One thing to note in passing is that making backups only
when the computer has just shut down is a bit silly. Get in the habit of making
regular backups. Corporate IT departments usually back up their systems every
night. Since I work from home, I make sure to back up the document folder on my
hard drive once a week without errors: it takes about a minute to copy
everything to a USB stick, overwriting one of the backups of the previous
weeks. Try to organize your computer so that regularly changed items are in one
place and faster to copy. Backup less often changed things (maybe your photo or
music collection) less often. Remember that you can use things like MP3 players
to store computer files and music, so you can use them as handy portable
backups if necessary. Another good tip is to keep an offsite backup somewhere.
Keep a copy of your home computer's document folder on a USB drive in your desk
at work, for example. So you are better protected from things like fire and
theft. There are also many secure and inexpensive cloud-based storage systems
(such as Amazon S3, Google Drive and Apple iCloud) that you can use to back up
your files online.
Understandably, most laptop users spend all their time
looking at the keyboard and screen. But if you spend a moment looking at the
bottom of your car, you will find that there are perhaps half a dozen small
plastic flaps, secured with one or two screws or sliding clips, which give
access to the components that are most likely to go wrong and needs to be
replaced. Typically, you can remove the battery, the hard drive, and add more
memory, and you may even be able to replace the CPU fan, all without getting
into the bowels of the machine.
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