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Hi and welcome to The Business of Being a Virtual Assistant. I’m your host, Tiffany Parson, and you’re watching and listening episode number 131.
Now, this is going to be a quick and dirty episode. I say it’s dirty because I have been wanting to bang my head against my computer for the past couple of days. Let me just – the title of this is like when the backup to the backup needs to be backed up.
Hmm, okay, so here’s the deal. I use a MacBook and I have been using a MacBook for the past ten years. I started out with the MacBook Air and then got a MacBook Pro. The MacBook Air has been the backup for the MacBook Pro.
Now, I stopped using MacBook Air completely because I accidently spilled something on the keys. I can’t remember if it was water or coffee, but I spilled a little something. The keys went kind of haywire. I let it all dry out and it seemed to come back to life. It seemed to be fine.
Then one day all of sudden the keys started acting up. It didn’t want to, you know, certain keys didn’t want to work and things like that. So since I already had the MacBook Pro, I said, okay, fine. I completely am all MacBook Pro. I won’t go back and forth. So was using MacBook Pro all the way.
Still using it today, but let me tell you what’s happening with it today. Same scenario. Keys don’t work. The number 3, the number 4, the E, the R, and now the C is a little sketchy on me. The problem is I need some of those letters and numbers for the password to the computer itself. So, you know, you can’t log onto it without logging on the password, logging on with the password.
So today, I’m at the hair salon. Well, before I went to the hair salon, the password was acting up and I’m like I’ve got to figure this out. I’ve got to figure out what’s going on. I said, well, I’ll have more time on the hairdryer to work it all out. I’m thinking, you know, there’s a way that you can, at the login screen, there’s a little question mark. You can click on that and it’ll give you a hint for your password. Well, I didn’t need the hint. I know the password. I need the key to work.
Then the other option was that you could reset your password using your Apple ID. Perfect. Let’s do it. So I clicked that. One of the letters for my Apple ID password is on the key does not work list. Talk about frustrating. I spent an hour Googling and trying different things, changing my Apple ID password to all the keys that I knew would work.
Then the computer wouldn’t recognize the new Apple password. I had to figure out why was that. I think it’s something to do with the fact that in the memory of the computer, it knows what the previous password was. So you’ve got to log onto that first. Then log out. Then log back in. Point being, I could not get onto the computer. Yes, I could login as a guest. Oh, wonderful. I could be a guest. But I need to be me. I need to see my stuff, right.
Anyway, and I just realized I was lotioning my hands. Married ladies, when you’re lotioning your hands and then you realize your ring is not on, it’s like, oh, where is it? Okay, got it. I’m good.
Okay, anyway, back to the show [laughs]. So, yeah, couldn’t get in. So like, yeah, I could be a guest so I could look at my email really quick and send out reminders for upcoming Zoom meetings and all that stuff. Wonderful, great, but I need to get to some stuff that’s actually on the computer. This is when I had, you know, the lightbulb moment.
Now, in the past, I’ve talked about, you know, contingency plan where you’re not feeling well, a plan for when your WiFi is acting up, and I’ve probably even mentioned something about the computer. But now I’m really, really serious about having a backup for your computer.
What do you do? I am stuck with two laptops that are like 80%. Here are my tips for you and what to do, and then I’ll tell you how I finally got into the MacBook.
Number one, we need to make it so the information on our computer is somewhere else. It needs to be in the cloud, in Dropbox, somewhere else. You know, like I use Asana. Asana has all my passwords and stuff like that. I also use – I think it’s called LastPass, something like that (It’s actually 1Password). I have that app on my phone. It’s also on the computer. But if you can’t get in, it doesn’t matter.
When you think about it, if you had to use somebody else’s computer, would you have everything you need to continue doing your client work?
Because it should be that way. It shouldn’t be just stored on your computer. All those things are in the cloud. Passwords, so I said Asana, LastPass (1Password) for that. Okay, great. But then I had to think. What is on my computer that I need to put somewhere else?
Because I have downloaded so much stuff. I’ve got stuff on the desktop and the download folder, documents folder. That stuff has got to be moved to Dropbox. That’s what I’ll be working on for the next couple of days, getting it all moved over to Dropbox so I am not computer dependent. Just like we’re virtual, we can be any location. We need the same thing for the systems that we work on.
We need to be able to be on any computer at any time and not miss a beat.
Now, what I learned this afternoon, the computer has got to be current. So I went to my backup. I was able to login there just fine. It appears as though the last time I logged into it was 2014 [laughs], which means the OS system was out of date. So I updated it to the max, the highest it could go. It’s like at 10.75.
But in order to get all the latest updates for iMessage and FaceTime and iCloud and all that stuff, it has to be a minimum of 10.8. It’s like right at the line like almost, almost. Just a little smudge and I’m like, man, I was close to get my backup revived again. But it’s not a good backup. It’s not.
