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Tip: Set aside one day per month to do a full system backup. Don't Forget: Create a monthly recurring email reminder using the Push Button Reminder software so you don't forget!
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Watch The Step By Step Video On Backing Up Your Computer Files
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Back Up Action: Back up your computer files The question is NOT will your hard drive crash. The question is WHEN. You MUST back up your computer as a protection against hard drive failures as well as viruses. Here's how to do that.
My friend Kirt Christensen uses http://www.backuphelp.com The great thing about these services is that if you ever have a fire, your data is located outside your office or home. I hesitate giving url's because they change. Should the above URL change, you can find other online backup services just by searching on google.
I use a Western Digital external hard drive. You just plug it into a USB on your computer and drag and drop your files. I suggest you do this regularly with: a. Your MY DOCUMENTS folder if that's where you keep your promotions, products you're working on and so forth. b. Your EZ Noter files, if you're using EZ Noter as I've suggested. EZ Noter has a backup button on it. You just click that button and save to the external hard drive. c. Your Eudora, Outlook or mail program files This is minimum emergency protection. You should also have a backup of all the data on your hard drive, if not a complete image backup. There are two types of backup programs: Type 1: Data backup These programs back up the DATA on your hard drive but not the applications themselves. So if you crash, you can retrieve your Word docs, your sales letters and so forth. But you have to reinstall all your applications. Type 2: Image backup These programs burn an image of your hard drive so you can literally get everything back. Now, I recently had a hard drive crash. I WISH I had an image backup. I only had a data backup. So I had to reinstall all my apps. That's a major time burner. For image backup, my tech guy told me I "should" have used Norton Ghost from symantec.com. This time I'm taking his advice. WARNING: Do NOT leave your external hard drive plugged into your USB port all the time. Why? Because viruses search and destroy drives. Your external hard drive WILL get wiped out along with the rest of your computer if you have it plugged in! Back it up and UNPLUG it.
If you don't have a lot of data, you can backup onto one or two DVD's and store them in a place other than your office or home in case of a fire.
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