A feeling of panic ...

I was without email yesterday for about 4 or 5 hours.

I know -- big deal, right?

Nope. I couldn't get into my email account at all. Now that's a feeling of panic. I couldn't access any of my old, saved mail, nor could I compose new mail.

I figured it was just temporary, but it got me to thinking ... what if, heaven forbid, something happened to my main email account?

I use that for all correspondence to my publishers, folks who receive my newsletters, friends in far-flung places.

What if all that went away? That was a HUGE motivator for me. I settled down at the computer and figured a way around it. I set up another account on Google (free account) and set it up to download the email from my other account. Of course, I had to verify from my other account that this was all okay. That was a tricky moment because I couldn't get into that account to verify the email that was sent from Google, asking if it was okay to do the downloading.

Hmm. I knew there was a way around that ... And I found it! There's a little known interface (sort of "Yahoo for Dummies") that can be used in a pinch. It's ugly but useful. So I got into Yahoo through that, verified that it was okay for Google to suck out all my email from Yahoo, and voila, I was back in business!

Of course, this morning Yahoo is up and running again. But I now have backups of everything in that account, I'd duplicated my address book in a couple of places, and I've archived my email just in case.

Moments of panic like that are what is needed to help get a person truly organized. And to make me realize how much I really depend on technology. I make backups of my writing every night, but I don't back up my email.

It is now on my Palm Pilot: "Make email backups", once a week.

Small price to pay for peace of mind ....

J