In the past year, as I’ve dived deeper and deeper into nerdism, I’ve made drastic changes to my computer. It all started with Windows Vista. I defended Vista for over a year – my laptop came with it, and all I really needed out of it was decent performance and an internet connection. Nothing fancy. Then one day last year, about a month after I started living off of my writing business (which completely depended on having an active internet connection throughout the day), my internet would not load any pages. I was connected, but I couldn’t do anything. My then-roommate could do anything with XP, but I was stuck.

I took it to a “Windows Certified” computer repair service. They even came over and sat at my desk for over an hour. Nothing. The guy took it home and worked on it for hours. Nothing. His solution? Reinstall Windows. I called Toshiba (the maker of my laptop) and they told me the same. There was no solution. I found forums online with people who had the same problem, but with no fix for it.

Now, as much as I would like this article to be about how much I hate Vista for that, it’s not. I’m setting this up for you. I didn’t have a copy of XP, and every version of Vista comes with a free downgrade to XP if needed – except for Vista Basic. Guess which version I had? So, since I didn’t have over $200 lying around to buy XP, I started looking at Ubuntu, which is a version of Linux. I tried it out, loved it, and made copies of all my important files onto my external hard drive for “safekeeping”. But, as I installed Ubuntu, I learned that I had absolutely NO idea what I was doing, and I promptly (accidentally) erased my entire external hard drive clean. All those important files and business notes were gone.

So I’m an idiot, right? Well, I learned from that experience and made sure I knew what I was doing the next time I had to install a new operating system on my computer. In fact, I had to do such a thing later in the year, when I learned that Ubuntu wouldn’t allow me to run Skype through my computer – and I had already purchased a phone line through Skype for a year. I managed to get a copy of XP and, after unplugging my external drive so that nothing could happen to it, I reinstalled my computer yet again. But I took my time in moving everything off the external drive onto my laptop’s hard drive right away.

Two weeks later, the hard drive failed completely. All my files were gone. Again.

Now, you may be backing up to an external drive or DVDs, or you may not be backing up at all. But just because you are not reinstalling operating systems every few months doesn’t mean you have no need. Here are a handful of reasons why you need an online backup solution:

1. We all keep important files on our computers nowadays. You’ve got financial records, work documents, and pictures on your computer. It’s a part of your household now, right? You need to protect that stuff!
2. Hard drives fail (apparently). All hard drives can fail. Any time. You just can’t rely on them in the long term for all your storage needs. You need to keep multiple copies to ensure that, when one of them does fail, you can restore your files from another.
3. Natural disasters can negate any local backup. A fire, a flood, a tornado, an earthquake – you name it. If you’ve got everything backed up to an external drive that is sitting right next to your computer, you are missing the point. That’s like making two copies of a document and putting them in the same folder on the shelf. It doesn’t make sense. If one gets physically damaged, chances are both will.

So when I sat down to finally set up my long-overdue online backup, I had certain criteria that I needed to follow:

• It needed to be free, or darn close to it.
• It had to be as simple and pain-free as possible.
• It needed to be reliable.
• It needed to be automatic. I didn’t want to have to constantly be copying files over to the “backup folder” or anything.

So I found Syncplicity, and my search was over.

Syncplicity is a beautiful program. It works for XP users, Vista users (and all you Vista users are going to need it!), and even Mac users as well. You can install Syncplicity, set it up, and have your files backed up before you even figure out how to pronounce their stinking name. Here’s how you can set yours up today and finally enjoy the peace of mind that comes with online backup.

Sign up for a Syncplicity account and install the software.

Syncplicity has two plans: a free plan and a paid one. I use the free one, and it’s all I need – 2 GB of online storage. The free plan also comes with the ability to sync files across 2 different computers. This is incredibly handy if you have a home desktop computer and a laptop that you take on the road. When you use their service, you can automatically have a copy of each document or file stored on both computers. Nice and easy.

Tell Syncplicity which folders to keep backed up.

With Syncplicity, you don’t need to sit and make copies of files all the time. You don’t even need a separate backup folder. The only thing you have to do is tell the program which folders to watch. Syncplicity will automatically back up any files and subfolders in your designated folders. Plus, if you make any changes to a document, the program will back up the new version immediately after you hit the “Save” button. This is the definition of “no muss, no fuss”.

That’s it!

Now, anything that’s backed up will have a little green checkmark next to it, showing you it’s safe. Syncplicity will also be running in the background, taking up very little resources and backing up everything on-the-go. As you make changes, they are being saved. It doesn’t get much simpler than that!

Syncplicity also has extra features, such as easy file and folder sharing with friends, and automatic Facebook integration for pictures that you back up with the program. Check out Syncplicity’s website for more information and to sign up. Do you already have a favorite online backup solution that we should know about? Share it in the comments!

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