You’ll Thank Me One Day*

Baby’s first steps. Graduations. Birthday parties. Wedding ceremonies. Today’s topic came from a recent conversation with a friend of mine– “That’s what life is; an accumulation of memories”–   and it got me onto to thinking about Deep Things.. and yes, I took a little stroll down my own Memory Lane…

But this is, after all, a tech site, and I am a World Renown Tech Journalist, and so I will not get all nostalgic on you, nor ‘share’ some of my favorite recollections. No, I won’t. But I will point out to you that more and more frequently, we are coming to rely on our computers to help us ‘remember’.

What do I mean by that? Well, now that we have digital photography, the odds are pretty good that the pictures you take — of baby’s first steps, graduation, B-Day parties, etc. –are not in a shoebox, or photo album, but are on your hard drive. Your “home movies” too.
Perhaps your computer is the only place you have those pictures/memories.

Tip of the day: Loyal Friends and True to this series know that once a month I remind my readers to make a backup copy of their important files (Ahem), and to store those copies someplace else. That’s because hard drives fail. (Not all that often, I grant you that, but they do die.. and not just from old age.) They can also get corrupted by malware, or erased by a virus or hacker, or…

If — for some bizarre and mysterious reason — your computer (or, just the hard drive) croaked and started pushing up daisies, would you lose the only pictures you have of Junior’s birth? Of your hard-earned graduation? Of your Grandmother?

Well, don’t let your heart get broken because you just “never got around” to making backup copies. Make copies today! Burn some CD’s/DVD’s and one other form of storage– another (external, maybe) hard drive, or perhaps online.

To help you, I refer you to two prior articles–
1) Windows has a built-in Backup Utility, found in Programs> Accessories> System Tools and my advice for using it is here, https://techpaul.wordpress.com/2007/07/02/automate-your-backup-and-get-some-peace-of-mind/
Apple has a built-in Disk Imaging ability that is just great, but often overlooked: https://techpaul.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/how-to-use-apples-disk-imaging-tool/.

2) Instead of buying an external drive, you might prefer to take advantage of an online storage service.. of which there are many. My article on selecting one is here, https://techpaul.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/online-storage-for-data-backup/

Folks.. there are many, many reasons to make backup copies, and one reason not to (can you guess what it is?). Almost everyday in my real job I get calls from desperate people in a panic.. they’re panicked because they only have the one copy of their important stuff: don’t be one of them!

Today’s free download(s): Perhaps you would like a backup tool other than Windows’ own.. SyncBack is worth taking a look at. From C/Net Editor review, “This straightforward backup utility makes it a snap to safeguard and synchronize your files, and its freeware price just sweetens the deal. Surprisingly flexible for a free program, SyncBack can save your files anywhere: on external hard drives, in ZIP archives, on network drives, on CDs (using UDF), or transfer them via FTP. Recovering from a drive loss is also cinch, with a convenient restore tool that replicates folder trees along with the files in them.”
Also, I remind you of a prior posting here– the free Windows disk imaging utility DriveImageXML. Read an excellent review and get the download link here.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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