You should keep a backup of your data at a location that is remote from your main office.

Storing copies of your data off-site will help if a fire or other disaster destroys your main site.

Hard drives fail. Back up your data to a different drive, either hard disk, floppies, or ZIP disk.

Rotate your backup media, and be sure to TEST your backups to confirm that your procedure actually works.

You can make data backups manually, but it’s much easier to automate the process. I’ve used several programs for this, but a very good one is PowerQuest DataKeeper, from www.powerquest.com

Do you use antivirus software on your computer to protect it?

Get McAfee or Norton software, and either set it to scan incoming email automatically, OR be sure to scan ANY attachment before opening it.

Your antivirus software is USELESS unless you keep your antivirus data (sometimes called virus definitions, or virus signatures) up to date.

You can either download the antivirus data manually, or set your software to grab it automatically. But BE SURE it gets updated at LEAST every month (every week is better).

Shut down Windows properly, and perform regular maintenance, like disk defragmentation.

Invest in a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) to ward off harm from power surges and brown-outs.

Make an emergency boot disk. Windows startup disk, and restore or repair disks offered by utilities, can help you recover from software corruption on your hard disk, in some situations.

In short, take steps to protect your data, it’s VALUABLE!

By Dr. David Johnson