Backup Your Stuff

If you don't have it, get backup software. Let me say that again. Get backup software. If you still don't have it, set a deadline before you go back to work on Monday. It's not a question of "If" your hard drive will fail, it's a question of "When". And when it happens you are going to want to have a copy of the stuff that was on it somewhere you can still use it. Business documents, your thesis, all you digital photos, whatever... There is stuff on there that you want to keep forever and your hard drive is probably already out of warranty. So, get some backup software. An important point is that you want to make sure that you are backing up your stuff somewhere other than the main hard drive in your computer. It doesn't do you a lot of good to have a backup copy of things on the same disk if the entire disk decides to stop letting you get to files on it. There are a few options for your external backup location. The basic ones are: - An second or external hard drive. - A hard drive on another computer in your house. - A network backup place on the internet. - CD/DVDs I would recommend against the CD/DVD options since that means you would have to load a new blank disk each time you wanted to backup. The goal is to get it automated so you don't have to think about it. The software I use is Second Copy. It's quick and easy to install and setup. It's $30. I may switch to an open source one someday, but I haven't seen any reviews of one that I trust. For a while I was working with one that I wrote, but I figure when it comes to backups, it's worth $30. After all, all my digital photos are way more valuable than that to me.