General life update plus new book covers

 As you may have noticed, I haven't been blogging much.  On the whole, blogs are on their way out and Social Media is the big thing right now.

I've had lots to say over on my YouTube channel about writing and other cool things. Feel free to check it out, drops some likes, maybe a subscribe if my topics catch more than a passing fancy in your heart.

Recently a cousin of mine, who is a Historian by profession, was speaking about the archiving of one's personal history--journals, diaries, that sort of thing. She's been working on a particular project that involves reading diaries from over a hundred years ago. She experiences some vicarious regret that more people did not leave more imprints of their lives. She has a story about how the record of some people's lives were little more than an entry in the local gravedigger's diary.

That's why I popped into here. I came to make an archive of this blog's contents for posterity's sake. Back when I needed to discontinue my LiveJournal for a very good reason, I learned it had an archive feature that permitted me to download my content and save it on my hard drive.

Blogs are good like that. They're about the retention of information--hopefully useful--for the sake of others. YouTube (as I mentioned before), also acts as a repository of information.

Social Media, on the other hand, isn't so much focused on storing information in the long run, but focuses more on interactivity between humans within the moment. "What are you doing today?" is the question.  Then tomorrow comes, and yesterday becomes forgotten.

But what happens to all that information you've put up on social media? Where is it stored, how can you search it, where does it go? In ten years', a hundred years' time, would historians be able to trawl through the repositories (if they exist) of social media and put together a picture of your life? 

We don't have that guarantee.

Sure, the social media sites do store the information. And why not? Information is useful. It's worth money, potentially lots of money, to them, for various reasons. Is it worth money to you? Not really, no. You are the commodity being sold. You are the eyeballs in which they drop adverts.  (Oh, buy my books.)

If you are interested, here's my social media links:

• Website: https://heidikneale.com.au/
• Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Heidi-Kneale-author-682340831889134/
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@hwkneale
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hwkneale
• Twitter:  long gone. Ditched that as it became more of a cesspit.
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/hkneale
• Blog: http://romancespinners.blogspot.com/ (Clearly self-referential)
• Authorly Monthly Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/c9vM9L Consider this the replacement for a blog.
• BlueSky: hwkneale.bsky.social
• Goodreads profile: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2899577.Heidi_Wessman_Kneale
• Amazon profile: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Heidi-Wessman-Kneale/author/B01890EKFI

So, what's been happening in my life:

Well, I got a new job. Took me several months after my previous blog post, but I did it. It took some time because I had a question I needed answered: was it the Old Job or the Career that I didn't like?

Applying to new places would answer the first half. Applying to non-IT jobs would answer the second.

But when I applied for non-IT jobs (even if they were similar fields), I got no nibbles. It seems the world thought I had to be placed in a niche.  That sucks, because I am a polymath. Not only do I have knowledge in several fields, I'm experienced in those fields. 

Eventually, I gave in and applied for IT jobs. Bah. Within three interviews, I scored myself a position. Am now gainfully employed.

Benefits of the day job:

• It's in an Educational Institution. This suits my personality better. (Not sure if it's because or in spite of the fact that Educational Institutions tend to be run by Chaos Gremlins.)
• It's a step down in level (from 4.4 to 3.1).  If I was building an IT career, this could be considered a detriment, but for me, the responsibility burden was much less, and I like it like that. Another reason I don't mind is...
• It's a step up in pay.  Yeah, you heard me. A 3.1 position (same area, same skill set) at this new place was paying $5K/a more than a 4.4 position at the old job. 
• It comes with incrementation. With my old job, I'd reached my maximum earning potential. But here, I'm at the bottom and only way to go is up. I've had several pay increments already, much to my delight.
• It's a larger organisation. This means more opportunities for career growth (if I wanted to go that way) or lateral movement (if I get bored of IT). I didn't have that at the old job. Now, I am in the process of tapping into some of that lateral movement opportunity, but this will take time.
• It comes with some built-in writing time, should I choose to take this up. This is not part of the job itself, but due to the commute. Yes, I write novels whilst on the train.

Detriments of the Day Job:

• It is not geographically convenient. It takes me approximately an hour, sometimes longer, depending on which campus I'm at. While this does afford me an enforced downtime in which I can read/write a novel, edit a short video, or even just zone out should I choose, it does take a significant chunk out of my day in which I can't re-devote to something else.  I can't just pop out for an hour for a doctor or dentist appointment, that sort of thing.  
• It is run by Chaos Demons. This is not unique to this one organisation. But sometimes it does have a negative impact.  Fr'ex, I had an opportunity to move up into a Level 4 position permanently. While it would have made me a lot more money, and it is, in previous practice, work I can do, the structure of this one particular role was so chaotic and undefined that it made it almost impossible for me to carry out this work. (Yeah, I did cover for someone for a month during leave, so I had first-hand experience. It was nuts.)
• I'm getting too old for this type of work, at a full-time schedule. My body has hit Mid-Life. It's starting to fall apart. Some of the physical demands needed from me for this job are taking a toll on my poor limbs. Now, while there is something medical going on that my doctor and I haven't been able to figure out yet, until we do, I'm working my body a little harder than it can handle, and I'm paying the price. If my doctor and I can't diagnose and treat whatever it is that makes my legs go Ow!, I'll be needing to find a work alternative in another couple of years anyway.  It's a good thing I've got a couple of plans already set in motion.

