On Saturday I got an email from a customer who lost all her embroidery designs.  She wanted to know if I could send them to her again.  I was happy to send her a download link to the designs she had purchased from our current shopping cart, but as for designs she had purchased from use years ago, or designs she had downloaded through her membership, the answer was no, because we don't track what someone downloads on ATW with their membership.  

This same scenario repeats every few days for me.  Another customer with lost embroidery designs.  Many if not most designs, can not be re-downloaded because the place they got the design from is no longer in business, have changed download systems, etc.  You know how things change with the internet. 

One thing that will NEVER CHANGE though, is that computers die.  When they do, you either have a backup made of the files on it, or you lose them.  

The problem with making backups is that it seems so complex.  So... "techy". It really isn't that hard to do.  And just think how smart you'll feel when you causally work into a conversation with your friends that you set up a new backup system today for your computer files.  

Here's what you need to know... 

It really is simple to make a backup of your designs.  In fact, not just your designs, but your photos, your music, your financial records, and every other computer file you have stored on your hard drive.  

I could make a how-to article, but frankly I don't need to do that because there are already LOTS of those online and I would rather send you to an article already written well, or a video already done well, than spend the time remaking articles and videos on the topic every year or two as technology changes.  ( See links below )

It may take you an hour to set up your backup plan today.  That is nothing compared to the DAYS you will spend trying to recover as much as possible of your lost files if you don't spend the hour setting up your backups now.  

If you already have a backup system in place,.. use this email as a reminder to check today that your system is still working.  Sometimes the backup systems we setup stop working and we don't know until it is time to use those backups.  Ugh.  That one really hurts.  So spend a couple minutes checking today that your backup system IS running properly then relax knowing are covered already.