By Adam Myers
Senior PC Tech at SP Computer Services
I have a question….. What is important to you? It sounds like a question in which you may answer with “My family and my health”. Both are extremely important to me! However, in a digital age in which we are more apt to keep our important documents (taxes, wills and other legal documents) and photos/videos (family reunions, weddings, birth of a child, vacation, grandparents) on phones, computers and other devices. We often overlook the importance of backing up what is important.
For those of us who can remember (and may still have) a hardcover photo album. Smile if you still have the memories of friends and family tucked away in a drawer or closet. How about that drawer or fire-safe of important documents? Those were the days… Today we have most of these on our computers. Computers that can be attacked by viruses, malware, or have a hardware failure in which we could lose all of that data.
How to Back it up!
There are a few things you can do to back up your data. You may invest in an external hard drive in which you can drag-and-drop to copy these files to the hard drive. Most of these external drives have back up software on them that will help. You can also “burn” them to CD/DVD. Another option is saving it to “the cloud”. This is an online storage space where you can save and access from anywhere with an internet connection. If all if this is a little overwhelming, you can have your computer backed up by your local friendly computer tech who can make a full back up of everything on your computer.
TechTip: Please back up your data! There is a very bad malware out there called Cryptolocker ransom ware. This will encrypt all data on your computer and drives attached to it. It will hold your data until you pay a ransom, often in the neighborhood of $500-$1000. It only gives you a certain amount of time to pay and if you do not….your data is gone forever! (No one will be able to get it back). So again I say…Please back up you data and put it in a safe place!
Until we tech again………..
TechTime4Me offers the community helpful hints, tips and trends in today’s ever-changing technological world.
