Tuesday Tip - Back it Up!

Britt and I recently bought two new laptops and we're very excited to have (for the first time in our marriage) new and working computers.  It came at a really good time too, because our old lappy finally kicked the bucket last week and now it absolutely refuses to turn on.  

We've hard some very difficult times with computers in the last few years and I think we've learned some valuable lessons about patience with technology (it will breakdown eventually) and how to be prepared when your computer does break down.  Here is my advice: back it up.  If it's important to you and you ever want to see it again, back it up.  You never know when your computer is going to get a virus or fall off a counter or have coffee spilled on it.  It's best just to play it safe.  

Since I'm not in school or working, there are very few documents I make that are critical.  It's mostly just pictures.  So now I have a new plan.  Well, I've had this plan for a long time, but I've never been able to implement it due to having computers with faulty CD drives.  On the first of every month, I'm going to burn all of the previous month's photos onto a CD.  For instance, on November 1st, I will burn all of the pictures I took in October of 2008 onto a CD.  That way, if anything happens, I haven't lost all my pictures.  Today I spent all of Charissa's naptime organizing our pictures and burning them onto CDs.  I can't tell you how happy I was to finally have that project done and how happy I was knowing I couldn't lose them.

Along with last week's Tuesday Tip, I do have the eventual goal of putting the picture CD in a scrapbook at the end of that month's pages.  Wouldn't that be nice?