Stop reading right now and go back something up. Don’t worry, I will wait.
Pick anything. Your email, your photos, your phone, your jumpdrive, your whole computer. Don’t know how to do it? Google is your friend. Go see a genius at Apple. I highly recommend Crashplan. Use Dropbox. Burn it to a CD if you have to. Just make sure you have a copy.
I have spent the last two weeks picking up pieces from several spectacular hardware failures. Motherboards that literally burned out, hard drives that have failed, updates that didn’t update. And all of them could have been made relatively painless if only there was a backup to restore to. But there’s not. So this is your new New Years resolution. Look at what’s important to you and make sure that you can’t lose it completely. You will thank me. (Trust me, you don’t want to live this week.)
(For the record, I am a little paranoid about backups. I have things backed up in several places. I am not a “do what I say, not what I do” kind of girl. These failures are all things that effect me but I am not directly responsible for. I am making sure they are backed up from now on.)
I use Carbonite service – you initially identify what you want backed up and your schedule – it then backs up changed files according to your schedule – for me, it’s 9:00 every morning. An added convenience is that you can then access your files from another computer, assuming you remember your password :)
While we’re having this conversation, thanks for the idea about the wooden puzzles – good stuff!
Love the chair – and sign! . . .
Just bought a new external backup drive – 2 TB!
I followed my big sister’s instructions and not only made one back up but two. Seemed like since it was the first of the year and I had already finished scanning all the 2012 documents that having a YE back up in addition to my “regular” one wasn’t a bad idea. :)