Valentines Day! How is your computer handling the holiday?

Valentines Day is a day that people either love or hate. Usually it depends on your Facebook Status: In a relationship, engaged, married or single. No matter where you are in life I hope you had a day just to enjoy the company of loved ones, friends, or someone you care about.

However, now that the holiday is over we are back to "normal life". How has your computer treated you over valentines day. Has it been your friend, or is it harboring some bitterness that you didn't buy it a box of chocolates. :)  Here are some pointers to keep your computer up and running and if it does crash you can minimize the data loss.

The first point I want to make is if you are using Microsoft Outlook for your email make sure it is backed up. You should back it up once to a week so that you do not lose much information. However, this begs the question where do I back up the data. Most people only have usb "jump" or "pen" drives that are 2 to 3 GB at largest. My suggestion is this, Go and buy an external hard drive for backing up your data. It will cost somewhere between $60 to $100 give or take. You should get one that can hold 500 GB to 1000 GB (1 terabyte). This will give you ample room to store your Outlook backup and any other files you do not want to lose.

The second point is to make sure you actually DO the backup every week. Repetition is the father of habit, and backing up your data is a good habit to get into. Remember computers are only machines, and machines can break. It is always better to be safe than sorry.  Here is a link for backing up Outlook 2003 (Outlook 2007 is similar) http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA011030811033.aspx. Hope this helps.