I just restored my laptop to factory condition to get rid of an annoying virus or something that was preventing me from seeing my desktop and taskbar. Here's what I had to back up before doing this:

• My documents (mostly math papers and math notes)
• My music (mostly old and kept for nostalgia value)
• My pictures (mostly nice desktop backgrounds)

Here's what I didn't have to back up before doing this:

• My bookmarks (synced by Chrome)
• My Chrome extensions (synced by Chrome as of 2010; I distinctly remember this not happening before)
• My contacts (stored by Facebook and/or Gmail)
• My calendar (stored by Google Calendar)
• My other documents (stored by Google Docs)
• My other music (stored by Spotify)
• My other other documents, including all of my homework and applications to various things (stored by Dropbox)
• My games (stored either by Steam or online at the Humble Bundle) 

I love living in the future, you guys. 

Comments (Closed after 30 days to reduce spam)

First!
What have you been doing this semester with all of your free time?

Posted by: anon on February 8, 2012

@anon: so far, I've just been leisurely doing some math. You can read a little about what I've been thinking about at my math blog.

Posted by: Qiaochu Y. '12 on February 8, 2012

You're back! Hello.
Glad to hear your computer is now safe and sound. (healthy Internet nodes are good nodes, etc. etc.)

Oh, yeah, have you seen the movie Gamebox 1.0?

If you haven't (and decide to watch it), try to actively strip away the Hollywood cake-frosting as you watch the movie. Look at the "skeleton" from different angles... I think you might find it interesting.

Posted by: M.SB. on February 8, 2012

pretty much all my stuff is in the cloud too – with two small exceptions.

1. All music = CDs. Yeah, you can still buy those things.

2. Anime = on a LAN server at my place. Couldn't fit 200GB of it on my laptop anyway

Posted by: Justin on February 8, 2012

Hey, where are you going for grad school?

You have not updated us!!!

Posted by: King on February 8, 2012

@M.SB.: I have not. Sounds like it could be interesting.

@King: I haven't decided yet! Still have to visit and talk to a lot of people.

Posted by: Qiaochu Y. '12 on February 9, 2012

I'm glad you back!!! Did you save Disney songs? please keep updating.

Posted by: titary on February 9, 2012

this is why i have 110+GB Dropbox space, HAHAHA HAX

btw do you use Evernote

Posted by: rfong'12 on February 10, 2012

@rfong: nope. Is it that useful? I'm having trouble figuring out what my typical use case would be.

Posted by: Qiaochu Y. '12 on February 10, 2012

I use it to:
(1) sync notes with my smartphone
(2) store notes that I don't want to be reliant on having a wifi signal, like my quotes file of funny things professors say in lecture

Those are the only use cases I can think of that Google Docs doesn't address well, though, and they're fairly narrow. Maybe neither of them applies to you.

Posted by: rfong'12 on February 10, 2012

Mmm. Neither is particularly relevant to me at the moment. Might check it out in the fall, though.

Posted by: Qiaochu Y. '12 on February 10, 2012

@rfong - Q has no smartphone yet to synch with cloud (and by extension his laptop).
What will that decision be for type of smartphone, model and OS? I recommend the more open Android platform (w/Driod Razr purchased without a contract perhaps.) Enjoy MIT and beyond!

Posted by: dave on February 12, 2012

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Posted by: tn on February 13, 2012

Hi. I hope things at MIT are going well for you. I have a quick question: I am in Pre calculus now as a sophomore and I have the option of taking AP Calc BC junior year (and then another math senior year) or taking AP Calc AB junior year and then BC senior year. In your opinion, what path should I take? By the way, I am asking this because I hope to major in CS or math in college, and MIT is a great school for those fields. Thank you!

Posted by: power1hd on February 14, 2012

@power1hd: BC isn't much harder. Just take it as soon as you can.

Posted by: Qiaochu Y. '12 on February 14, 2012

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