What do you do on Friday at work? I try to wrap up things, and make things a little bit secure by BACKING UP!

This is what I do:

• A full virus scan
• A full back up of my main data folder, which is “My Documents”
• On a few occasions I let a chkdsk command run on all the hard drives

I have relied on PC TOOLS software for many years. They have several features that make it very appealing.

• Automated updates
• Spyware and virus protection in one software
• Active protection that blocks bad sites and downloads
• I don’t mind paying annually for a product that works and saves me a lot of time
• It’s also easy to use and works behind the scenes doing its job

I also suggest that you follow my next task religiously!

The other task that I recommend on a weekly basis is a back up routine.

Because I am running a lot of automated tasks, I have to leave my pc on just about all day. I don’t just leave it on otherwise.

My other recommendation is to have several hard drives for back up. I do a weekly back up and then about once a month, I “drag all the weeks” to another hard drive for monthly backup.

I don’t think there is a fool-proof back up method that insures no loss. However, by backing up to multiple devices, in my case a few hard drives, I think most damage in the event of a failure can be “contained”.

If you are concerned with “outright loss” then you can take the below approach.

If you don’t want to “mess with” additional drives, I suggest using an online data warehouse like aDrive for back up of critical data. On my last check, they give 50 GB of free storage. I have no idea how they do that, but I think that gives more than enough room to back up everything to a place that is secure and easily accessible.

Carpe Diem and a good weekend,

Rich Sage