Since I'm in an Apple state of mind, let me post my favorite advice of the new year: Back up!This fall a good friend lost all of her email due to a computer glitch and on Christmas day my neighbor's computer crashed with only a few family photos able to be retrieved from the fried hard drive. I had been sort of thinking "well, I don't really have a lot of valuable information on my computer," but of course, I do: email, music, photos, documents, etc. And since I had upgraded to Apple's new OS, Leopard, I knew that I had a system that would back-up automatically once I connected it to an external hard drive (a very cool feature called "Time Machine"). So I finally got the back up drive I needed...a task that is on the same spot on the "fun" meter with paying for car insurance.
Last week I spent a lot of time working on instructions for my book arts class at MCBA. I'm still learning quite a lot about combining text with scanned images and there were two times when somehow my images disappeared completely from my document and once when 1/2 of the text vanished. But because of Time Machine, I could literally go back to the document from hours earlier and retrieve my work. I have to admit it was just amazing.
When you open Time Machine the graphics look exactly like the image above. There's a grid along the side that shows you all the dates you can take your file or document back to...just like a real time machine! So now I'm a bit of a preacher on the subject of backing up your files...but really, you have no idea when you're going to hit the wrong key or something just goes wrong.
So even if you don't have a Mac, please just pick up one of those little USB drives at Target and spend 10 minutes backing up your most important files.
End of sermon! ;-)
5 comments:
Wonderful advice and something I'm always forgetting to do. Thanks for the reminder. I'm thinking of upgrading to Leopard - are you happy with it? I'm also thinking about the new ILife as I'm not happy with my old IPhoto - have you done that too? I enjoy your blog. Carol in Sydney
Hi carol,
I love Leopard. Time machine is totally worth the upgrade, but there's other wonderful features as well. I haven't upgraded iLife, so can't speak to that. Thanks for checking in!
Mary
I am so.... looking forward to shifting to a Mac (I'm in lust with the new "Air"), but my little IBM X40 laptop is such a workhouse that I don't think it'll ever die. I'm now backing up to an external drive as well, but there's nothing as wonderful as Time Machine involved.
Yes, please back up! Even if you don’t have important files stored in a computer, it’s important to back it up so that in case the computer crashes you’ll still be able to recover your OS. Also, backing up will make sure that you always have a contingency should viruses infect your system or if you accidentally delete a file. Jim @ EMSImaging
"Back it up" is my all-time favorite advice to anyone who owns a PC. Not only would they be able to retrieve their files after a computer glitch or crash; it would also save them from having to buy a new OS. You don’t have to own a Mac to back up your files, an external hard drive or flash drive will do. Ruby @
WilliamsDataManagement.com
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