One of my side interests is technology. I’m specifically interested in software. I’ve explained before why this came about. The quick recap is that my best guess is that my interest in software (specifically free/libre software) stemmed from not being able to spend money on the proprietary counterparts (in addition to an affinity with the ideals of the movement). This turned out to be a fortunate circumstance to be in because I was able to learn (at essentially no cost) a great deal about programming and computers. Enough that I’m now a confident user, experimenter, and all around handyman when it comes to software. This has been extremely useful while pursuing degrees as a student.
One of the benefits I gained from my experience was setting up a home network. I wrote a while ago about setting up my office (still, sadly, a work in progress), and one of the things I’ve done is hard wire all of the computers via ethernet so that we avoid using the slower and less reliable wireless with any frequency. Why might this be important? Well, since I’m working on such a large paper I’ve grown a bit paranoid about backing up in a variety of locations. While I do back up to the so-called “cloud,” I also do a variety of local backups over our home network. Apart from simply a piece of mind, it also allows me to see and work on things at various locations around our home. Those changes can then be merged into the other copies on the network. Technology can help if you let it. I’ve let it help. So far it’s been very helpful indeed.