Many people, thinking about the new year, look at changes that they want to make in their life. Whether it's to lose weight, get involved or spend more time with family, there are many different ways we can improve our lives. Myself, I would like to get to the gym more.
One are where many people could do better is with computer backups. At work, many of us take it for granted that the folks in IT are backing up our computers. At home, however, we are the IT department - and all too many of us are not doing our jobs - not even me (need to convert the digital-8 tapes and get them into the backup process; need to go through the print photos, pull out the important ones and scan them; need to finish labeling the VHS footage).
So here is an opportunity to make a change this year that will give you peace of mind - set up some kind of backup system (including at least one off-site component). I can heartily recommend CrashPlan, which allows backups to local disks, to friends who also have the CrashPlan software and to the CrashPlan data center. It's a reasonably good deal, easy to set up, comes with varying levels of encryption (to protect the privacy of your files) and I can vouch that it works (saved a file that I had accidentally deleted).
There are other companies that offer similar services, so if you like to check out your options before buying, please do check out services like Mozy and BackBlaze, but for goodness sake do something. Every year thousands of homes are destroyed. Don't kid yourself, yours could be next. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
