If it’s important, back it up

Computers are awesome, when they work, and if I had a penny for every time I saw someone crying because they lost precious memories due to failed hardware…well, I’d have a lot of friggin’ pennies.

Mac, Windows, Linux, whatever. Every computer faces the possibility of failure and as a responsible computer owner, it is your job to make sure when it happens you won’t be completely out of luck.

Mac Owners:

All Apple computers with Leopard OS x10 and newer will have this fantastic backup program called Time Machine. All you have to do to use it is plug an external hard drive (preferably one without data already on it) into your computer and either search for the time machine utility or wait for the prompt to pop up on your screen.

From this point the Mac will ask you if it’s okay to format the drive. Click “yes.”

Once it’s finished formatting the drive it will backup up EVERYTHING on that drive when it is plugged into your computer. This includes programs, settings, documents, themes, etc. When you get a new Mac you can even use these Time Machine backups to put all the stuff form your old computer onto the new one. It’s effortless, and it’s a life-saver.

Windows Owners: 

On a windows machine start by searching from the start menu, type “Backup and Restore,” into the search bar, hit enter. This will take you to the Windows backup utility. On the window that will pop on your screen click “Set Up Backup.” This will take you through the painless set up for choosing the external hard drive you want to use for backups (once again, please use a drive that doesn’t already have important data on it). After you’ve finished going through this click “Backup Now.”

Congratulations!!!! You are now Safe-guarded against losing your data.

BUT, it’s a good idea to have more than one backup. I have three, which may be excessive, but I’m paranoid. ALSO, it’s important to backup often, other wise you’re just shooting yourself in the foot.