You know, then Chrome was out of date. I was going to update Chrome. You know, I’m trying to revive it. I’m resuscitating it, and no, not happening. Won’t even do the latest update for Google Chrome because, again, the operating system is out of date. Google was like we no longer support this version. You need to be at least 10.8 or higher before we’ll even support it. I guess, okay, after eight years, it is an antique. I surrender. I surrender.
Okay, before that happened, nothing got resolved at the hair salon. Got home. The hubs with his brilliant mind today, I’m like, yes, oh. He says, “Why don’t you try using the Bluetooth keyboard from my iPad and see if you can connect to your computer that way and see if you’ll be able to get in?”
Aha, woo, so excited! Because at this point, I was frustrated, had a headache, and was a little dizzy from the car ride. So guess what? It worked and I’m like, “You are so brilliant,” and I just was singing we are family. He’s like, “Oh, you’re singing that now.”
But I was so excited y’all because my feelings were hurt. I couldn’t get into my computer. I need whatever is on there. To be honest, I don’t even know what’s on there that I need and can’t get somewhere else. But just the fact that it’s there and I haven’t moved it anywhere, just makes me feel like I need it, and it’s probably some videos I’ve downloaded, audios or something that’s somewhere else.
Point is we don’t need to be computer dependent.
So I’m back up and running. Now, granted, the keys still don’t work so got to take the laptop to the doctor. But made the decision the backup computer is gone. We’re just going to, you know, let it rest in peace because, you know, couldn’t update Google Chrome. Then I was typing in – I said, well, maybe I can move everything over then to Dropbox, because now, you know, now I know the secret not to be computer dependent. But my password wasn’t working and I couldn’t figure that out.
Okay, now the keyboard, when you type, the letters look like Greek letters and I’m like really? Okay, it’s like the computer is talking to me telling me, Tiffany, just, no, I just want to go. I just want to go home and be with the Lord. Just let me go. So that’s what I’m doing.
All right, lesson number one, do not be dependent on your computer. Start moving stuff.
If it’s important, put it somewhere else, Dropbox, iCloud, somewhere where it’s easily accessible. That’s why I love Dropbox. Dropbox all day long, easily accessible. If it’s a video, you can watch it. If it’s an audio, you can listen to it. If it’s an image, you can see it, and on and on and on and on.
If you’ve got – what is it? Office 365, you can edit documents and all that stuff. Speaking of, I need to update my account for that because I can log into that on my computer, but it’s not connecting with Dropbox. What else?
Passwords somewhere else. Not stored on your computer.
If you use a project management system that is secure like Basecamp, Asana, great, also a backup for that and that’s where LastPass (1Password) comes in. I’ll make sure I’m saying this right. If you’re watching on YouTube, I’ll make sure to put the link to that in the description. If you’re watching this from my website, then you’ll see the link in the show notes.
If you’re riding along and you’re listening to this podcast and you’re like, oh, my gosh, I’ve been there or, oh, gosh, what if that does happen to me, then just come on over, TiffanyParson.com and you’ll be able to see the link as well to LastPass (1Password) because I’m not sure if I’m saying it right. I would look it up really quick, but I’m recording on my phone and that information is there. Anyway, that is the deal with that.
I’m trying to think if there’s something else that I need to, oh, and of course backing up your computer. I figure if everything is somewhere in a cloud, Dropbox, all that stuff, then it’s backed up because it’s there. It’s not on the computer so you’re not computer dependent.
It’s almost like, you know, I’m thinking about when you take your car to be fixed and they may have a car that you can borrow to drive for the day. It would be really cool if the people repairing my MacBook had a computer I could borrow for the day and we kind of swap out. Anyway, I don’t know how all of this is going to happen. Probably over a weekend or whatever when I don’t have to do any work.
But anyway, I hope this has helped you. Share with me your horror stories about your computer backup or WiFi or anything like that, that you desperately needed and didn’t have, even if it were your phone. Let me know what happened. Share with me. I look forward to hearing from you.
If you have any questions about how I handle Dropbox, let me know. Oh, one little secret about Dropbox. I don’t synchronize it on my computer because it hoards all of your memory. So I don’t sync Dropbox to my computer.
I actually logon into Dropbox and I upload and download from Dropbox and my phone and AirPlay and all that stuff, all, you know, all that stuff. I’m not saying it in the right order because AirPlay to the computer, then to Dropbox, or from the phone to Dropbox. But not syncing, not syncing.
The old MacBook Air has it to where it syncs so a lot of stuff is sitting in Dropbox. So it will sit on your computer and also on Dropbox taking up space on your computer. You want that space to be free. You know, if something happens, your computer crashes and all you have are apps, you are good. But if you’ve got important files on there, not so much.
Anyway, get busy getting computer independent. Thanks so much for watching and listening to this episode. I look forward to hearing from you. You share your story and we’ll chat. You have a wonderful and fabulous day.
[…] Episode 132 […]