Have you had that sinking feeling when the screen of your desktop or laptop turns blue or it stops working completely? It just happened to me and hence this quick missive.

A few years back, I backed up my laptop on an external hard drive. It was inconvenient but I knew it was necessary. About three years ago, I subscribed to an online backup service. This works in the background and backs up everything on your desktop or laptop. You do not need to remember to do it. My move paid off today when my laptop acted strange and I could not find a single file.

But all’s well that ends well. I restored ALL files on my laptop using the backup service and I am back to normal (a few skipped heartbeats not withstanding!). It was painless.

If you are not backing up your laptop do so immediately. While the cost of external hard drives have dropped considerably, it is a pain to backup on. Check out the various cloud based option that are available from well known providers – Google, Amazon, Carbonite, etc. Once you sign up you can work on your computer and the service will work in the background – it is a cinch! It will avert a disaster sooner rather than later!

I Escaped a Disaster with a Backup Service for my Laptop