tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6272246.post-29655525698883050642007-04-28T00:09:00.000-07:002007-05-02T02:33:29.146-07:00Think about it: If you've been online for any length of time, you probably have THOUSANDS of bookmarks, many of them for sites that'd be time-consuming to locate via a search engine, especially if they aren't high-ranked... and that's assuming that you remember every site you've bookmarked, and that each one has either a distinctive name or unusual keywords to give you any sort of chance of pinpointing it amongst what're probably a million similar sites. This means that if you lost all your bookmarks, by which I mean ALL versions, forms, copies, backups and files of bookmarks from every computer you use, some of those sites would only be recoverable with a great deal of time and effort, possibly more than you'd ever be able to make, some you'd never find again, and probably MOST you'd have no specific memory of and thus have no way to look for; what would that mean to you? Take a minute and look at your bookmarks, and ask yourself how many of them you'd reasonably be able to recreate if they were lost; then, ask yourself how much you'd be willing to pay to protect them. I'd probably be willing to pay $1000 for mine, maybe more.<br /><br />What about your cookies? You're probably signed up with a whole bunch of sites, some of which make you go through elaborate procedures to get back into your accounts if you can't remember your login info; what'd it be worth to you to prevent your entire cookie file (and all backups) from being wiped out? For me, this is worth a couple of hundred dollars; there's nothing that'd be lost forever if mine vanished, so it's not as valuable as bookmarks.<br /><br />How about all the files you've downloaded over the years? Music, videos, images, cartoons, photos, animated gifs, graphics, etc; how much would you pay to keep from losing every copy you've got of all of those things? For me, this is probably a $1K deal again.<br /><br />And your blog entries? Some people delete all their stuff periodically anyways, to get a "fresh start" or some such thing, but most of us place a little more value on what we write; what's your blog content worth to you? Frankly, I'd let all my posts about my personal life, and the ones about trivial stuff like movies or food, go without a whimper unless I could get them reasonably cheaply; I don't love the sound of my own voice, bloggily speaking, enough to value everything I write highly just because *I* wrote it. There are a fair # of my posts, though, that cover spiritual, psychological or sociological topics that represent a huge amount of time, effort and thought, and for them I'd pay... it looks ridiculous typed out, so let's just say I'd value them at quite a bit more than mere bookmarks.<br /><br />For those of you with fancy templates, it'd also be fair to ask how much you'd pay to not have to start from scratch, with a blank or simple pre-fab template, with none of your files or scripts (again, this means that all backup copies of everything would be lost); I'd be willing to pay maybe $100 to not have to find and re-install all my blog doodads and such... I bet folks who did detailed artwork and/or code for their blogs would pay a great deal more.<br /><br />How about all your emails from loved/liked ones, including those that have photos attached? How about your entire inbox address book(s)? How about your complete IM histories? How about the meaningful posts you've made on forums or other people's blogs? How much is all that worth?<br /><br />What's the total combined value to you of all these internet-related pieces of information?<br /><br />When's the last time you backed all that stuff up?<br /><br /><br />The fine folks at Shedd's/Country Crock have created a way for you to help feed the hungry for free, and all they ask is that you "Tell us about a time you shared with someone or someone shared with you. For every story you share with us, we'll donate a meal to a family in need through America's Second Harvest." They've provided 12K meals as of when I'm writing this, and are promising to provide up to a MILLION meals, so go here<br /><br />http://spreadthesharing.com/StoriesofSharing/TellStory.aspx<br /><br />and add your story... remember, all across America people are hungry every day (disgraceful, isn't it?), not just at Thanksgiving and Christmas when most of us donate food.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6272246-2965552569888305064?l=omniverse.blogspot.com'/></div>Omnihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01535142570254270177noreply@blogger.com