Every journey has a story about its origins and mine is no different. My start to protecting all and backup began in December 1991. I was looking through the software section at K-Mart and was digging through the piles of floppy disks that were being sold as Shareware. In today’s language, I was checking out some free apps before buying one! I came across a program called Family Tree Journal that let you create a family tree on your computer and could print it out. I bought the disk and installed it at home. This led me down a path of genealogy research that has continued to this day.
That genealogy software led me to many conversations with family members that included video and written interviews, copies of important documents and lots of pictures. I knew early on that it would be critical to have backup copies and to protect all of this irreplaceable information. At that time, this meant carefully organizing copies and originals in binders and cabinets. As time went on, I created a digitized system for storing all this information plus ways to access the data.
Now imagine that having all this information gathered over many years and losing all of it due to a failed hard drive or a virus. Thankfully, this has not happened. By having numerous levels of backups there is a safety net in place if a file is accidentally erased or a hard drive dies.
If only my 1991 self could see the options there are today for digitizing your life and the wealth of options the Internet has given us for accessing data through cloud based services.
Are your digital photos protected outside of your computer? Have you backed up all of your important financial documents that you’ll need for tax season? Are you overwhelmed at the thought of even tackling backup? Don’t panic, as I will guide your through what you can do to protect your all.