Backup Memory Generally speaking, most PC users never think about backing up files until their computer crashes. The best and easiest way that I have found to prevent loss of important files is to run two hard drives. The cost of hard drives is not that much any more and you can get quite a bit of "gigage" for low dollars. OK, here's the deal, once the second hard drive is installed on your PC 1. go to "My computer" and find the new drive (take note of the letter that was assigned to it). 2. Open it up and create a new folder called "My Documents". 3. Then go to the desktop and right click on the My Documents icon and then click on "Properties". When the splash screen comes up either type in the path to where your new "My Documents" is or you can click on the "Find Target" button and find it that way. If you choose to type it in, make sure you use the correct letter that your computer has assigned the new drive (ie.D:\My Documents). After you click "OK" a new screen will pop up and ask something like "Do you wish to transfer the existing files to the new folder" and, of course, your answer will be "YES". How easy was that?! Hence forth, your PC will recognize this new "My Documents" folder as a system folder even though it's on a separate hard drive. So when you save your work into "My Documents" you are, in reality, putting it on another hard disk. About 99.99% of the time computer crashes are software related (viruses, programs not being able to play nicely together and things like that). Of course we're talking about the main hard drive..you know, the one with the operating system on it...the one that takes most of the beating(C:). Sometimes you are able to retrieve information even if a system cannot be brought back up. Alot of times you cannot and those are the times you'll be glad you had that second drive with all your precious work tucked safely away. From there, just reformat your C: Drive,(I like to call it cleansing) reinstall your programs and such, do the icon thing mentioned above, and bada-bing...your back in business AND with a very clean hard drive. Please note that we don't live anywhere near Perfectville nothing is 100% and it might not hurt to use a rewritable CD or DVD to occasionally back up those really really really important files anyway. The odds, however, are way in your favor with a double drive PC. Here are a couple more ways to back up important documents. Flash Drive Insert a 2 or 4 gig flash drive into one of those unused usb ports in the back of your machine and just leave it there. Go to "My Computer" and you will see the new drive. Right click on it and "Place shortcut on Desktop". That's it! Granted 2 or so gigs might not seem like a whole lot of storage space but most documents are not that big and you can probably cram alot of stuff on one of those little monsters. If you feel that size makes a difference then purchase a 32 gig flash drive for about $60 ish. You can certainly stuff alot of images or mp3s on one of those! From time to time just burn the contents to a CD and store in a safe place. External Hard Drive This, by far, is probably the easiest way to get large volume storage for backup without even popping the hood on that machine. You can get external drives up into the terabyte range. That'a ALOT of storage. And easy to install. Just plug the power unit in, plug in the USB line to an empty usb port on your machine and you've got tons of backup storage. Some even come with Firewire support. Same drill...Go to "My Computer" and look for the new drive, place a shortcut on the desktop and ...bada-bing! The only downside - These little monstors are a little spendy. More so than your "C" Drive. From as little as around $60 for an 80 gig to $200 for a terabyte (1000 gigs). Prices are coming down. So there you go and now you know. Happing Computing Keep Your PC Safe for Free Most of the time when you buy a new PC you get a virus protection disk with it (back in the old days they used to give you realy good software packages like Word, Publisher and stuff like that but now all you get is trial versions and crap). The protection software could be Mcaffe or Norton or whatever. AND most of the time people don't realize that these are merely trial versions good for a certain amout of time. Plus, these two packages contain way more than you actually need. Over the years Norton and McAffe have not really improved their software that much but instead have added all kinds of extra stuff that slow your PC down more than help it. And at the end of the trial period the updates stop. These are called pattern files and they are downloaded to your PC on a regular basis to compensate for new viruses and spyware. Sooo at the end of the trial period you are not getting the very best protection as new viruses spring up every day. The software may or may not work anymore but even if it does, it's not very good anymore unless you purchase the full versions and generally the price is quite reasonable. This all well and good but there is a couple of companies still out there that has free versions of their virus protection software and is not only lightweight but only gives you what you need...virus protection. One of them is Grisoft and the software is AVG Free. As a matter of fact, if you CLICK HERE you can go there. Just because it's free dosn't mean that it is bad. On the contrary, it updates daily and has great protection for your PC and email. If you get a bug in an attachment, it won't let you open it up. Grisoft does this to promote their line of virus/spyware products and like the other guys, their prices are pretty good too. Buy the way, you should probably take your Norton or Mcaffe off as they are quite cumbersome and you really don't need 'em anymore. What about spyware? Same deal...a company called Lavasoft will give you a spyware program called Ad-Aware. Just like AVG this software also downloads updated files whenever you open it. If you go to their site they'll direct you to download.com. CLICK HERE to get there. Please note that this particular software will not run automatically so you will have to run it manually. I think the paid for version runs automatically. Word of advice - These programs will not work at all if you don't use them. I, too, am guilty of this sometimes so do as I say and not as I do. You should run Ad-Aware at least once a week and for heaven's sake scan anything you download from Kazaa or Limewire and the like as about 50% of all those files have bugs in them. It's easy and only takes a few seconds. At least scan with your virus protection software. It's OKAY to download them as long as you don't open 'em. Just right click on the file and you should see your defalt virus program in the dialog box. It might say "Scan with AVG". Just DO IT. It's easy and you'll feel good about yourself when a "Threat Found" box pops up. If it does, just delete it and go on to the next file. Here is a boring but true story. I was once called to a home where the kids' PC was running really slow. After running my magic software for about two and a half hours we cleaned up over 5500 adware scripts. I think we got them all but their PC ran like a new one. Here's the kicker...they had Ad-Aware on their machine and just never used it. Their spyware program is free...I'm not(close to it, though). There ya have it. If you got it use it and you won't be calling some geek to fix it. Happy computing!