Lost. Gone. Forever.

Well, we have all faced it at least once in our computer-driven lives: lost data. Whether through failed hard drives, corrupt directory structure or accidental deletion, data loss presents itself as the most-feared technological error that need not draw tears. Why not? Backups. Backups offer you the safety of mind with your data, as long as one has the prescience to make such backups.

Today, I accidentally deleted my Desktop folder on my iBook in my user folder. I had chosen to do a bit of clean up of the various cruft files that appear around my user folder through quick FTP sessions or screenshots on the desktop. In a deft move, I selected multiple items in my user folder for removal to the trash. I went about my cleaning session, clearing out old Downloads, etc. Midway through the process, I emptied the trash and noticed a large number of files swiftly drifting away into the digital ethereal realm of nothingness—many more files than I had anticipated. I shrugged off the inconsistency and kept working to alleviate my digital clutter that I had collected since my previous cleaning.

Well, later in my computing, I went to look through the files on my Desktop in order to arrange them accordingly, but, as it turns out, one of my selections had actually included my Desktop folder. And I had already emptied the trash. Flashes of file names immediately came rushing to the forefront of my thoughts: what was on the Desktop? PDFs, screen shots, other sundry crap that had been moved there through drag and drop operations from Safari or other apps to the Desktop for later movement to the proper folder. Ugh. Now, I am fully cognizant that none of this was probably that important in the grand scheme of the universe, but to lose anything, no matter how insignificant, is frustrating. Not even knowing what had been saved on the Desktop is extremely upsetting. Fear not, though, because backups are the solution to all such problems!

Well, as it turns out, I have been severely limited on hard drive space of late: Between two computers, an iPod, and my 120 GB external FireWire hard drive, I had only 7 GB of available space. I say had because I remedied this problem a week or so ago with the purchase of another external hard drive of 300 GB in size. I did this for the very purpose of making backups of important data far larger than might fit on DVD-Rs (4.7 GB) or CD-Rs (700 MB). Unfortunately, I had not yet implemented any backup programs for this purpose. (Insert the appropriate expletive here.) The intentions to do so were there, but my good intentions taunt me now.

I am not fretting the loss of my Desktop folder too much, but in the future I plan not to rely so heavily on the Desktop. Its contents often pile up for a few weeks to a maximum amount, beyond which its utility disappears as icons start piling upon one another. Here is a sample graph of the number of icons that might appear on my Desktop over a period of a few months (estimated):

As you can observe, I like to use my Desktop as a temporary repository of files. Files pile up at a steady rate until the Desktop’s limit is reached, beyond which files still creep in but at a much slower rate. At some point the annoyance overcomes the activation energy barrier that prevents me from arranging them properly, and I have no choice but to allow myself to clean up the desktop to achieve a lower state of energy.‡ It is a very bad practice that I must break, but being as how Mac OS X likes to save desktop pictures there, I seem to be a slave to that habit.

Still, the larger story holds: I did not back up my accidentally-deleted Desktop folder, and I searched in vain for a “cheap” method to recover said files. None being found, I started my computer back up and resumed my work. Sad, yes, but I think I’m over it now.

Moral of the story: always back up your important data, and when in doubt about the relative importance of some data, back it up anyway! My new backup scheme is running as I publish this, so I’m going to be OK from now on in this regard.

‡ Chemistry note: I feel it is important to note that this analogy of a chemical reaction to cleaning my Desktop holds for the following reasons. The spontaneous act of cleaning my Desktop results in a higher-ordered system that requires energy input (the high activation energy barrier—my laziness). Entropy moves from high to low and is overcome though forces external to the computer (particularly, myself and the environment). Once overcome, this system will proceed to increase its entropy over time, as dictated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Whether this “reaction” of sorts might be considered exothermic or endothermic remains to be seen.