queue up replies and connect via AT&T Global, dialling up using a local phone number. When I got back to Wellington, I would copy the email folders back on to the desktop. There would be some conflicts with filenames and embedded files, but overall this was how I lived, as a business person, for a long time.
   A few years ago, with VNC software getting reasonably good and with wifi (or ethernet) fairly prevalent in the places I travelled to, I began skipping this step. I would simply use VNC to link back home and email would stay on the desktop. This would save considerable time copying the email folders each way. Oftentimes, with the fast internet at the office, it would actually be quicker doing things using a remote desktop.
   But in 2019, it turns out that going back to my 2001 method is very reliable. USB 3 is that much faster so copying files is a breeze. On a recent trip I put everything on to my laptop—now big enough to carry it all, with a 1 Tbyte hard drive next to its 240 Gbyte SSD—and only used VNC to grab files I didn’t have with me. Copying it all back upon my return took very little time. Because the copying is so comprehensive, I don’t wind up with filename conflicts. I happily queue up emails till I’m around an internet signal or connection again, just as I did nearly two decades ago. It’s proved really productive and on Saturdays I have been known to pop in to Sierra Café in town and tap away some personal messages.
   It would be highly unfortunate if the laptop was stolen, and I haven’t got into the practice of backing everything up while travelling just yet. Obviously I’ll have to work this in as part of the routine on longer trips, and it could eat up more time than I think. At least with the VNC way, the desktop computer was set up to make back-ups, and I haven’t done that with the laptop since it’s not always connected.


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