If anything can go wrong, it will!

Just a small reminder of Murphy's Law which states:

If anything can go wrong, it will. Especially when it comes to computers and hard drives. It is a known fact that the average hard drive has a life span of 2.5 years. Considering this it is quite astounding that our civilization entrusts all of our important facts and data to such a fragile medium. (The Romans chiselled important stuff into rocks!)

So please don't forget to make frequent back-ups of your work on your computers.

I just went through a tough time when, beginning last Friday, my computer started to act weird. I tried fixing it with special software over the weekend, but by Monday morning, just minutes after I made another thorough backup (!!) it died completely. Cause of death: hard disk crash.

Storage media have become very cheap and there is no excuse for loosing data.

What to back up?

Basically all your work.
While applications can be reinstalled from their original disks, whatever you create is most valuable as it cannot be found anywhere else.

Also, your preference settings, bookmarks, shortcuts, and key-chained passwords should be backed up on a regular basis.

So after I purchased a new computer, I just brought in my data from my back up and I am up and running!

Installing all the software takes some time, unfortunately.

Please take this advice seriously,

Regards
WSF