week of geek 1 - I like big backups and I cannot lie

Sooner or later, your computer will explode. Or implode. Or melt. And when it does, you want to know that your important files are safe.

There are various services that will back up your files over the Internet. Some of them are free. I use Mozy. It works for both Mac and PC and there's a free version for personal use. OK, the free version only gives you 2GB of space, but if you're only backing up your essential files, you probably won't need nearly that much. No, your shaky handicam pirate video of the latest Hollywood blockbuster is not an essential file. I'm talking about your documents, spreadsheets - stuff you'd cry about if it was lost.

So. Mozy. Install it, point it at the files you care about and you're done. You can configure it to only use a small amount of your bandwidth, so it won't hammer your Internet connection. Only caveat is you might want to make sure you don't have a low usage cap or worse, get charged more after a certain amount of traffic.

Remember how I said your important documents will be considerably less than 2GB? There's one exception to that, if you've been online for a while - email. Mozy can back up your email no problem, but if you've got too much... see the next post.