Tips and Hints

Save many copies of your files. That means the files that you have originated. The illustrations you created, the articles you wrote, the photos you retouched. on multiple drives, disks ,or tapes, some at another location. In short, backup constantly and religiously, especially when you are under deadline pressure. Save early and often. When you are working on important documents, you may want to periodically save a new version (append a letter to the name, like important-work-a.doc , important-work-b.doc ).

Don’ t try to copy your system folder. Mostly it ’ s on the disks that came with your computer. The new files you have added are generally from fonts you own, or programs you own or utilities you own. Have those original disks stored in a safe place. Note that the standard fire proof boxes are not necessarily able to withstand the lower heat that may melt disks.

Spend a little time getting ready to cope with a problem before you have one. All recent Macs come with a bootable DVDROM with System software — keep it handy. If you own a copy of DiskWarrior, keep it up to date and be sure that it will boot your computer. It ’ s also helpful in many recovery situations to have an external storage device like a FireWire hard drive. It ’ s even better if you install a bootable system on that drive.

Don ’ t save the only version of an important file on a CD or USB flash drive (in fact, you should never have only one copy of an important file). Make multiple copies. Don ’ t erase your last backup to make a new one — you might be backing up a corrupted file and might need the previous backup. And remember — it isn ’ t a backup if it ’ s the only copy! The act of removing a document from your internal drive and placing it on another drive or disk (rather than making a copy and leaving the original) is archiving, not backing up.

At least one of your recent backups should be in a different location (i.e., off-site). When working on critical material, you can email a copy to a co-worker or another email account once in a while. An Apple .Mac ( “ dot mac ” ) account for $99 per year includes 250 MB of off-site storage on Apple ’ s servers via a very simple backup program that can perform scheduled backups.

Install and use the latest version of your preferred anti viral software (such as Norton AntiVirus or Intego VirusBarrier).You should be sure to install the monthly anti-virus update, which is as simple as clicking on an “ Update ” button in the program.

Boot from an your OS X Install CD or DVD and run Apple ’ s Disk Utility on your drives once a month or so (always backup first). After a full backup, you can also safely use a utility like DiskWarrior.

Own the software you use, read the manuals, and keep the original program CDs in a safe place. You might also want to back up copies of important application installer CDs and keep them off-site, along with their serial numbers.