The Salad Caper

Most people are going digital these days. Pictures, files and even diaries are stored in microchips on hard drives. That’s why people place too much importance on their computers and hard drives. Truth be told, if ever I would need to get out of the house in case of a fire, I will only grab three things: our briefcase of documents (passports, birth certificates), my camera and the laptop. That’s how important it is.

I have had two external hard drives die on me. Each time it happened, it took me months to get back on track with my online life. I work online, design pages as a sideline job, and maintain multiple blogs. I’m on my third external hard drive and this time I got a tower instead of a portable one – let’s hope it doesn’t die on my soon. I need a back-up to my back-up and that’s when Carbonite comes in.

Carbonite is an software program that automatically backs up files to a third party secure location. I’ve researched a lot on this because I’m really considering signing up for this. Here is basically how it works: Carbonite is a client software program that you install on your PC once you sign up for the service. You do an initial back up of your files – text documents, spreadsheets, financial documents, photos, music, etc. After the initial back-up, it now automatically detects new files and backs them up without you having to prompt it! Specifically, on a Windows PC, Carbonite backs up everything in the Documents and Settings folder, including the desktop, favorites, and all other files except for temporary and log files!

So if ever your computer gives up on you (gadgets somehow still die, no matter how much you take care of them), you still have back up!