Staying Awake All Night

Several years ago we had 3 different laptops crash and lose all of their data in marketing. The "last straw" was Michael R's. Using Retrospect backup software, Nancy's old laptop, and a couple of large external hard drives, we set up a system that would back up the "My Documents" folder and "Desktop" of anyone who wanted backing up. Runs like clockwork. It is very addictive to get the "You've been backed up" message each day. Over the years it more than paid for itself by recovering Mark P, Russel, Mark H, and Anne's data. This week, Michael R's laptop crashed again (he who started all of this.) We were able to restore 20,000+ files to his new laptop.

The challenge was that I.T. sets our laptops to go to sleep after 20 minutes of being idle. We needed the laptop to stay awake all night as the files were restored. The video here shows the solution. An oscillating fan, two rubber bands, and two paperclips. Thanks to our legal council, Tori, for the rubber bands and paperclips!