Hi Journalist, apologies for the delay but this one is for you. I now
have quite a few valuable Google Answers. What is the quickest and
best way for me to store these on my computer? I am concerned that my
answers will be archived or deleted from the Google Records; and
therefore want to back them up myself.
Tell me please the best way to do this. I have a new laptop with 40gig
Hard drive so no storage problems. I have my own ideas but seek your
professional opinion. Answer this for five dollars and get a glass of
chardoney if I like the answer. Thanks from Roger

Dear Roger:

After my hard drive lost a battle with a particularly nasty Trojan
horse, I learned the immense value of multiple back-ups.  Regarding my
answers to customer questions, I have paper copies, hard drive copies
and a CD burn of every one.

So, my suggestions to you are:

1) save your questions/answers in a text format
2) print paper copies of each question/answer, and
3) burn them to a CD or disk

This should ensure (in a perfect world) that your answers will not be
lost but, because I know what havoc a computer virus can wreak on
CPU-only files, I recommend you perform all three of my above
suggestions to absolutely ensure that you never lose the information. 
Quite a lot of text can be saved on one disk or CD so you should have
plenty of room without having to begin a small library of records.  ;)

A fourth way to store them would be to email them to yourself. 
However, when using a freemail account to achieve this, you run the
risk of the freemail automatically dumping them at some future date. 
If using your main ISP email, then they would still be in your mailbox
on your CPU and not be totally protected from accidental or malicious
erasure.

You are wise to address storage of Internet postings – a few years
back, I was an active member of a writing website that closed up shop.
 Fortunately, I had a bit of advanced notice that it was going offline
and managed to copy all of the 100+ articles and stories from the site
to my hard drive.  I had printed hard copies of about half of them
when the Trojan horse came galloping through...a valuable storage
lesson for me, indeed.

I don’t know if you’ve ever read the novel or seen the film, Misery,
but at one point the character of Annie forces her “favorite writer”
to burn the only copy of his just-completed novel.  I believe most
writers will agree with me when I say that it was the most frightening
scene in the entire film.

I have no Search Strategy to offer you - I didn't even have to search
my brain for the memory of losing my nonbacked-up work.  I still
recall the loss *very* vividly.

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Request for Answer Clarification by bwll77-ga on 01 Apr 2003 14:40 PST

Hi Journo (I hope you dont mind me too virtually familiar)
Thanks for your suggestiions. I probably would not have considered
backing up to the extent you have suggested; but all of what you have
said makes sense.

One new little "toy" I have just purchase is a 256MB USB Drive
Mem-STick. It is a tiny cute little thing only about an inch and a
half long and a quarter or an inch in depth. I just threw it on my
gold scales and it came in at 12 grams. Incredible! (the technology
today)

After reading your suggestions I will firstly save all my questiions
and answers as text files on my hard drive. Then I'll print myself out
a hard copy and stick them away in an archive box. Lastly I pop this
little Mem-Stick in one of my spare 4 USB Ports and save the files to
the MemStick. That should achieve the degree of safety you suggest.
Just one last bit if you would like a perfect score and a glass of
virtual chardoney: Tell me the best (recommended) way you would
suggest I go about saving all these various communications as text
files. Do I have a "MasterRecord" somewhere?? Should I cut and paste??
Should go to each record then to file and  "Save AS".
Sorry if I seem a bit of a "dumbo" but I am a very thorough person and
especially with computers I often find other do things different to
me; sometime better (or worse). As I say just round this bit off for
me to get a perfect five star rating. Thank you very much
journalist-ga Regards from Roger

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Clarification of Answer by journalist-ga on 01 Apr 2003 16:40 PST

What I did was to create a folder in "My Documents" titled "Google
Answers" and then I named each file to remind me of the question
title, like "store_google_files" will probably be the name of this
one.  Then I copied and pasted the question, answer and comments into
a Word file.  That way, all my questions are in one folder.

You can also do a "Save As" of the page as a text file.  Choosing to
save as a web page takes more disk space so I keep it as text.  You
may also want to preface each file with a date number, like
"01012003store_google_files" - that way you can peruse the questions
in the order you asked them.

Those memory sticks are such a great idea - how many megs do they
hold?  I have to begin thinking of a new computer and I'm considering
a notebook - they are so portable and I enjoy composing in the
out-of-doors.  Technology is quite amazing these days.  I think I need
to reread Toffler's "Future Shock" someday soon.  lol  A favorite
quote of his is "One of the definitions of sanity is the ability to
tell real from unreal. Soon we'll need a new definition."

Spot on Journo; you have covered eveything I need to know and more. It
was a relatively easy little question (relatively easy compared to
most of my questions) which is why I only offered a crumb for it in
the first place.  But you have excelled and for your reward not one
.....but two glasses of Aussie Chardoney (you'll have to drink those
virtually) so I'll drop ten bucks in the tip box for you. I will be
away for a week or 3 and will catch up hopefully in due course. Kind
regards and thank you from: Roger
How do you find Ace?? He does't drink thistle juice when he answers
does he? Only reason I ask this is he said to me PinkFrued was a girl.
I dont believe him. Me thinks pinky is a fair dinkum bloke with the
"Coolest" name on the block.

Thank you for your rating, comments and added generosity!  You are a
gentleman and a scholar.  I salute you with my glass and wish you a
safe journey.  :)

As for Ace, she is a lady like PinkFreud.  ;)