And that's my update. 

Books

I wrote these two books on the train:

Time for backups

I realise it's been about two weeks since my last blog post. I apologise. Life stuff got in the way. Despite that, I've been able to write and I've been able to back up my work.

The other day fellow Romance author Julia Quinn suffered a computer hiccup that caused three newly-written pages of her WIP to go missing. That sort of thing make you want to freak out when it happens to you.

Thanks to a clue from a fan and some deeper digging, she was able to find a copy of those three pages hidden on her computer.

And there was much rejoicing and grateful sharing of some really nice prose on her Facebook page.

Most writing programs have a little temporary file backup they create of works in progress, just in case the computer goes *hiccup*, as they are wont to do. These backup files have saved my sweet rear end more than once. (They have also made me look like Scotty at work on occasion.) However, if the computer works as it should, and you close down the program properly, those temp files most likely are not kept.

By day, I'm an IT professional and have been for the past twenty-five years. I know a LOT about computers, how they work, how they fail, and have personally seen some of the absolute worst things that could possibly happen to data.

Back up your work.

Do it regularly, do it frequently, do it multiple times, places, methods. Don't just rely on a single thumb drive to hold the unique contents of your laptop. Make more than one copy, and store at least one of those copies off-site. Don't keep all your backup copies together in the same location as your original, ie, that thumb drive in your laptop bag.  (Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not disparaging the delightful thumb drive--far better than the floppy disks they replaced. Just don't make a thumb drive your only backup.)

If your computer dies, if your laptop is stolen, if your house burns down, do you have access to your backup copies, should you need to restore to new hardware?  Consider keeping DVD copies of your work at a friend's house or at the day job, and keeping stuff in some cloud somewhere.

Losing three pages of brilliant prose can hurt. Imagine losing three years or even three decades of work.

Back up your work, folks, back up your work.

You have been warned.

__________________________
Her Grace has always believed in backups, since her first storage medium was the failure-prone 5.25" floppy disk.

Back Up Your Work!

I know, two posts from me in one day.  Normally I'd space stuff out, but this is very important:

BACK UP YOUR WORK!
BACK UP YOUR WORK!
BACK UP YOUR WORK!

Reason #9:  Cryptoviruses are Scary. Like, total freaking-out make-grown-men-cry scary.

Today at the Day Job one of our users picked up a cryptovirus.  It scanned her whole computer (including connected network drives) and encrypted all her data. Then, it told her that unless she paid them a ransom of  US$300/EU€300, her data would remain encrypted forever.  The program included payment options that are rather untraceable.

If you read about something like this in the news you'd be, "whatever".  But to witness it in real life was SCARY.  The moment we identified that we were dealing with a cryptovirus, we went to battle stations.

1.  We unplugged the computer from the network.  Isolation of an infected computer is paramount.

2.  We diagnosed the disease.  While you'd think that step #3 would be the logical next step, we always do a touch of investigation when this sort of thing happens.  What are we dealing with?  Is it a danger to anything else on our system? This is important in case something spreads.

When we tried to clean it off the machine, it upped the stakes:

See that bit at the bottom that says if you attempt to clean off the virus, your stuff will remain encrypted forever?  That's just mean.

3.  Nuke the machine from orbit.  It's the only way to be sure.  Now that the machine is confirmed infected, we completely mind-wipe the sucker--virus, documents, operating system, everything.  Completely gone.

What, you say?  What about the poor lady's documents?

This, dear readers, is why we have backups.

Backing up your work isn't just for writers and accountants.  If you're an average joe with a computer, chances are you've got personal stuff on there--photos of the kids, etc.  A cryptovirus will scramble these into an unusable state.  I've lost personal stuff like photographs before (when a HDD went ker-splodey).  Broke my heart.

I don't want to see that happen to you.

Please make a backup of everything on your computer that is important to you.  (If it's not important, why are you keeping it?)  External hard drives have come down in price. Even the humble thumb drive may save your bacon one day.  Other computers, burnt CDs, Clouds...  There's plenty of options.

I will cry if I hear something happened to you and you didn't have adequate backup.

Go back up your work.  Please.

__________________________
Her Grace believes inadequate backups are like kicking puppies. It makes the whole world cry.  This Public Service Announcement brought to you by real-life tragedy.

Back Up Your Work

This is your sporadic reminder to back up your work.  If you create or save anything on a computer,  make a copy and store it somewhere safe.  Make a couple of copies, keeping one nearby, and one off-site  (yahno, in case the house burns down).

If something happens to your computer and you don't have a backup, Very Bad Things will happen.  Puppies will die!  (Okay, maybe not, but you will curl up in a corner and cry for a very long time.  Result is the same.)
_______________________
Her Grace has lost work in the past due to lack of backups.  She's learned her lesson.  She hopes you do as well, preferably the easy way.  One good place to keep a backup is in a fireproof safe on a well-guarded military base.  Should anything happen to that, there are worse things to worry about other than the state of your backup.