Many of you will receive gift cards for the holidays and naturally, your first impulse will be to sit right down and indulge yourself in your favorite WAM content, but keep a few things in mind.
1) - Some cards are store-specific. If someone gives you an Amazon or Home Depot card, it most likely won't work anywhere else.
2) - All cards are backed by specific card networks. At Vidown, we can accept most cards with the Visa, MasterCard, or Discover logo on them. (we do NOT accept Amex because they are too expensive to process and vehemently anti-porn)
3) - Most Gift & Prepaid cards will NOT work online, at gas pumps, or at any kind of unmanned kiosk that requires entering a ZIP code until it is registered to a street address. You normally do this by logging into the card issuer's website (probably printed on the back of the card) and entering the information there.
4) - All cards will "reserve" funds on every authorization or charge attempt. If you screw up the expiration date, ZIP, or CVV number, the transaction will fail, but the issuing bank will still lock out the funds for 3-10 days. Make absolutely sure that you enter everything correctly the first time, as multiple failures can and will reserve your entire balance and make the card unusable for several days. This is simply a function of the card processing system and there's nothing the merchant can do about it, so don't yell at them if you fat-finger the numbers
Another important issue is that YOUR HARD DRIVE IS FAILING RIGHT NOW. All hard drives (both mechanical and solid-state) have an expected life span of many years, but that means absolutely nothing. There are always premature failures. Some are dead on arrival. Some don't last a week. Many fail in the first year, and a select few may actually last a decade. (probably not yours though ) It's imperative that you have, at a minimum, TWO full copies of all your important data. Generally one on your laptop or desktop, then at least one more on an external drive. For extra security, make a 3rd copy on yet another portable drive (updating once a week or once a month) and move it to a separate location that will not be affected by the fire, flood, earthquake, or meteor that may possibly bash your primary dwelling into tiny, uninhabitable bits someday.
You can also use cloud storage for your most important records, but modern video formats are so enormous, it quickly becomes impractical if you have more than a few dozen clips in your possession.
Remember: Backup Early, back up often, backup, backup, back
Backs up your entire system for $6 a month. I have nine terabytes backed up with them. You pay the sub, install the app, and forget about it - none of that fucking about selecting folders to backup, it does your entire system, including external drives if they are permanently connected.
If you own paid-for downloadable content of any kind, you need BackBlaze.
Love you, too
