Wow, what a summer! It was busy, interesting and creatively filled. My husband arrived back from a nine month out of state work assignment, we saw family we had not seen in a long time, plus I received numerous art opportunities. In June, another artist and I were discussing how much the computer has aided artists in everything from advertising to social media. Later that day I was downloading some photos of my art to my website and I recalled when digital cameras were first coming out and I must admit, I was a bit skeptical. Supposedly they were all the rage, but many of us weren’t buying it. The photos were a bit grainy, and to me they looked, well, cheap. How could someone possibly want their art photographed in this way when the 35mm had it down to a science? Well, as technology usually does, it greatly improved. Now, with our websites, blogs, social media, etc. many artists cannot function without their digital camera and/or computer. I was comforted by the fact that we have Carbonite online backup on our six year old system, something I hate trying to remember to do faithfully. We only had one minor issue with the computer in all that time, yet in the back of my mind I knew the day would eventually arrive.
Then came mid-August. First, the modem went out. Okay, either replace it or purchase a USB adapter and tap into the wireless network, either way not a major issue. While deciding what we would do, the computer screen suddenly went blue. In the computer world I found out, that is a major problem. Then it would not do a thing. Nothing. Nada. Zippo. No keys, mice or vocabulary could coax it to respond at all. Ten minutes later after a hard shutdown, it lumbered up to another blue screen displaying lines of code that was apparently telling me what the problem was. Then it translated: ” the system has recovered from a serious error”. Serious, yes, recovered, not quite. Once up and running again the entire desktop would disappear, or sometimes just the icons; some things you could access and some you could not. Now what?
After consulting with a few folks who are much more computer competent than us (i. e. professionals), it was unanimous that it was a hard drive issue and we should replace it with a new one. We researched for a couple of days, made a decision and ordered. Once it arrived, there was the setup process, which by the way, went much smoother then expected as I am NOT a computer person. Then the ultimate test: restore all of our files with Carbonite, as in artwork, photos, records, everything. Plus, we were going from one operating system to a new one. While it did take a couple of days, I must say I could not be happier. I am truly impressed with Carbonite. Now I need to learn all of the updates to the programs and the operating system itself, but it all appears to be much easier than before.
While I didn’t like taking the time to completely redo the entire computer system at this time (when is a good time?) as always it was a great learning experience. I was amazed to see just how much my own art business relies on the computer now. I also know the importance of having a backup plan, and Carbonite was everything it said it was and I highly recommend them.
So, how does the computer and internet affect your art? Could you operate your art business without it?
