"There are two types of people. Those who have lost data, and those who will."

"There are two types of people. Those who have lost data, and those who will."

If you have an unexpected power-surge, it will fry and fuse the electrics on the motherboard. You can still retrieve your data, but it will be very expensive."

Keeping your backup separate from your machine is much more sensible. Your average home DVD-writer can now store almost 5GB on a single disc. If you need more space then tapes, external hard drives and shareware which chops up large files into manageable chunks are all there to help. If you want to be even more secure, you can pay for your data to be taken off-site entirely. It's called online backup, and you send your data across the net to a remote site - leaving it safe until you might need it.

"If you back up your entire hard disc, it will take up a huge amount of space. It's much more efficient to just back up your work - not all your applications and your system. Presumably you would still know where all your installers were for your software and opertaing system, so you can go back to them to replace them."

Try configuring each of your pieces of software to save your work in one umbrella folder - it's exactly what Windows' 'My Documents' folder was made for. In fact, you don't even need to backup all your work every time.

Taking regular full backups won't generally be necessary, since most of your files won't change much during their lifetime. An incremental backup takes one full copy of the filing system, and then only records the changes that you make.

Because of this, subsequent backups run a lot quicker. You'll find most backup programs have this incremental option. With storage becoming ever cheaper, backing up is becoming easier. Choose what's best for you and get into a routine.http://www.bbcworld.com/

more bugs in Microsoft operating systems and applications

Software bug raises spectre of 'JPEG of death'

Flawed software code used by numerous Microsoft applications to render images mean that a specially constructed image file could hijack a computer or spread a virus.

Ten years ago the idea of an image infecting a computer was the subject of a hoax email. But what was once a myth is now a genuine threat after Microsoft disclosed a flaw in the image processing code used in a range of its software programs on Tuesday.

Some experts blame the new threat on shoddy programming. "In a properly coded world, a graphic should not be able to infect your computer," says Graham Cluley, senior researcher with the UK-based anti-virus firm Sophos. "It should be impossible."


Crafty programmer

A number of Microsoft operating systems and applications contain the relevant bug, including Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Office XP, as well as many smaller applications. Microsoft has released downloadable fixes for affected software, available from the Microsoft TechNet site here.

The affected code has a so-called "buffer overrun" flaw. The buffer is a protected part of the computer memory, but flaws can mean that excessive input data can overrun into unprotected parts of a memory. A crafty programmer can use such a flaw to execute unauthorised code on a computer, potentially providing themselves with a point of entry in order to take complete control.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS04-028.mspx