Back up your files

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While 10 or 15 years ago most of us lived happily without a home computer, nowadays, it seems they're indispensible. Not only has e-mail become a daily part of our lives, but we use our PCs for viewing and storing photos, listening to music, writing letters, filing our taxes... there's really nothing we can't -- and don't -- do digitally.

But there's one aspect of owning a personal computer that many of us don't consider. If that machine decides not to turn on one day, will you be able to live without the information it was storing?

The importance of being backed up
There's no reason to assume that you will lose your data -- in fact, it's likely that you'll experience no problems at all. However, there's always the chance that something can happen to your home computer, whether it be a fault in the hardware/software, a damaging power surge or theft. And while any of these occurrences would be stressful, if you back up your data regularly, at least you won't have lost last year's tax return or the pictures from your daughter's wedding.

What files are important?
Before backing up, you need to think about what on your computer is irreplaceable. E-mail, word processing documents and digital photos are probably the most common items, but others include web browser bookmarks and saved passwords, and other important personal files such as PDFs, music files and movies. According to Wayne Bryan, a service technician at CPUsed in Toronto, you shouldn't need to worry about anything else. "System software and applications can always be reinstalled later," he says.

To make things easy for you, make sure that you always save documents in the same place so that they're easy to find when you're backing up. If you use an e-mail program on your computer (as opposed to an online system like Gmail or Hotmail), refer to the program's help documents to find out which files to back up -- the same goes for your web browser settings. And Bryan simplifies things for Macintosh users running OS X: "All you really need to back up is your user account folder."

Back up often
How often you back up depends on how much you value your data, says Bryan. "Too often I encounter customers whose entire life or business is on their computer," he says, "yet they don't have any backup plan in place." He suggests backing up crucial files once a week as part of your routine -- perhaps less often for less important data. Bryan adds that nowadays, when most personal computers have built-in CD or DVD burners, "there's really no excuse for not backing up data." Try imagining your life if everything on your computer were to suddenly disappear, then develop your backup system accordingly.

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