Discardia_ More Life, Less Stuff - Dinah Sanders [87]
Regularly—every week or at least every month is advisable and I strongly urge you to automate this so it will happen far more often, even multiple times a day—make a backup of those things that have changed since the last backup. When you do this backup, I recommend keeping the previous two backups. That way, should you lose your current information and turn out to have a damaged backup, you still have the prior ones.
In the absence of a good automated solution like Time Machine, doing backups can be tedious and is easy to put off, so figure out a good system that works for you and make sure you have the supplies you need. Get help from a geek friend if you're not sure of the process or the best approach for you. Build time into your schedule to do backups regularly and confirm that your system is working correctly with backups that are actually good. It may seem like a hassle but, compared to the loss of all your personal files, it's not a big deal at all.
Don’t leave the keys in the lock
While you’re roaming around the online world, use good sense when creating and maintaining your passwords. As every hacked system’s list of user passwords reveals, people often fail to take this simple precaution. When Gawker Media was hacked in 2010 the top three passwords, each used by over 1,000 users, were “123456,” “password,” and “12345678.”
Please don’t be one of those people who leaves their virtual keys in the lock. Make passwords at least eight characters long, using a mix of numbers and letters, with at least one letter capitalized. Most importantly, don’t use the same password for everything; at minimum, make sure the things that you most want to protect (for example, your online banking) don’t share a password with other, less well-protected services.
Little changes, big risk protections
Don’t increase your risks by living in a state of denial. Joining my community’s neighborhood emergency preparedness team has taught me to practice prevention for the big stuff as well as the little. Getting your household ready to ride out trouble turns out not to be that hard. Change the battery in your smoke alarm and test any other warning and safety equipment in your home and car. Have appropriate fire extinguishers in good, charged condition in the kitchen and at least one other place in the house. Have renter or homeowner’s insurance and an up-to-date inventory of the things you'd want to replace. Walk around with a video camera for a quick way to do this inventory and then—important!—store the tape away from the house. Do what you can to prevent losing what matters to you.
When it comes to our own safety, it's common to err on the side of “I’ll be fine.” For that reason, it's good to know the real risks. For example, when a utility pole falls down, assume that the lines are live, charged electrical wires and that the danger zone extends wider than just the immediate area of the downed wire to the second intact pole from the point of impact. If you’re wrong and it’s not live, no harm done; being mistaken the other direction could be fatal.
Understanding risks helped my old schoolmate, artist Debby Kaspari, and her husband Mike survive an F3 tornado, which passed right through their house. Even though they didn’t really feel like a direct hit would ever happen to them, they own and use a weather radio. About a decade ago, they had a steel box shelter installed in the floor of their garage. When the warning came, they had the good sense and the resources to grab the cat and go below to wait out the storm. The house above them was destroyed, but a little preparation and caution allowed them to walk away without a scratch.
Here's a classic question to help reveal your personality: “If your house were on fire, what would you save?” Unfortunately, if you really do try to save things, you dramatically increase your risk of being injured or killed. Discard your illusions about house fires. There is no time in a fire for anything but getting out