Episode 58: The Chicki Chicki on TechTips with Jamie Braly
March 7, 2008
OK, so this is not actually an episode of VFTC. It’s still a tech show and it’s well worth publishing here. Thanks, Jamie, for letting me use it!I’ve been on Tech Tips with Jamie before. We talked about printer maintenance and I did post a summary on this blog. If you missed that show, you can still find it on Blog Talk Radio. This week’s show was all about doing backups.
Backing up your data is something we all know we’re supposed to do….but most of us don’t. I’m as guilty as anybody. I like to say that because I keep all my data files on an external hard drive, I won’t lose anything if my computer crashes. Well, I still don’t have a backup COPY of my data. The whole point of backing up is to have more than one copy of your data in different places. If something happens to one of my external hard drives, I’ll be crying!
Jamie shared 5 tips for backing up your own data:
- Only backup important data. This is something you have to decide. With a new baby at home, Jamie has plenty of photos and videos that he backs up on a regular basis. What’s important to you?
- Don’t back up to only one location. This is the one I’m guilty of doing. Even though I don’t keep a copy of my data on my computer, I still only have one copy of it on my external hard drive. You can use media like CDs or DVDs or even USB flash drives. Something I’m considering is using an online backup service. Mozy is a free service you can use for basic backups, or you can pay for additional storage space. Hey, if you have a Gmail account, you can even store your data files that are less than 10MB on some of that free storage space you have for your e-mail account by using Gmail Drive. One warning, though. If you’re using Vista, you won’t be able to read the help files that come with Gmail Drive. The Windows Help Program isn’t installed with Vista. You’ll need to download a Windows update for your PC.
- Protect your backup media! Where do you store your backups? If you’re using CD/DVD to backup, don’t leave ‘em in the hot car. Don’t leave your media somewhere where it could get damaged. If you use an external hard drive, do regular maintenance to keep it healthy.
- Backup as often as you can. You’ll notice Jamie didn’t recommend that you back up frequently. You determine the frequency of backing up your data depending on the importance of your data and how often you update it. Businesses should back up more frequently than personal users. Again, do it as often as you can. Better to have some type of backup if disaster strikes than no backup at all!
- Use the media that’s right for you. How much data do you need to backup? How big are the files? What media do you have available? Remember, you can use CD/DVD, external hard drive or online backup media. Choose the one that work for you.
Once again, I want to thank Jamie for inviting me on his show. It’s always fun and I always learn something. You can find lots of tech tips on Jamie’s website, Tech Tips for Parents, so take some time and visit.
Posted in Interviews, Tech Tips
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