In continuation of my previous post, “In 0s and 1s We Trust”, here are a few helpful tips for backing up, storing, and organizing data.

Organize your data – not tomorrow, not next week, today.
While I may be have one of the most unorganized rooms in existence, I’m very meticulous when it comes to organizing all my digital files on my computer. Spending about 1/2 an hour or so to organize all your important documents, photos, videos, music, and frequently used applications helps greatly.

It will optimize and streamline your workflow and if you build a habit of organizing your files, you won’t be stumped and confused when searching for those pictures you promised to send to your mother.

Windows and Mac OS’s com with User folders out of the box.
Within those folders are folders for your Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, etc. So please, use them.

Take control of your desktop!
I know so many different computer users that have everything they treasure lying right on their desktop. Your desktop shouldn’t have 30 different Word or Excel files lying around.

The desktop should be used for frequently used applications and links to projects that are “in-progress”.

For Mac users, utilize the dock for your frequently used applications. Windows users, use the Start Menu for your frequent applications. (Windows users: If you want a snazzy looking dock like Mac systems, download Stardock’s Object Dock program.)

If you have a ongoing project – a research paper, dissertation, or even a movie treatment – place all your files into one folder with the title of your project. Place this folder in your Documents folder. Then place a shortcut to this folder on your desktop for fast access.

Within these folders, create subfolders for the stages of the project, the media used for the project. Grouping similar files into subfolders really helps.

Music, pictures, and videos.
For your music, pictures, and videos that aren’t associated with your on-going projects, place them into your Music, Pictures, and Video folders (For Mac users, it’s labeled Movies folder).

For music, create folder for each artist/band. I recommend iTunes for Windows and Mac users, even if you don’t have an iPod. The application is far better than Window Media Player or Real Player. When you purchase music or import music using iTunes, it’ll create folders for each artist and organize everything for you. During setup iTunes will usually ask you whether or not it should organize for you or if you want to organize manually. iTunes is a great and reliable utility, so let it help you.

For pictures and videos, its a similar tune. I find organizing photos and videos to be a pain at times, especially if you take hundreds of photos and multiple videos on any given day. The best method I find is organizing your photos and videos into folders within the Pictures and Videos/Movies folder.

I create a folder for Family, Events, School, Work, Friends, and Artwork. Within each folder are subfolders with a short description followed by the date the pictures were taken. For example, under Family I have a folder titles “Thanksgiving Lunch 11-27-2008″. I highly recommend the free program Picasa to organize your images and videos. You can also make minor photo edits, collages, and more with the program. Picasa is free and downloadable at www.picasa.google.com

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USB Drives
USB Drives, a.k.a thumb, jump, flash, pen drives, are not a permanent storage solution for files. They should only be used for temporary storage of files. USB drives are nifty for transferring files to-and-from one computer to another.

However, using USB drives as a permanent storage utility (the sole copy of your files resides on the flash drive) is the wrong thing to do. Only place copies of files on your USB drives and leave the originals on your computer.

The reason for this is because USB drives are highly susceptible to damage and data-loss. While it is true USB drives are more resilient to harm than their older selves, it’s still wise to be safe rather than sorry.  Enemies of USB drives include water, heat, static electricity, and magnetism. The worst enemy to USB drives in this day and age are viruses and spyware. Numerous times I’ve encountered friends, family, and clients with viruses on their drives. While the most common virus I’ve come across is more of an annoyance than a harm, it still shows how easily USB drives can be compromise. A few weeks ago when I was very busy doingrepairs, at least 10 out of the 15 USB drives I came across were infected with one type of virus or another.

If you do want to have a good USB drive for moving files and temporary storage, I reccommend Kingston Data Travelers. They come in 1GB-8GB (there are 16 and 32GB models but going past 8GB would be $50+)

Portable Hard Drives
For better storage solutions, I recommend using portable hard drives. Most of these drives are made of a 2.5″ laptop sized SATA drive. USB drives range from 1Gigabyte to 32GB. For the price of a 16GB or 32GB flash drive, you might as well purchase a 80GB portable hard drive for about the same price if not only about $20 more. The hard drives are then enclosed into a metal or plastic chassis.

I highly recommend the Western Digital MyBook Passports. They are fairly inexpensive and portable hard drives can go from 40GB up to 1Terrabyte.

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Saving files on-line
Another great option for storing and backing up your files is by saving them online! There are many great (and free) resources on the internet for saving your treasured files.

• MySpace/Facebook: If you’re a user of MySpace or Facebook, it’s fairly easy to store your photos. Because MySpace and Facebook are social networking websites, you can also share your photos with your friends and family. There’s the ability to create photo albums like mentioned earleir in this post, ex. “Thanksgiving Lunch 11-27-2009″. You are also able to set the photos and albums to private so only you can see or access them. There’s also no limit to the amount of photos you can store on MySpace/Facebook. The only con to using these is that the photos are shrunk down to 600px in width.
• Photobucket.com : Photobucket is a great and free way to store photos and videos.
• YouTube, Blip.tv, Imeem, Vimeo: Everyone knows what YouTube is, and it’s a great way to share and store videos. However, uploading to YouTube can take awhile. I prefer Blip.tv and many other bloggers and videophiles use Imeem and Vimeo. Blip.tv has better sound quality uploading as well as a nifty FTP uploader. YouTube and the others don’t offer FTP uploding. By using a FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client, you can upload your videos to Blip.tv using a higher percentage of your bandwith than uploading through a Java or HTML based uploader on YouTube, Vimeo, or Imeem.
• Flickr.com : For those of you who love taking pictures and sharing them with the world, Flickr is one of the top websites to share. You can also share videos, but unless you pay for premium services, the amount of photos and videos you can upload and share are limited to a certain amount per month.
• Mozy is an all-in-one online storage utility that has been gaining popularity. However, they charge a small fee of $4.95 a month for unlimited storage space.
• Fileden.com and MegaUpload.com are what I use to store files online such as documents, music, and others. They are free and are friendly. You can also pay for premium services for added storage and bandwidth.
• Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Email. All 3 of these have increased the sizes of your inbox. If you need a quick storage for important files, you can use your email services. Compose a new message and send it to yourself. If your gmail is joe.cruz@gmail.com just type joe.cruz@gmail.com into the To: section. Leaving a subject line is up to you. Attach the files you want to send to yourself, and then send it! It’s simple, fast, and a neat trick to tell others.

Backup your files regularly
Backup your important files regularly. At least once-a-month. Windows and Mac both have builtin programs to aid you in backing up data to removable drives (USB drives or Portable hard drives) or to CD/DVD.

DVDs are still the best way to backup, period.
DVDs don’t break and aren’t damaged by magnetism or static electricity. DVD’s only enemies are warping from sun exposure and if you crack the disc in half.

That’s all I’ve got for today folks, for more great tips and tricks, visit LifeHacker.com or C-Net’s www.Download.com