Clean up in digital aisle B

Well, I'm determined to make those visual TO DOs happen this year, and one of them is a dosey - cleaning up my digital machine embroidery files. 

Since I only needed to keep an ear open to what was being said in the meeting yesterday, I sat in the back of the room, and I focused on cutting and pasting FILES! All I can say is that over time, I have created a massive mess. I had files scattered across multiple USB drives, external hard drives, online locations, and the internal hard drives of multiple computers. It was a digital disaster! 

Yep - I was the queen of making a mess, and I wasn't so great at organizing those digital files, nor did I delete, and hey - why move a file when you can copy it! 

I must admit that when I opened up the external hard drives yesterday, part of me just wanted to throw in the towel. Where does one even begin? Some of the stuff was somewhat organized, but most was not. 

So I started at the beginning. I made a folder and started cutting and pasting. Then I would make another folder and cut and paste some more. 

I will not bore you with all the details, but let's just say that it was an interesting exercise. And I am learning a ton about myself. When something doesn't work, you can throw in the towel, or you can learn to find a spot to start. Patience and persistence are all good things to learn, and just throwing in the towel would NOT have taught me a thing!

A mass of files to deal with

Yep—I bet I'll end up deleting many files, since I don't need to keep everything, and I did my fair share of deleting yesterday. But it's like anything in your house - you need to get it organized into folders (like things together) to truly understand what you have, how many multiple copies, etc. It's insane!

OH MY --- I found TO DO lists from 2015. So much for trying to put something on a computer. Obviously, that didn't work. I didn't get a chance to open this, but I will because I want to have a laugh at what might still be on that list that never got done! My goal was not to look at stuff, but to move it! 

To Do lists from 2015!!!!

This really all started with my wanting to put my embroidery files in some sort of usable order. In the past, I've heard embroiderers brag that they have THOUSANDS of embroidery files, and yes, so do I. But do you have them in a usable format that you can find a specific file? Someone suggested deleting everything and then just redownloading the files from the online ordering sites. AH -- I don't think that is going to work, since 99% of my stuff was NOT ever downloaded from a website! And it was just a total mess. I had a quick peek, and there are 10 GB of machine embroidery files to deal with, and I'm not sure I have everything yet! 

So I'm going to use two external hard disks, one for photos and one for sewing. Since they look alike, I have now put a physical label on one of them and renamed it digitally as well. That's a start! 

It will take another couple of days to get those files onto the correct external drives, and I am trying to move what's on my day-use external hard drive to either of them as well. I went through all the USB drives yesterday, and they are now all empty except the last one, which I found last night. It was white and flipped upside down in a clear container, so I couldn't spot it! I think it is almost empty. 

We are talking thousands of files! 

A mass move of embroidery files

But I found old patterns -- OH MY GOD --- can you believe that I found the digital copies of those patterns I was missing. But since I wasn't very good at computer stuff at the time, the visuals were added by hand, so thankfully, I was able to get the full copy from someone else. 

There are hundreds of old presentations, and while I could just delete them, I went through some of them and will combine my work into one presentation. Then, when I need that information, and I know I will at some point, it'll already be in a mostly usable digital form. 

This is a massive task, but I am going to be so happy when it's done because I'll be able to find anything! For the moment, I can truthfully say I have made significant progress toward my goal for my embroidery files at the meeting this month, so that is good. I won't have time to continue working on it for a couple of weeks, as I need to finish those two quilting projects. But now that I have the basic structure and a plan in place, it's going to be a lot easier. My goal for Sunday is to have looked in all the places where I stored stuff and have all the embroidery files in two folders - one that is sorted (at this time, small), and that needs to be sorted (HUGE). 

I think the only place I haven't checked yet is the old computer, which I might do later today for a break. 

OH MY GOSH - I even went into DOS to try and fix a USB that seems to be corrupted. Did you know that there is a command somewhere (right clicking, I think) that takes you to TERMINAL mode? Who knew? 

But thank goodness for Google, because I learned how to do that, but the process didn't work. I know there is a ton of information on that USB, but it's corrupted, and I can't delete the massive file I put it all into. I'll take it into the Geek Squad to check what can be done, but I think I just bite the bullet and toss that USB. What was on it will just have to be lost forever. What you don't know you had, you won't miss!

So enough about that, but I'm doing OK in the file clean-up! OH -- I just had to cut and paste another folder to the right spot. I'm addicted to this clean-up!

An interesting conversation arose in the last couple of days. It was mentioned that some people are unwilling to order online with their credit cards. Hmm -- I get that. Things were once insecure, but with so many encryption tools out there, fraud is still rampant, but not as bad as it used to be. OK -- maybe I'm deluding myself, but wait until I explain my point. 

So you are afraid to use your credit card online. But when you go to a store and use your credit card on one of the machines, where do you think your credit card number goes? Into a paper file? It goes ONLINE!!! It goes online to Visa or the bank and is processed digitally. So why would you be afraid to put your information online, yet you do that every time you use your card? Am I missing something? 

OH -- one bad thing happened in all this file sorting. I found an EXCEL spreadsheet I started many years ago, with a list of books I wanted to read. There were three authors on the spreadsheet, each with a number of books. Well, I had read all the books listed for one author, and all but one for another. So of course, I downloaded that book. I had not read any of the third author's work, so I saved the updated file and can deal with it another day. 

I will say that I had a chuckle over many of the files I found, and it will be interesting to go down memory lane. Could I just delete? I could, but like my paper files, I NEED/WANT to go through them. That's just how I roll. My big push will be to get these files onto the two appropriate external hard drives, so I can travel with them and work on them at my leisure. 

What I need to do is develop a solid backup system. I have a third (and fourth) external hard disk, and I need to use one as a backup. And how often I will do that backup, and how. So there is still a lot of planning, but if I can get these files in the appropriate spot at a high level, and then work through the folders one at a time, I will get this done, and I can see myself reaching that goal for all files, not just the embroidery files, by the end of the year!! Yeah, that will be a huge relief!!!

It was my parents' 72nd wedding anniversary yesterday! That's a pretty impressive feat and not something that will happen to many people these days unless they are in the same age bracket as my parents. 

I downloaded the Olympics app, and I'm all set to cheer on the teams!!! Well, the Canadian team! I don't know how much I'll watch, but I'll see what happens. 

WAIT -- I have a QUILTsocial link to share with you. What did you think of my videos from yesterday? Pretty good!! I'm impressed, but I want to get better. 

So here is Day two, and it's all about a NEW hoop for the Designer Epic 3. I love this hoop and will likely rarely use a traditional embroidery hoop again!!

And on that note, life is back to normal today, and I'll be quilting and binding that one quilt, so I will only have one small project to focus on! And my little labels have still not arrived! ACK!!! But this quilt can't wait!

I'm off to spin class. 

Have a great day!!

Caio!!!