Saved again! Whew! The computer is Home again! Almost four days in the shop and you wonder if it’s coming back and if it will be fixed and not “compromised”. I can be a pack rat of sorts, or maybe that’s file-rat, when it comes to my computer use. There’re years of data on this and that’s copied from previous computers, too. And, yes, it’s All backed up….at least my service and an external hard drive say it is! What was wrong? We don’t really know unless a “replicating virus” caused a gltich that caused the keyboard to fail? And it only halfway failed. Meaning I (stupidly) have two identities saved on my computer…no I don’t know how I did that! But only one identity could use the keyboard. And, of course, that wasn’t my primary identity, but my apparent clone! Yep, there’s two of me, at least on my computer. All of this only proves computers (and also hackers and virus pirates) are getting smarter than the average computer user. My point in sharing this is simple…back up your computer or at least your most important files…and know what you’ve got---write it down! There are dozens of back-up methods and services. You can choose when and where you save your back-up. Carbonite, Back Blaze, Norton, iDrive, Nextiva and Dropbox come to mind, but I know there are others. In fact, I may be switching soon. A lot of services offer picture back-up, Google, Shutterfly, Amazon, iDrive, Flickr to name a few. And I don’t know how they all work, but some are free, some are paid or you can pay for more storage beyond the free-space. I was introduced to Forever.com for photos. It’s computer space you purchase, not borrow, like time share and you can (or should) protect it with a back-up manager (a relative or friend), so it’s not lost, if something happens to you. Forever, like some others offers services for photobooks, prints and gifts. If you’re like a lot of us, your whole life is on your computer and maybe some of your family history, too? But my point to all of these services is know what you’ve got, free or paid, temporary or permanent. Write it down, like you do your passwords ?? Computers can make things easier, but keeping up with them is still getting more complicated!