When someone mentions Backup with reference to computers, they mean making a copy of one or more files that are stored somewhere besides on your computer. Backing up the files on your system should be an essential part of your computing experience if you spend great amounts of time on your computer and/or use your computer for important personal or business dealings. There are too many stories of people who have lost all of their files due to system crashes or computer viruses to ignore. When you backup your files, you are storing your files separately from your computer.

This way, if your computer crashes or is infected with a virus that results in a loss of files, you will still have access to your files on backup disks or whatever other backup program you choose to use, such as online backup. You can then restore your files to your computer properly and with minimal downtime from these backup sources.

Why Do I Need to Backup My Files?

Don’t fall into the old paradigm of “it will never happen to me.” While there is certainly a chance that you will never have a need for the backups you make of your files, if something does happen to your computer you will certainly be glad that you have them. And you do not have to backup your entire computer, although this is certainly something that many people do, but only the files that are of the most importance to you.

Some things are easily replaced, and there is no need to backup these sorts of things, but those irreplaceable documents or files that are yours and yours alone should be saved in a place where they cannot be damaged. That way, no matter what happens to your computer, you can have security in the fact that all of your files are available in backup.

NOTE: When it comes to computer hardware, remember that its not IF it fails, its WHEN it fails. When it comes to family photos or business-critial data that you simply cannot afford to lose, or files that you cant replace; It pays to be safe and not sorry.

So How do I Backup My Files?

There are many possible methods for backing up your files. Floppy diskettes are a very common way, although this is somewhat falling by the wayside as computers are using floppy drives less and less. It is not uncommon to not see a single computer with a floppy disk drive on display when you go to the computer store to buy a new computer. CD-Rs are an excellent method for backing up your files.

CD-Rs and CD-RWs allow hundreds of times more storage space than a floppy disk could ever hope to have, and with increasingly faster CD burners they are becoming faster and easier to use all the time. It is possible to save 800 MB of data onto a CD in only minutes, and for many people they can backup every file of import on their computer onto a single CD.

This is far easier than have stacks of floppy disks lying around your computer desk which you must dig through any time you are trying to find a particular file that you have saved in backup.

Online backup is another excellent method for the backing up of your files. This allows you to store your files online, where there are no need for disks or CDs, and you can simply download your files back onto your computer whenever you want.

Whatever method you choose, remember that backing up your files is very important, and make sure that you do so to protect against the worst.

From this comprehensive set of links below, you should be able to find the updates to the program you run on your computer. Some of the products can only be updated from within the program itself, meaning that you can’t download the definitions manually. I’ve made a note of those that are only updated manually.

Anti-Virus Updates

Out of date Norton Internet Security

This copy of Norton Internet Security expired almost two years ago, meaning that for a whole year it has been running with old virus definitions. Why are virus definitions important? Well, have you ever seen or heard of a system with virus protection installed on it, but still managed to get infected? That system’s antivirus software was likely out-of-date.

Imagine that a virus definition is like a word definition in that it helps you identify the word/virus and what it does. Now imagine that you’re a foreign student traveling in America with a travel dictionary (or virus definitions) from the year 1492. Those word definitions (virus definitions) are terribly out of date, so there’s no chance that you’re going to be able to pick up new words (new viruses). An undetected virus can be on your system right now if your antivirus software is not up to date!

Many modern PC makers will bundle trial versions of anti-virus products with a computer that will only last 90 days before expiring. This can be even worse than having no anti-virus at all because you might think that you are protected when you actually aren’t. If that software is now telling you your computer is not completely protected anymore, it’s telling the truth!

Please take a few minutes today to make sure that your anti-virus software is updated and running correctly. Also be sure to check the following blog for help getting up-to-date.