Monday, February 14, 2011

Save Your Files: or, how FileCity is your friend

The clicking of keyboards here in a busy library prompts your blogger to think of a scenario he dreads, as do other staff; that of the patron who has been busily working away on a Word document, or a PowerPoint etc., and is now approaching us to say that the PC they were on hung up, or logged off, and could we please help them find their file? The first thing we ask is, did you have the file saved anywhere? If so, the picture brightens immediately. If not, the picture is not a good one.

The thing is that the lab PCs in the library, and across campus, all run security software that cleans off all unneeded files whenever they log off or shutdown. This means that if you didn't save that Word file somewhere safe, it is simply gone.

Luckily though this is a fate easily avoided! When you log onto a public PC on campus you are automatically connected to FileCity. This is a site with individual folders on it for each student, and is backed up regularly. When starting a file, save it to FileCity, and then no worries. You can access it later on any lab machine, or, if in the dorms or offcampus, go to filecity.brockport.edu and log into it.

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