To many of you small businesses, the word backup is a word that describes what other “bigger businesses” do! “Doesn’t matter for small fry like me” I hear you say! But believe me, they/you really do need to backup your files regularly, because sooner or later you are going to have a computer crash – I know from bitter experience.

When it does happen, depending on whether you have a backup or not, it will be either a formality to get your data, pictures, invoices and word documents restored to your shiny new PC, or it will be a nightmare. Don’t get caught out.

For me personally, the worst part of backing up is actually remembering to do it, or finding the time to do it and, not least, knowing how to do it and what to backup. You can’t really rely on just remembering to do a backup now and again – you need a way to do it regularly as you work without having to actually remember to do it! You shouldn’t just make copies of important files and put in a folder on your D drive either, because if your hard drive fails you lose everything on that too.

Some of you, I expect, have an external drive which you simply plug into your P.C. especially for keeping your valuable files backed up. These external drives are relatively cheap and excellent for extending the storage capacity of your computer and especially useful if you take lots of pictures which can quickly fill up your hard drive. But a word of warning – if you do use external drives to copy your important files onto, you shouldn’t keep them anywhere near your PC. Not even in the same building, because if a fire ever broke out, and they frequently do near computers, you not only lose your PC but you lose your external drive as well.

So what do you do?

You could buy a good reliable backup program, use it to schedule regular backups, by that I mean daily backups. Remember to take your external drive out into the garden shed every night as a precaution against fire. Seriously, I have done that!!

OR….

You could save a lot of time and trouble and register with DLN for an online backup package. Unlimited online backup is now available to DLN members at a massively reduced price!

What is online backup? & how does it work?

Well, basically, it is a place where you can store your important files, documents and pictures securely online so that if your computer dies for any reason, your important files will not die along with it. Then when you get your new computer it is a simple matter of logging into your online storage area to retrieve your stuff – simple.

What I like about this online backup is that once you sign up and have your storage space allocated, you select on your PC all the stuff that you want to keep safe, click “go” and it does literally send copies of everything to your online backup. You don’t have to wait, it works in the background – you carry on work and the program does the rest. Here’s another clever bit – if you change a document on your PC – for example you add a chapter to your latest novel! the system automatically sends a copy of the changed document in your secure online storage space so you never again have to worry about it.

Now here is a really amazing offer to DLN members from Tourism Site Fix you can get as much online storage space as you want for a mere £12 per YEAR! that is less than a third of the normal price! and it’s so simple to set up, even I only took 2 minutes to get started. To sign up just drop me an email andy@visitlochness.com I will set up an account for you and if you are not absolutely delighted with it I will give you your money back!