With apologies to Lennon and McCartney, you may have seen this parody of their song "Yesterday" regarding backups...

Yesterday, All those back-ups seemed a waste of pay. Now my source files have all gone away. Oh I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly, There's not half the files there used to be, And there's a milestone hanging over me. The system crashed so suddenly.

I pushed something wrong What it was I could not say. Now all my data's gone and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

Yesterday, The need for back-ups seemed so far away. I knew my data was all here to stay, Now I believe in yesterday.

Although the parody is clever, anyone who has lived through the loss of data and the enormous amount of time wasted trying to recover valuable information doesn't feel very clever after the fact. If this hasn't happened to you and you are still not performing back-ups then be warned, it is only a matter of time.

So unless you want to be singing this sad refrain you need to back up your data.

There are a number of options available for you: A second hard disk - If you install a second drive that is the same size as your existing disk you can copy or "mirror" the data onto the second drive. Although the price of hard disks is falling and mirroring disks is relatively easy, having all your data on one machine leaves you vulnerable to any issues that render that computer unusable, including theft.

Recordable Media - Computers are now being shipped without floppy disk drives and even if they were still included the amount of data that is being backed up is too much for these to be of any value. The next level up from floppy disks, Zip disks, has now given way to recordable CDs (CD-Rs), and recordable DVDs (DVD-Rs). CD-Rs can hold up to 700 MB of data and DVD-Rs can hold up to 8.5 GB. Depending upon the size of the data that you want to back up these may be acceptable, however you could end up spending a lot of time burning an increasing number of disks as the size of your data increases.

Tape Back-Up - data is written onto a tape. The amount of data on a tape can vary from hundreds of kilobytes to several gigabytes. Just as the amount of data can vary, so can the speed of transfer. Online back-up services allow you to upload your data over the internet to a server at a remote location. If you lose data and need to restore, you log onto the back-up service site and download your files. Because you are restoring over the Internet, backup and restoration speed can be a function of your connection speed. Of course you will need to have Internet access to restore. Some companies are still wary of having all of their business data residing on a machine that is not under their control. Software back-up programs like the one that comes bundled with WindowsXP, or that can be purchased separately ( Norton ) are not replacements for the other methods, however, they do automate the process by sending your data to the location that you choose.

Once you have decided on you method of back-ups there are a few other items that you need to think about as well. What do you back-up? how often and where do you store the data? Who in your organization is responsible for making it happen? It is best to have a back-up done every day of your most important files. You may even copy these more often if the amount and value of the data warrants it. Three different back-up types that you should be familiar with are:

A Full Back-up, like the name implies, contains all the files and folders that are to be backed up. This is the most complete, and the easiest back-up to restore from due to the fact that everything you need is included (if done properly). The reason this in not usually done every time is the amount of time it takes to do. You need to be aware that if this back-up was accessed it would have all of your data on it, so it is imperative that these are handled with care. These are often stored in a secure location off site in case something happens to the building.

A Differential Back-up contains files that have changed (are different) from the time of the last full back-up. An Incremental Back-up stores all the files that have changed since the last back-up whether that is a full, differential or incremental back-up. This back-up is completed the fastest, however restoring from a number of incremental back-ups will take longer than restoring from a full back-up. Most companies use a combination of full, differential and incremental back-ups in an effort to balance the data security with the amount of time invested in the process. No matter which of the options you choose, it is important to know that you do not have a back-up solution until you have successfully restored your data from the back-up. I know of a person who faithfully performed back-ups every day. When the computer crashed and it was time to restore, this person was crushed to learn that the only thing that was being backed up was the icon to the program. Once again, until and unl ess you have successfully restored from your back-up solution, you do not have a solution.

Why should I upgrade my computer's memory? Upgrading your computer's memory is probably one of the easiest and cheapest ways of boosting its performance. More memory translates into faster computing. Compare the situation with your own work desk. As your work load increases, so does your paper work. If your desk were to remain the same size despite the increased paper work, it would take you much longer to find a particular document when required. But if you got a bigger desk, it would obviously accommodate more paper. RAM is the place that temporarily stores all the instructions needed by the computer to act. If RAM is too cluttered, it will have to retrieve information from the hard disk drive more often, causing delays in processing each time this happened.

Upgrading RAM is particularly useful for people who run multiple applications at the same time or use memory hogging applications such as graphics, music or games.

When is it the right time to upgrade RAM? There are several indicators of insufficient memory - the computer working slower than normal, the hard disk drive audibly working 'hard', you having to wait long for applications to start. RAM is also known as 'physical memory' whereas hard disk memory is called 'virtual memory'. Access time of physical memory is much lesser than access time for virtual memory. When there is a shortage of physical memory, the computer has to use the virtual memory, and this significantly reduces the speed of the system.

Will I be able to browse the internet faster if I add more RAM? The speed of Internet browsing is dependent upon numerous factors, RAM being just one among them. Some of these other factors are your connection speed, the amount of traffic on the site you are visiting, and some of the components in your system. Hence, the answer to the above question is, yes, perhaps your Internet browsing will be faster with more RAM, and perhaps not so much, depending on the other factors. However, additional RAM is certainly beneficial if you are working with large files (such as photo, audio or video files) of if you like to alternate between your browser and other applications often.