You have received a new message...

...possibly from the Big Guy upstairs

I was due to change my PC yesterday - had it all organised. But then the old one died - it wouldn't boot up and the Windows CD couldn't resolve the problem without a lot of knowledge from me - or from the thousands of pages of online help (via the other, home, computer).

So I played around with my new phone to get emails...it worked up to a point. I could set up some email accounts (I have about six) but not all...because I can't remember all the settings and passwords.

I managed to send the following to this blog, which some of you might have seen...

"Not so amazing, but when the hard drive on your PC goes kaput (the day before you're due to take delivery of a new one) you realise the value of a back-up. Now, when did I last back-up, and where did I put it. By the way I have nearly 100 passwords... what are the chances I'll recover them all?"

...but it came along with several paragraphs of cr*p from Vodafone and my mobile number in big bold letters... not great for a blog entry.

Anyway, the point is. I did have my passwords stored in passwordsafe which is free (and therefore mentioned in the new book!) and I'd backed up the data to a small Newman drive (specifically a NM-0703 20gb drive) along with a copy of dmailer which enabled me to use another PC almost as if it were my own. I carry these around with me pretty much all the time.

Credit where credit's due...I haven't lost everything.

I only mention all this to remind you (and me) to back-up your data every couple of days or so AND to recommend that you have a few other devices to help.

I should get my new PC up and running tomorrow and then I'm probably going to go out and buy a terabyte of disk storage for my home network...