You may proceed but only your synced data and settings will be restored all local data will be lost

There’s nothing I can do about it now, so I’m just going to blog.

When I decided that I was going to start writing books for a living, I bought a Chromebook.

I bought it because it was compact, affordable, and because I was basically using it as a word processor. The books themselves would be saved online. I just needed a separate device all my own. I wasn’t expecting it to last forever, not even past a year really.

I bought the Chromebook so that I could start building something. Fast.

But in the subsequent months, of course, I started, well using it. I downloaded a recording device and starting leaving voice notes. Photos, images, pdf’s, the usual. Everything pertaining to writing and marketing went to this device that I’m now using.

Over the course of a few months, I began to see the Chromebook’s limitations. Certain things I couldn’t download because it wasn’t a Mac or Windows platform. If it froze, I couldn’t ctrl+alt+delete to the task manager, because there is no task manager, let alone a friggin delete button. And I got the gist. The thing ain’t a full-blown computer. And while it sped up my resolve to eventually move to another machine, it overall didn’t affect me all that much. I worried a bit about backups but with most of my stuff having a trail online I didn’t worry that much anymore. Anyway, after a gazillion moves I’m not here trying to find a USB or whatever new thing we’re supposed to save stuff on is.

This morning, while trying to set up a marketing campaign that I’m pretty excited about, I went to click next, and the computer froze.

It didn’t happen often, but I knew when it happened that I only had one option, which was to hold down the power button until it shut itself off. So I did that. When I opened it back up, it was behaving like a brand new computer. Never did that before, but I knew that all I had to do was sign in with my Google info to get into it.

Well, then it asked me for an old password. Okay. I typed it in. It didn’t work. Tried it again. I typed in every password I could’ve conceivably used in the last ten years. Nothing worked. When I looked it up on my phone, it turned out it was a common problem. The Chromebook is referring to a password that it could’ve never had b/c I’ve only been using one password since I bought the machine.

The solution? Don’t save any important ish on the computer. I had no choice but to continue while dealing with the loss of my “local data.”

Even with that, it still didn’t dawn on me what was happening. I was still under the impression that everything I was saving on the Chromebook was “on” the Chromebook. I figured at most, it was going to erase things I had downloaded. And while mildly annoying, I was ready to get over it.

Then I noticed that apps were being re-downloaded. Blank. I can’t share what my outward monologue was at that point, but I was pretty pissed. I said, “there’s no way that I’m going to open a completely blank voice app right now.  There’s just no way.”

Lo and behold, a little microphone popped up on my screen saying “My recording #1”

Needless to say, I wept like a child.

Weeks worth of notes on Book 3: gone

Any book ideas I got between now and January: gone

Marketing strategies that I needed to get out of my head to better understand them: gone

Hours of intellectual property: gone

I don’t know what the hackers would’ve done if they’d gotten hold of Kim’s story arc, but I would’ve had a better shot with them than I did with Google’s own security measure.

If this is Google’s way of getting us to bend the knee to the Cloud, then they have converted me through means of torture.

I never, ever, want to suffer this again.