Did you know that Diet Coke and your laptop aren’t best friends? I learned that the hard way but so have others. Most recently I received a call from a business client whose son dumped milk onto the laptop.
As you can imagine he was very anxious. All his business information was on that computer. Quotations, accounting, pictures from job sites … The list goes on.
Within the first minute of the conversation I heard a huge sigh of relief. See we had set up a back up system to protect his data. In point of fact he actually knew this but this was his first time he needed to rely on it.
I told him that in all likely hoods the computer was done but the data was fine. He went out and picked up a new computer. He logged onto his account with the back up provider and restored all his data on to the new computer. While it did take a few hours to manage the situation that was a minor blip compared to losing all his hard work.
Don’t get caught. If you are a business think about the impact on your business.
And it’s not just businesses that should back up their data. How many photos are on your computer that you never got around to printing? What about all that music you have collected over the years? Your resume or even personal letters? What would it feel like if you lost it all?
So what is a back up? A back up is a copy of your data that is held on a different device (or cloud) that is not your computer. You can back up your data by simply copying folders and files and pasting them onto a thumb drive or external drive. These are types of hardware that can store data. Some of them come with software that will allow you to schedule your back up. You can also pay for a cloud based service. You download some software and it automatically backs up your data to the cloud (servers located elsewhere). These services are cheap insurance for most people. You can assume around $60 a year. There are some free options too for pictures and music.
Why go through the gut wrenching stress when something goes terribly wrong with your computer. Back up your data regularly!
If you have any questions then please reach out. There are no stupid questions so go ahead and ask.
Meredith Skinner
PC Service on Site HOMESTARS website
tammyhudgin.com 