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Number of cycle tours undertaken prior to Cuba: 0

Most kms cycled in one day: 105

Total kms cycled: 797

Average speed in km/h (due to gear, heat, poor roads, and poor conditioning): 13

Cities/towns slept in: 16

Nights spent in Cuba: 33

Nights woken by a rooster at 4:30 AM: 31

Days it took for us to get sick, most likely from the street food: 2

Street pizzas eaten, despite thinking that street food is what caused our being sick: 21

Flat tires: 3

Minutes to change the first flat: 27

Minutes to change the third flat: 14

Taxis taken in Havana: 5

Taxi drivers in Havana who had to stop to ask directions: 5

Waiting for replacement bus in Vinales

Dogs wearing ratty old t-shirts: 9

Flip-flops stolen by a dog: 2

Flip-flops found: 1

Men recruited to help search for missing flip flop: 6

Buses taken: 5

Hours spent on buses: 31

Hours spent waiting for a broken down bus: 2

Cyclists met on the road from:
…Canada: 1
…Spain: 1
…Austria: 2
…France: 2
…Germany: 3
…Netherlands: 2
…Cuba: 1

Times we had to beg for a room to sleep in because accommodations were full: 1

Official currencies: 2

Price for Cubans to take ferry to Cayo Granma in Santiago de Cuba: 1 national peso

Price for tourists to take ferry to Cayo Granma in Santiago de Cuba: 1 CUC (equivalent to 25 national pesos)

Hours spent on Internet: 4

Hours spent waiting for pages to load: 3.5

Beach days during:
…first half of trip: 0
…second half of trip: 1

Seconds it took to decide on a return trip: 0.5

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

For more images from Cuba, check out Carlo’s Photo Essay: Cycling Cuba.

Image above: Remko va Dokkum / Feature image: cambodia4kidsorg

I’ve never lost any critical files myself (knock on wood). Lost a couple emails, maybe some MP3s, sure. But I’ve worked in the IT industry long enough and have had enough users whine to me about losing data to know that it’s common and it’s a major problem. The thing is, we usually only have ourselves to blame.

As Google rolls on with their Earth domination plans, many of us are becoming more and more reliant on their online services. We at Matador use Google Docs to store articles and to collaborate with other writers and editors.

But what would happen if Google just up and died? However unlikely that is to happen, it’s very possible. They don’t have an unblemished record. How about Gmail going down for two hours back in February? And this recent news item: “Google suffers major failure“?

If you’re a heavy Google Apps user, your eyebrows better be raised right now.

So what do I do?

We can’t rely on Google to keep our documents safe. It’s up to us. We need to get a copy of all those files onto our local hard drives and into our control. LifeHacker has some great tips in downloading Google data. I’m gonna share with you the method I used to get my Google Docs down to my computer.

It’s true you can save each file, one-by-one, but unless you have a lot of time on your hands or love monotonous work, you’ll prefer to do it all in one go. This may seem lengthy, but after the initial setup, each backup after will be a two minute job.

First off, get on the Firefox bandwagon

Firefox has some wicked and useful plugins, such as the ones we’re about to install. So, I’ll give you five minutes to download and install Firefox…..okay. Done? Let’s go.

Install the GreaseMonkey plugin

1. You can do this right at the Firefox GreaseMonkey plugin page

2. Click Add to Firefox, then Install. Restart the browser and you should now see a cute lil monkey face in the bottom right corner.

Next, install Google Doc Download (a GreaseMonkey script)

1. Visit the Google Doc Download page

2. Click the Install Now! link, then Install

3. After restarting Google Docs, you’ll notice a new option — Download Your Documents — in your Google Docs control panel:

Not done yet. We need to be able to download all the documents in one fell swoop. Keep reading…

Last, install the DownThemAll! plugin

1. Go to the DownThemAll! plugin page and click Add to Firefox, then Install.

2. Restart Firefox. That easy.

Now the cool bit

You’re now ready to back up your Google Docs. If not already, log into Google Docs.

1. Click on All Items to display all documents.

2. Near the bottom, click on Select All so that all your documents are highlighted.

3. Click that shiny new option I mentioned earlier — Download Your Documents — and choose as Microsoft Office Files.

4. A new tab will open up titled Google Docs & Spreadsheets Downloads and will list of all your documents. In Firefox, click Tools > DownThemAll! Tools > DownThemAll!

5. Choose your destination folder in the Save files in part and then click Start!

Now watch in wonder as all of your docs get downloaded into Microsoft Office files.

One last step

This is optional, but since computers are known to crash, a good idea. Now that you have all your docs on your computer, back them up to another medium such as CD, DVD, external hard drive or USB memory stick for safe keeping.

Since this is not an automatic backup process, you’ll have to make it a habit to manually do this every now and again. Obviously, the more often the better, but once is better than none.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Do you have any horror stories of losing precious documents? Or more tips on safeguarding our data?

Please share below!