A word (or 500) on backups

Backups are good,
Backups are great,
Backups can save you
from an awful fate!

Anyway, some people think of backups as huge, big things that take up 100 floppies or several CDs... but sometimes just the small things will save you much agravation - especially in these virus filled times... and, keep the floppy disks away from magnets - including stereo speakers :-)

1. MS Outlook Users -
a. close MS Outlook
b. do a search and find all the *.pst files you
c. copy the biggest one to a floppy (or CD if you are
like me and have mail from The Beginning of Time)
d. copy the one with the most recent time stamp
(usually it's the same file as "c" above)
e. do this religiously once a week (for the really paranoid who can't live with out every single email, do this daily or every few days)
f. do this before re-installing MS Outlook or MS Office
g. do this if your system is starting to act flakey

2. MS Word, Excel, Power Pt & etc. DATA FILES
a. if you can't live without it, save it
b. you can always reinstall the application,
but recreating personal data files is another
thing
c. do this if your system is starting to act flakey

3. Other data files that might be important
a. turbo tax or equivalent
b. family photos
c. anything the IRS, your insurance agent or your lawyer might need if something happened to you or your home - you might want to store these floppies or CDs in a safe deposit box at the bank...
d. farm or other business records
e. do this before your system is starting to act flakey

Sorry for all the preaching. Just totally disgusted by how many people's machines at work that I had to fix for people who don't have backups of their email files and other critical work related data... some of them had these data files for YEARs and never backed them up... sigh. Ok, I'll come down off the soap box now. Thanks!

Karla