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Did the crash posts actually go through? I didn’t see any

Computer Crash!!

There I was last Saturday night, working on some sketches for a client in Photoshop, when suddenly the screen went spaZoid, then black. I remained calm. But then I started to worry when my computer wouldn't restart! I immediately made a Genius Bar appointment for the next day at the 24-hour Apple store (yes, we have one of those in NYC :)

Basically it was a problem with the laptop's logic board, and apparently was a defect of some early 2011 computers, because they fixed it for free! Thank God, because it would have been like $600 otherwise, and this computer is 5 years old, so I'd probably only get another year out of it anyway.

Luckily, I wasn't too worried about data loss because I back up via Crash Plan!! It's basically cloud backup. At first, when my external hard drive crashed a few years ago, the concept of backing up to some unknown location was scary to me, but it actually works out very well! Before, with my external HD, I'd only backup at the end of the day (or every few days), but this way I backup continuously. I had to redo some stuff on the one file I was working on at the time of the crash, but all other files I'd worked on that day were fine. But seriously, if I didn't have the comfort of cloud backup, this situation could have been A TOTAL DISASTER.

But the Mac doctors had to take my computer away to do some operations for a few days. I had separation anxiety, as I'm protective of my laptop to a ridiculous degree. They said it could take 5 business days, but I insisted it had to be fixed by Thursday, as I have a weekly deadline (the No Tears: Life With FD comic! Colored digitally in Photoshop). Of course, there is never a good time for a crash to happen, but when an artist relies heavily on their computer to get work done for many clients, it's a tough situation! I was very adamant about this, and the Mac doctors were very understanding. I did have some physical drawings for a custom comic that needed to be done in the meantime though, so I was still productive. Luckily, they fixed my Mac 2 days early! The squeaky wheel gets the grease!

And so far all files and programs are OK and running smoothly (knock on wood). The Mac doctors didn't have to wipe my drive, so I didn't even need to spend the time re-uploading everything from Crash Plan and was able to jump right back into work! Given everything that happened, with so many points at which things could take a turn for the worse, this situation turned out pretty damn good!