Ok, it’s a lousy title for a movie, but it is a great reminder to review and execute your data backup strategies, both at home and online.
Why Friday the 13th?
Simply, it’s a day-date combination that happens infrequently, almost ad-hoc. When it does occur, you can easily plan to take time out to perform your maintenance chores.
It’s also a very memorable day. In fiction, bad things happen on Friday the 13th — so the best way to prevent those bad things from happening to you, is to take proactive measures…and what better day to remember to do that than Friday the 13th!
Some things to do
- Backup your home computer systems
- Backup your blog(s)
- Backup your other content stored in the cloud (flickr, Google Docs, iTunes video & music)
- Remove and delete programs you’ve not used for a while
- Review and backup your password & account information
- Purge your online email accounts of old mail
- Defrag your hard drives
I’ve written a few posts about backups and maintenance before, so if you want to dig into the detail, here’s a handy list, sorted by backup tag.
Lifehacker posted this great overview of a personal backup system worth checking out.