Bit Literacy - Mark Hurst [60]
Taking screenshots
The easiest way to create image-bits on a computer is to take a screenshot—that is, turn the contents of the screen, or part of the screen, into its own image file. It’s like carrying a digital camera wherever you go in the bit world, so that you can take a picture of anything you see there, at any moment, in any application. Screenshots are often useful when using the Web: documenting something you spot on a Web page, saving an online receipt, or making a clipping of an interesting graphic.
Screenshots are easy on Macs and Windows PCs. Macs have offered screenshots for years with the same keystrokes: command-shift-3 takes a shot of the entire screen, and command-shift-4 turns the cursor into crosshairs, allowing the user to select a section of the screen to save as an image. Windows computers have the PrntScrn button, which places a screenshot on the clipboard, available to then be pasted into a Word document. (There are also screenshot applications—Print Screen Deluxe for Windows and Snapz Pro for Macintosh, among others—that offer increased functionality.)
Backup
There are two kinds of users: those who already back up, and those who will. I’ve heard different versions of this quote over the years—I’m not sure who originated it—but it’s absolutely true. The users most enthusiastic about learning how to back up their files are those who have just lost all of their data, due to a hard drive crash or a stolen laptop. Bit-literate users need not wait until disaster strikes; working responsibly with bits means making backups.
Users in a large corporate environment might be able to rely on the internal technology department to handle backups, though it’s good to confirm that those backups do occur. Other users should buy an external hard drive that’s big enough to contain several times the memory of the computer’s hard drive. Users should then back up their data on the external hard drive every week or two.
To make a backup, create a folder on the top level of the external hard drive, and name the folder with the current date. (There’s no need to include the word “backup” in the folder name, since that’s redundant; everything on the external hard drive is a backup.) Then drag in all the contents of your computer that you want to back up. The backup can take an hour or more, slowing down other applications in the process, so it may be best to run the backup overnight. (In such cases, be sure not to leave the room until you see the data starting to transfer; occasionally a window pops up asking a question before the backup gets started.) If the hard drive is full, delete the oldest folder or two, empty the trash, and then start the backup.
Remember that the external hard drive can also crash, even at the same moment that your laptop crashes. A lightning strike or a worse disaster, like a fire or flood, can affect all electronic equipment under the same roof. Thus it’s important to have an even more secure backup plan to complement the external drive. One solution is to burn a set of DVDs of all your bits once or twice a year and store them in a different location. (Make sure to use a permanent marker to write the date of the backup on each disk, so they’re easy to distinguish later.)
There’s one other essential backup tool that every bit-literate user should know: e-mail. To make a daily backup of your few most important files, just e-mail them as attachments to a free online e-mail account such as Yahoo Mail or Gmail. This is faster and easier than backing up to an external hard drive, and you can do it from anywhere. It also ensures that the data is stored in a different physical location from your computer and external hard drive. Just remember that you’ve then turned the bits over to another company to host, and if you’re concerned with privacy you may want to examine the company’s privacy policy before you send the bits there.
Discernment: choosing the right application
The chapter on file formats discussed the importance of working with simple file formats. Applications are similar;