Please back up your data.
The gentleman pictured here would like to remind you to back up your data. According to KTAR.com, he broke into Arizona State University law student Alex Botsios’s apartment armed with a baseball bat and demanded Mr. Botsios hand over his laptop. At which point Mr. Botsios, freaked out at the prospect of losing months of work, overpowered and pummeled him.
Hug Your Machine does not recommend wrestling baseball bats from intruders, but in this case Mr. Botsios won the struggle.
The point, though, is that the hard drive in Mr. Botsios’s laptop could fail at any point, taking all his hard-fought case notes with it.
Murphy’s Law is powerful indeed when it comes to computers, so if you have files on your computer that matters as much to you as Mr. Botsios’s do to him, do yourself a favor and help yourself to a better night’s sleep by getting the backup religion.
Arguably the best and most succinct how-to on backing up your files in a safe a manner is Jamie Zawinski’s tongue-in-cheek PSA on the matter. When it comes to computers, there are far worse people to listen to than JWZ.
[...] the assistance of your local friendly nerd to teach you how to manage your files and ensure you have proper backups. The piece of mind will be more than worth [...]
[...] Nevertheless, there are indeed times when things blow up. It’s frustrating, but it does happen. And at that point, the only thing that will save your bacon is having a current backup. [...]