Nowadays, many of us use technology to organize ourselves and to store important information. Like anything else, technology is fallible. Viruses, blue screens of death, and toddler accidents (amongst other things) can result in lost files. This may be something that doesn’t matter, or it may make you want to cry! I once lost 3 years worth of pictures! I’ve had hard drives crash and lost EVERYTHING! Don’t live the nightmare of having to try to reassemble (if that’s even possible) photographs, music, finances, files, and other records that you store on your computer. It can be very emotionally and financially taxing to even attempt. I learned the hard way that, like many other areas of my life, my digital self requires protection and insurance. Not the StateFarm kind, but important just the same. How do I protect my stuff? Backups and redundant systems!! You do a lot of work and organizing in your computer… Don’t lose it! It may not be replaceable!

Norton Ghost

Source: http://media.photobucket.com/image/norton%20ghost%2015/zuo_2008/NortonGhost15.jpg

I love this program. It’s easy! I installed it on my computer, and then I scheduled backups. It does it itself, if its possible. Honestly, I have it set up to do this once per week, but it only seems to happen once per month because I don’t have it hooked up to my hard drive all the time (see below for why). This program creates compressed backup files of your hard drive. Any files you select, it includes. I do my entire hard drive! It makes a copy, and places it on my external hard drive for safe keeping. Twice, when my hard drive died, I was able to install this backup file from my hard drive and completely restore myself back to my up-to-the-minute digital self! It was awesome to not lose any files or settings! Seriously a life saver. All of my programs and files – safe and sound. I am sure that there are other fantastic programs that do the same thing, but this is the one I use and it works for me.

External Hard Drive

I keep an external hard drive where my Norton Ghost backs up my files, and I also do a separate backup of just my pictures and videos. I know that if anything happens to my computer’s hard drive, my external has my stuff copied on it too. Remember, if you leave this bad boy plugged in all the time and a surge kills your computer, you’re likely to lose your external too if it’s plugged into the same place! It’s just like another little computer brain, so treat it like that. I shut mine off and put it in a drawer when it’s not in use (actively backing up or accessing files) so that I know that it’s not exposed to the breakdowns that could happen from being left on and plugged in all the time. There are tons of different external hard drive manufacturers and lots of different sizes and shape varieties. You can use USB drives for some of this stuff too! I like these more than putting things on CDs (even though I often do that too) because I had a toddler-accident once when I lost 3 yrs worth of pictures on CD to a shredder. Think ahead!

Online: Photos and Videos + Password Protecting My Privacy

Source: http://tomuse.com/top-10-best-free-online-photo-sharing-services/

I put my pictures and videos online too. Yep. I save these in 3 places: computer, external hard drive, and online. That’s how important they are to me! They are online to be shared with family and friends, for ordering copies, and to know that even if all other systems failed in a digital catastrophe, these files would be online! You can password protect most of these files, and then you don’t have to worry so much about weirdos accessing your art! I use myphotoalbum.com and YouTube to store my stuff. I found this article about the top 10 free online places to save your photos. Myphotoalbum is on there!

Source: http://www.shoutmeloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/you-tube-video-in-high-reolsution.jpg