Heidi vs. Technology

Wow what a week! I got in a fight with technology and we are still waiting to see who is declared the winner.

I am usually embrace technology. It is how I run my business. I do most of my communicating with our different clients via email. I talk to you through my blog and emails. I am always surfing the net for ideas and reference. I do all my designing on the computer, write instructions, run the business and so much more on my computer. So when my internet goes down as it did last Sunday & Monday, I have lost half of my resources. Now when I got the internet working again on Monday, my desktop computer started to have major issues and then my backup files got corrupt in the process of trying to fix the desktop. All in all a disaster week for me and technology. I think there were gremlins in my office last week.

This is one of the down sides of running your own business, unless you are blessed with computer specialist in your family, when something breaks it is up to you (or me) to fix it or find someone who can fix it. After twelve years on my own, I have learned alot about apple computers and can fix several issues on my own but there are still challenges especially if hardware is involved. So the most important advice I can give you is if you purchase an apple product, spend the extra money for the 3 year Apple Care protection plan. For me this is my personal IT department. If I cannot figure out the problem, I can call these guys free and they can walk me through fixing it. Not only is it free, but by them walking me through it, I learn how to fix different problems if (or when) they happen again. I never wanted to know so much about computers but it has come in handy with keeping everything running. Just another perk of owning your own company. Another piece of advice is to have two computers with the same programs and power (if financially possible). I like to have a desktop and laptop so I have one to travel with and one at home if something happens to the laptop on the road. I was able to take my desktop in store and still had my laptop I could continue my work on. This will not help you with the time it takes to try a sort out the computer issues (for me, several days were lost) and get everything running again. But it will get you back on track with your other work that much faster.

So after getting the internet up and running, re-formatting and re-installing my programs on my desktop and finally having to cry uncle and take the monster into the apple store to figure out what was wrong (It was a Broken Graphics Card), I am happily back on track with technology for next week. So until next time.......