digital dependence

i think i’m almost recovered from the massive computer crash last thursday at work. still not completely sure what happened, but we think it was due to spyware which blew away my XP profile, taking my Netscrape mail profile with it. basically, i lost almost 4 days of work plus all my correspondence for the academic year plus about the last 6 months of 2003. i can’t even wrap my brain around the amount of loss and what the impact will be later on. for now, i have almost everything set up the way it needs to be (been working on that for 2 days), and i’m investigating ways of saving my mail so that i don’t lose it again.