{"id":268,"date":"2009-01-02T00:01:01","date_gmt":"2009-01-02T08:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=268"},"modified":"2009-01-01T14:55:27","modified_gmt":"2009-01-01T22:55:27","slug":"new-years-resolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=268","title":{"rendered":"New Years Resolution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just reviewed a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usa.gov\/Citizen\/Topics\/New_Years_Resolutions.shtml\" target=\"other\">list<\/a> of popular New Years resolutions here in the US. What amazes me is that most, if not all, of the items in the list center around the topic of self-control. Indeed, &#8220;bad&#8221; things that affect us greatly represent the consequences of our own actions or inactions. That applies to your computer as well.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nI&#8217;ve gotten a slew of messages recently from people who had their computer suddenly turn nasty on them. &#8220;It&#8217;s making a weird noise&#8221; or &#8220;I can&#8217;t read a file&#8221; or &#8220;My hard drive is gone.&#8221; Yes, these things happen, but you can help to ameliorate their consequences by having a backup copy. In fact, now that it&#8217;s the new year, you should make a backup of all your computer data. <em>Right now<\/em>!<\/p>\n<p>The most effective way to backup is to get an external hard drive and use it for backup. In Windows Vista Ultimate\/Business you can use the Complete PC Backup to make a full image backup of your PC. Otherwise, in Windows Vista and Windows XP you can use Windows Backup to create an archive of your personal files and settings.<\/p>\n<p>Windows Backup can be automated so that the backups happen at regular intervals. That&#8217;s always a good idea. There are also third-party backup programs that work a little more efficiently and have a better interface than the mediocre stuff Microsoft offers.<\/p>\n<p>Another alternative is simply to archive your stuff by copying it to removable media. I use a 4GB Secure Digital card on my PC for quick backups: I just copy my working folder from the hard drive to the removable media at the end of the day.<\/p>\n<p>You can also use recordable optical discs for your backup. Last week, I burned a stack of DVDs, creating archives of lots of personal files and such: my iTunes library, my photo library, important documents, financial files, all my published works, and so on. I labeled all those DVDs, then put them into a fire safe.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah, I might be borderline obsessive. I&#8217;m facing the new year like everyone else, with anticipation for hope mixed with strength for the worst. Knowing that I have so many darn backups helps me more forward more confidently. It should do the same for you as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just reviewed a list of popular New Years resolutions here in the US. What amazes me is that most, if not all, of the items in the list center around the topic of self-control. Indeed, &#8220;bad&#8221; things that affect us greatly represent the consequences of our own actions or inactions. That applies to your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}