Do you back up your computer? If you don’t, you should. You’re going to regret it when your computer crashes and you lose that thesis you’re working on. Or those wedding photos.
I’ll Help You Out
Got an Apple? You’re in luck. Buy an external hard drive. Use Time Machine. Done. If you want a really easy restore, look into exact hard drive clones with SuperDuper!
Got Windows? It’s not as pretty, but Windows Backup does a decent job. They changed it around a bit in 7.
Got Linux? Chances are you already know what you’re doing. Shame on you if you’re not doing it.
Want to be even more secure? Use two hard drives; keep one plugged in to the computer and the other in a fireproof safe (or, better yet, at your office). Switch them every week.
Alternatively
There is another way. Online backup. There are lots of services, but they’re all the same: install, select what you want to backup, and forget about it. If your computer crashes (or you delete something), just go grab it from the website. Don’t worry, it’s all encrypted.
Try SugarSync, Mozy, or BackBlaze. They’ll all work just fine.
$5 a month won’t seem so bad when you need to recover that paper the night before it’s due.
On a Different Note
Not quite backup, but here’s your bonus tip of the day. Got a laptop? Take it places? Have sensitive data on it? If you answered yes to all three of those things (and most of us will), then you should encrypt it.
How? Easy. Truecrypt. Full disk encryption. Don’t forget the password. I mean it. (I recommend using a full sentence, punctuation and all.)
Finished installing that? Good. Now put a password on your computer and require it to unlock the screensaver. It’s not really that annoying; you get used to typing it in pretty quickly. (It doesn’t have to be as long as the Truecrypt Password.) Now feel free to lose your computer. Your data is safe.
