I find it very convenient to use the Cloud. But then; James Damore has shown us that Google is freakin' crazy. And in response to being called out as crazy what do they do? Crackdowns on Youtube. I think it's time to accept that expecting Google to last forever, even as they run as fast as they can for a cliff that you know is ahead—you just don't know how far ahead it is—is probably foolish. I've lost my stuff that I was using before. I used to be big into Geocities. I had a lot of content there. Much of it is just gone now, although the stuff that I really wanted the most I managed to save somewhere. I used to be big into Wikispaces, but then they dumped all of their free users, so all of that content is now gone.
Now, I probably shouldn't expect that my "free" stuff is going to last forever, but that's kinda what we do with Google, isn't it? No, most likely Google will continue to get crazier until they are non-functional, and then they'll be replaced. They'll limp along for a while as a shadow of their former self, and the services that we take for granted today will not be available.
No, I think it's time that I re-embraced the concept of portable, local storage. Fer cryin' out loud, for ten bucks I can get a 32 Gb SanDisk USB drive at Wal-Mart. For less than $20, I can get 64 Gbs. I should just buy three or four of them and make sure everything that I really want to keep is safe. And I'm talking about preserving text, for the most part, and some images, not HD movies. Either is much more than enough storage to meet all of my real needs.
Of course, you have to be careful here too. Multiple sources of back-up is best. I had some stuff that I used regularly and really enjoyed having handy on this zip drive. I'd carry it around with me so I could put it in any laptop or computer I was using without problems. Until I had... well, this problem.
You can see where I tried to tape the thing together long enough to make it work one more time to pull my files off of it, but it was all in vain.
Anyway, I've transferred FANTASY HACK back into an actual file again, instead of just having blog posts be the latest and greatest version of it. It's a Word file and also a PDF now as well; slightly edited from the blog posts, so it's now the latest at version 1.5.1. I'll do the same to AD ASTRA soon, and then start backing up setting posts in some format or other for DARK•HERITAGE, AD ASTRA, and some of the other setting tags that actually have enough development on them that it's worth keeping (CULT OF UNDEATH, EBERRON REMIXED, ODD D&D... maybe MIDDLE-EARTH REMIXED?)
It'll be different developing them in private rather than in public, but then maybe not really. It's not like this is a joint effort. I get some views, but not a lot of feedback, so what's the difference really? I'll just be going back to the way I used to do things before the Cloud became so faddish. And that doesn't mean that I won't be posting stuff; merely that I'll take a few minutes to make sure that stuff that I really will be sad if I lose someday is archived too. And then when I archive stuff on my zip drives, I'll probably copy it on at least two PCs or laptops too. Just to make sure.
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