Time to back-up!

Hands up: who hasn't backed-up their most important data in a week? No excuses accepted - you know your hard drive will fail sooner or later. Of course there's always the trusty option of burning a CD or DVD, but this requires you to remember to burn a copy.

There are however several excellent online options. These offer distinct advantages to a CD back-up. First, they can be automated, updating changed files on a regular basis. Secondly, these services give you a back-up that is stored elsewhere. Third, these services often offer reasonable back-up space for free, or larger amounts of storage for a small annual fee.

Mozy.com gives you 2gb of storage for free, XDrive.com allows 5gb for free, Carbonite.com charges US$50 a year for unlimited storage. I use iDrive.com: 2gb for free and unlimited for $50 a year. The key aspect of any online service is the software that comes with it that automates the back-up process. This works in the background, backing up your essential data on a regular basis, without you even having to remember to do it!