We often don't realise how heavily reliant we are on technology until we lose it. If your cell phone goes missing, laptop is stolen or Internet connection goes down for a day, that's when you realise how vulnerable you are to human imperfections. I say human imperfections because machines are not perfect because they are built by humans. Data is entered into machines by humans and humans make mistakes. So while the machine may be doing what it is told to do, without someone to tell it, it really can't do anything.

Back up your life

Hurricanes and other natural disasters have taught many people that sometimes it's not only your gadgets that need backing up. Sometimes your life needs to get backed up too. So while this article will focus on backing up your website and e-mail, you may want to also use the opportunity to back up other items that are crucial to your life. A photocopy of your passport, bank accounts, deeds, serial numbers and other documents are good to keep in a different geography. One of the lessons preached following the infamous Hurricane Katrina was precisely that. Should a natural disaster decide it's going to pass your way, you would have a back up of important documents stored safely in a different geography. A friend, relative or even a company that specialises in storage might be a wise choice to leave in charge of these photocopied documents.

Having said that, let's look at how you can back up your website and e-mails by going through some easy-access back up media:

CDs

They are now extremely cheap retailing for only a couple of cents and can be found anywhere. The even better news is that it seems everyone now has a CD-burner. You can save your entire website, plus important e-mails on CDs by simply "saving as..." on each file. CDs are resilient, waterproof, easy to access and easy to burn. By "CDs" we of course include CD-R and CD-RW. Be careful though because something called CD+R and CD+RW also exist. Nothing is wrong with those media but check your burner before you buy.

DVDs

DVD-burners are becoming increasingly common and the advantage DVDs have over CDs is of course that they have greater capacity. Whereas a CD may hold up to 700 MB, a DVD can hold 4-8 GB. That's a lot of storage space! Make sure your next computer comes with a DVD-burner if it doesn't have one already. DVD burning software like Nero or even Roxio do a good job at helping you to compile DVDs in a very user-friendly fashion.

Hard Drive

Although you may not see it like that, you should consider your hard drive a backup source as well. For example if something happens to the CD or DVD you can still have the contents on your hard drive. Be sure to re-back up if that happens though. If you're going to remove important files from your hard drive permanently, then you should consider backing them up in at least two of the other media on this list.

SD Cards

You thought the next medium I was going to talk about would be removable hard drives? Well, I decided to put this first because increasing numbers of computers, especially desktops, are now coming with "card readers" built into the keyboards.

There are many different formats but we recommend SD cards because they're small and resilient. An SD card can take a lot of "jamming" as we would say in the local isles. As they're so small, they can also be easily shipped to other locations. Now, you'll hear all kinds of names for these cards. Some people call them memory cards while others say memory sticks. Basically, each manufacturer came up wth a name of its own for its kind of card. The common denominator though is that they're all cards. They're very popular in digital cameras but that's not all they're good for. They're also good for storage. Some cell phones also carry them too. One major advantage of these cards, apart from their size, is that they're almost infinitely re-writable and flat, meaning they can fit into practically any wallet, purse, envelope or book.

Removable Hard Drives

One of the most popular forms of removable hard drives are what many call "flash drives" or "USB drives." While they are currently the "coolest" around, we don't like them very much unless the sole reason you're getting them is to be able to sit at the lunchtable of cool people. Now, don't get me wrong, they work fine but in our opinion there are much better media when it comes to resilience and ease of use. I would use these detachable drives really for only two reasons: (1) if I were working between two computers and (2) if I wanted to work in two different operating systems and needed to boot from a different drive each time. The major advantage of flash drives, I suppose, is that practically any computer, and in some cases multi-media projectors, carry USB ports. So I suppose that could be a third reason to carry a USB drive: if I'm going to deliver a presentation.

Marketers of flash drives have done a great job at getting people to have flash drives hanging around their necks. While it is said to be hot-pluggable, meaning all you have to do is stick it in and yank it out, I've seen instances where drivers had to be installed first and where 'yanking it out' has caused it to burn or auto-erase itself. However, if you have one already, it is not a bad place to backup your website or e-mail. The other big plus is that they are infinitely re-writeable. Other removable hard drives include external cases attached to your computer through a USB or firewire cable. These are the worst, if you ask me. They're usually very fragile and sometimes need special software. On the other hand, the huge advantage of these is that they usually offer hundreds of GB of disk space. You can't beat them for space! This is a good option if what you want to do is back up your entire office or important videos.

Remote Server

Most webhosting companies also claim to offer back up of your website and e-mail but I would never rely on that, especially not for e-mail. I would download e-mail and back it up myself. The time alone it would take to recover files from a crashed server would not be worth it. That doesn't mean, though, that you shouldn't look for a webhost that does offer back up. The more places your data is securely backed up, the higher your chances of recuperating vital information if lost from your base of operations.

Online Storage Companies

Now, personally, I would never use a storage company because they can't do for me anything that I can't do for myself. I can burn my own CDs and store them in a safe place. So unless you really don't have the time, don't know how or have money to burn, never mind the storage companies. On the other hand, if this entire article has sounded like nothing but mumbo-jumbo to you, you need a storage company. Trust me, you do. :-)

Paper

Paper, yes, paper. A well-known bank, whose name begins with the letter 'R' backs up everything on paper - in addition to the electronic methods of course; and with good reason. True, it may be difficult to have to type over an entire address book but it's better to have a percentage of something than all of nothing. Computer viruses can't attack paper and depending on the quality of paper you use, it might well outlive you. So in addition to the electronic methods, do consider printing. Our bottom line is (1) back up everything that is important to you on at least two media (2) send an extra copy to a different geography i.e. city or country if possible (3) do it now!

Aleem Khan is an accredited Internet Expert with the International Internet Authority, a safe and reliable place to getYourNAMEin.com

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