Bricked Laptops and Data Backup

So I consider myself an above average user of computers. I've grown up with them and worked in the industry doing some pretty advanced stuff. That's why I scoffed this morning when my wife said the laptop isn't powering on. Then I spent some time on it myself and the machine actually wouldn't turn on. It was dead, nothing more than a brick. After removing the battery, and unplugging it (on the theory that 'sleep' had become 'coma'), it still wouldn't turn on. At this point I considered smashing the laptop.

I should mention that I may have a rage issue early in the morning before coffee and of course the chronic pain doesn't help. After dealing with my personal issues I turned my attention back to the laptop. There are tricks and tactics that can be tried on a bricked machine, and I tried them. I also attempted to sacrifice one of my cats but they were too quick for me. So I settled on burning some incense and herbs and whispering sweet nothings into the built in mic.

My laptop eventually came back to the land of the living and I've addressed the bios and software issue that caused this. However this whole experience validates a project I started to prevent this kind of incident from wiping out my various files of stories and notes. Last year I created a Writing Wiki for myself. "What is a 'Writing Wiki'?" you ask. Well let me tell you my friend, (or frenemy, or neutral bystander), it's freedom. I built my wiki on the standard Mediawiki Software, the same software that powers Wikipedia. Only instead of my wiki being an encyclopedia, it's a collection of my work in writing.
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Wiki software is built on a database. Through the use of links and small snippets of code(wikitext) you can build and do pretty much anything a standard word processor can do: spell check, word count, publish to PDF and more. The more being the exciting part. I go to my wiki in my web browser and there is a webpage that keeps track of all the stories and ideas I'm working on. I can create project pages that link to my rough copies, my outlines, character notes and even responses from submissions. Built into the wiki engine is revision tracking, which adds another layer to editing. This means you can bring back that paragraph that you deleted last month, without looking for an old save of the file. I search my wiki much like any website, allowing me to quickly find something that I wrote quite a while ago, without having to remember filenames or folder locations. As well I have pages that track Writing Markets or contain Research that I've collected off the web or elsewhere.

I used Modular Webserver System, MoWeS for short, from CH Software to power my wiki. Using their software allows me to run the whole thing from a USB stick. Yes a USB stick, and when my laptop bricked this morning I had no worries about lost files, because I can plug that USB stick into pretty much any computer and voilà. I also backup the files from that USB stick onto the hard drive of my desktop, adding a layer of redundancy if I lose the stick.

I've done a number of things to set up my writing wiki by adding my own code to the pages or through the use of the many Extensions for MediaWiki. It's the kind of thing that organically grows to accommodate your needs as you work with it and play with it. To get started on building your own writing wiki check out MoWeS, it's free and comes with a reasonably up to date version of MediaWiki. A USB stick of 250mb is plenty of space to setup your wiki and play.