Lesson 4 JUST DO IT!

Lesson 4 Just do it. If you have been following the Blog up to now you know what you want to backup (Lesson 1).

You have chosen the media that you want to back up to (Lesson 2).

You have picked out your software to make the backup (Lesson 3).

Today in Lesson 4 we are going to tell you do put it all together and JUST DO IT. Make your
first backup. Don't you feel better knowing that if your computer crashes You will still have all your important files? Also in this lesson I want to cover how often you should back up your computer. You need to decide this by keeping track of how often your files change. How often do you add photos, songs, documents to your computer?

When you have added something to your computer that you can't afford to lose, do a backup. You can also schedule your backup software to do it for you automatically. I'm a pretty heavy computer user so I back up automatically every night. While I'm sleeping my computer is hard at work backing up my files. You can do this too. I promise you will
sleep better knowing your files are safe.

Lesson 3 What Software do you use

What software do you use to back up your computer? In lesson 1 we selected what files we wanted to back up. In lesson 2 we learned where we can back up our data. Today in lesson 3 I will explain what software is available to do the job for you. There is one software that stands head and shoulders over all the rest and it is Acronis True-image. They offer a free trail and after you use it you will understand why it is worth the $49.00 for the total package. I want to say that I am in no way getting anything from Acronis for pitching their software. I have tried at least 20 other back up programs and none of them gives you the ease of use and the comprehensive backups that Acronis gives you. If you don’t want to use Acronis you can Google on backup software and find many more software applications that backup your computer. Visit the Acronis site and see what I am talking about.

Back up Lesson 2 WHERE TO BACK UP

If you followed Lesson 1 you now have a list of what you want to back up. Now we need to discuss where to back it up. I have learned that to get people to make back ups at all it has to be easy for them to do it. That said I am going to suggest that you invest in an external USB drive. You can find a very nice size USB drive for under $100. For most home owners and small businesses an External HD is all the room you need to hold all your pictures, videos, music and documents. There are some external HD's that even come with the back up software built in. I will explain back up software in a future blog post. I will now give you other options if you don't want to spend money on a external HD. My second option for much less cost of the HD is the USB thumb drive. They won't hold as much but many home users will be able to fit all their files on a 4 gig USB thumb drive. You can even buy 2 or 3 if needed and stll not spend the cost of an external HD. A slower and much less expensive way to back up is to use DVD's or CD. Most every computer made today has a CD or DVD drive that can burn images. This will take longer to do but it still works and cost the least. A CD or DVD back up is better than NO BACK UP. Tomorrow I will talk about using software to make your back up job easy. Please leave comments or questions.

Back Up Lesson 1 MAKE A LIST

Before we get into how to Back Up your computer we need to discuss what to back up. Unless you have a large second hard drive you won't be backing up everything on your computer. There is no reason to do it anyway. You should have a lot of your software on CD and DVD disks. Software that you downloaded should have the serial or registration numbers written down so you can download them again and activate them without paying again. What you need to focus on is the files that you can't replace. Documents that you have created and photos that you have taken are usually the first things people want saved. Music and of course passwords are next. Do you have your computer set to remember your passwords on sites that require them? If your computer crashed would you be able to sign into those sites? Write down the password for every site that you visit that requires one. Check your hard drive and write down the names of the folders where you have important information stored. An example would be C:username/documents/customer letters. C:username/photos/family vacation. Your computer doesn't have this arrangement??? Give me a call. We need to get you organized before you can be Backed Up.

It will CRASH do you have a backup?

Make no mistake, someday your hard drive will CRASH. It's just part of the fact that it will wear out over time. WHEN it happens will you have a BACKUP? There are many fast and easy ways to protect your important photos, videos, files, documents, and address book. Starting Monday I will post instructions on how to backup your hard drive. By next Friday you will have all the information you need to get your computer ready for the inevitable crash.

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