Early in my technological lifetime, I attended regular meetings of a Mac user group out near O’Hare airport. As one of the geeks in the room even then, I ran across a pure piece of wisdom that has stuck with me since.
“Just because your computer worked yesterday is no reason that it should be working today,” was the admonition given.
At the time, I chuckled and then stored that tidbit away. I could not have realized how prophetic that statement would actually become, in this advanced technological landscape we currently live in.
Spoken during the dark time, in the days of Windows ’97 and Apple’s transition to OS X, people expected computer issues. It was a time of cell phones the size of a brick and dial-up access to the internet.
Days were lost to tracking the booting order of devices or the seemingly random errors that plagued both operating systems of the period. We all kept informaiton backed up. Even passwords were written down.
This earlier time required setting DIP switches and jumpers, terminating SCSI connections and manual IP addresses. Connecting computers and devices was an often arduous task and because of that, to this day, I still write IP address down on each computer.
In the interconnected world we live in now, people expect that each device will be the same every time, day in and day out.
In this connected society we even maintain our passwords, information and our lives “in the cloud.”
But what happens when you have no access?
Nothing beats having needed information written down when itis an emergency. Paper doesn’t need lights or power and is viewable in almost any weather. I am amazed how many people don’t keep a written backup of phone numbers even today, as it makes calling for assistance a great deal easier after your phone has died.
And it reminds me once again of a modified version of the reminder: “Just because it worked yesterday is no reason that it should be working today.”
