Attention Google searchers: you have come to the right place. Read this entry to find out why, or just skip to the end where I give you my email address and tell you to email me.
I'm still working on setting up my shiny new computery stuff. Since my natural tendency is to set things up once and never change them for ten years, I'd better do it properly while I've still got some momentum. That's why last night I was downloading and installing and configuring a shiny new email client. I told it all of my account information and got it humming along happily, then turned to my household's greater geek for help in importing my carefully saved archive of mail messages. He opened, copied, imported, declared the process finished, and then turned and gave me a look of horror.
They're gone.
All of them.
The one step that I missed while saving them was the step that made sure it saved every message in each folder, rather than one message in each folder, and I never checked to see what I'd saved. Had I realized, I could have easily saved them again properly. Alternately, I could have taken the tedious but safe route and used my Gmail inboxes to store them all. I did neither, and lost five years of email.
The good news is, I've still got everything from my Gmail accounts. I've emailed the erstwhile administrator of modifiedmail to see if I can retrieve those messages as well. The only thing that's definitely gone is the mail from my school account, which I threw to the spamdogs a year ago and only occasionally checked for incoming messages. Essentially, what is lost is the email addresses of everyone who used to send mail to me at uclink.berkeley.edu.
Since I can't remember exactly who that was, I've decided to make myself unfathomably easy to find for when those people say, "Hey, Dianna hasn't emailed me in years; I wonder what she's up to." I'm already pretty Googlable. Can I become really Googlable?
Dianna Joyce Woolsey, UC Berkeley, North Hollywood High School, Wilde House, architecture, anthropology, hardware jewelry, tomato plants, and if there's anything else you'd remember me for I'm damned if I can think of what it might be. Now here's the time capsule message: if you looked for my name and found this page, bloody well email me because I can't get ahold of you otherwise! Put my first name, then a period, then my last name, then an A in a circle, then gmail.com. Just say hi, or whatever you like. Thanks.
Posted by dianna at July 18, 2005 11:57 AMArgh. As someone who likes to save old e-mail as if they might someday be documents of great import, I can only imagine your pain. I felt compelled to beat my head against a wall when I let six months of photos disappear with a hard drive crash, but if I lost all my e-mail, I think I would not be able to resist hunching a corner to gouge out my eyes and gnash my teeth. Hopefully Modified Mail has some good news for you.
Posted by: Chester at July 18, 2005 01:04 PMI did briefly rock in the fetal position and then fling myself despairingly across the bed, but I've actually found myself more resigned to it than I expected. The fact that there isn't anything I can frantically scurry to do about it, besides what I've already done, helps.
Posted by: Dianna at July 18, 2005 01:17 PMConversely, I'm always kicking myself because I never get around to going back and un-saving all of the email I don't need or want anymore, and I therefore always have to comb through 1300 messages in various folders in order to find this one thing from a student from two years ago. So if you'd like any of my emails, I can donate some to you as a starter set.
Dianna Woolsey tattoos piercings
Dianna Woolsey vegan banana bread
Dianna Woolsey UCB library
(Just helping.)
Posted by: katie at July 21, 2005 10:41 PM