This week, I’ll post updated suggestions to get your computers and technology ready for the blitz of projects you’ll swear to accomplish in New Year resolutions. Here’s what you’ll get (links won’t be active until the post goes live):
- 12 Ways to Update Your Online Identity— December 11th
- 8+ Ways to a Speedier Computer — December 12th
- Backup and Image your computer — December 13th (today)
Regular readers of Ask a Tech Teacher know these are updated each December. New readers: Consider these body armor in the tech battle so you can jubilantly overcome rather than dramatically succumb. If you also read WordDreams, these are also posted there with some adaptations to writers.
Today: Backup and Image Your Computer
Two maintenance tasks lots of people skip are:
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- back up your documents
- image your computer
Backup Data Files
Every teacher I know has lost critical work because they didn’t back up on a regular basis. There’s no reason for that. Backing up is easy, fairly quick, and usually free. For details on backing up your computer, check out LifeHacker, PC World, and Windows online help.
Image your computer
When you image your computer, you take a picture of what your hard drive looks like, including all the programs and extras, and save in a secure backup area. If malware blows up your computer or ransomware locks you out, all you have to do is re-install from the image.
I use @acronis. It creates an image on the schedule I set up. It’ll even image drives that are plugged in (like my USB drive).
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Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.
–image credit: Deposit Photos
I have to finish up backing up my photos. Our internet is so slow that it takes forever, but hopefully, a speedier alternative is coming next year. Thanks for the great reminder and information, Jacqui.