Last year, I travelled to Pennsylvania with a couple of photographers and met with Skye Hardwick, owner and photographer for Work of Heart Photo. I went home with a lot of really cool photographs from the weekend as we had some great models with us and the weather was awesome. I was really excited to get back on building my portfolio as I lost most of my work when my external hard drive "BROKE" during a backup (strange, weird, long story, but it happened!). But guess what - it got worse... two months later, I woke up turned on my PC and I have a blue screen staring back at me - a hard drive failure for no apparent reason. So can you imagine the nightmare and depression I went through? I did try to get the data recovered and that cost me some money but most of the data I wanted was corrupted. This was all that was left from that shoot....and that's why this photo is sooo memorable to me. Thank goodness at that time, I was not doing any paid shooting yet - whew! But it certainly made me pause, review my workflow and taught me a good lesson on the importance of backing up data.





Early this month, HP introduced its online back up storage service. And guess what? I did not hesitate to pick up the phone. Turns out that I was the first one to call and sign up. They even congratulated me for being the first customer in the United States to sign up for the service...cool! Do I get incentives for that - I ask :) Anyway, I want to share some of their tips on how to back up data including their affordable online backup service should something happen to your PC, external hard drives, or heaven forbid, there is fire, theft in the house, your data is secured and stored elsewhere.

1) GET ORGANIZED FIRST
Get your computer organized first. An organized PC makes backup easier. Music, photos, financial documents and more should be clearly labeled and easily located.

2)BACKUP ON A REGULAR SCHEDULE
How often do you generate new files? Daily? Weekly? Whether at home or in business, your file activity should dictate how often you make backup copies. If it's your business, think daily or weekly. Alternatively, a home machine could be backed up weekly or monthly. Either way, pick a regular interval and stick to it.

3) USE AUTOMATED BACKUP SOFTWARE
It's difficult to remember to copy any new files on a regular basis. Instead, utilize backup software that automatically runs on a schedule.

4)BACKUP ONCE ON HARDWARE
Use one of the devices above to copy your crucial files.

5)BACKUP TWICE OVER THE INTERNET
You've backed up on an external hard drive and it's sitting next to your computer. It's still vulnerable to fire or other natural disasters. If you copy your data a second time, to a backup storage service on the internet, you'll be truly covered. HP Online Backup powered by Spare Backup provides storage for a monthly fee. You can try it for a 45 day trial period for only $6.95, plus a small processing fee. Your service can be set to backup automatically. You can call 1-866-234-1377 to sign up today and mention promotion code 50000-50000.

So now, even though I have DVD copies, external hard drive duplicates and data stored in my hard drive, in the event that any of these devices fail, I know that my photographs and those of my clients are safe and secured in HP's servers....whew!!!! and I can sleep through the night now