One of the most important thing you should be doing with your computer, that you’re most likely NOT doing, is making backups of your important files. If you want an object less, and haven’t heard about it yet, learn from NASA’s mistake.
“NASA could put a man on the moon but didn’t have the sense to keep the original video of the live TV transmission. In an embarrassing acknowledgment, the space agency said Thursday that it must have erased the Apollo 11 moon footage years ago so that it could reuse the videotape.” (from toptechnews.com)
This is unfortunate on many fronts for NASA. Beyond just making them look a tad bit incompetent, it adds much fuel to the conspiracy fire that we never actually landed on the moon in the first place. Though NASA had denied for years that the moon landing was staged, the official footage will now indeed be a Hollywood creation.
“The studio wizards who restored ‘Casablanca’ are digitally sharpening and cleaning up the ghostly, grainy footage of the moon landing, making it even better than what TV viewers saw on July 20, 1969. They are doing it by working from four copies that NASA scrounged from around the world.”
I won’t get into the conspiracy here, but if you’re curious you can run off in this direction. Without the original footage available, NASA loses one of the main arguments against the conspiracy folks. Definitely not their shining moment.
Anyway, back to backing up. You should do it. If you’re not sure how to manually make backups, you may want to subscribe to one of the online services. Here’s a link to information and options to get you started:
- Windows XP Backup Made Easy
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/bott_03july14.mspx - Windows Backup and Restore Center
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/backup.aspx - Mozy – Online Backup
http://www.mozy.com - Carbonite – Online Backup
http://www.carbonite.com
