A little work now saves lots of heartache later
 | | Nick Guy |
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On a nostalgia trip a few months back, I opened the Photos app on my computer to look at pictures from my high school production of “Jesus Christ Superstar." But I didn’t have them — I scrolled all the way to the earliest photos, and I was surprised to find that the first photos I had were from college, a few years later. That’s when I remembered that my laptop’s hard drive crashed in college. Those photos from the musical, and everything else up until my senior year, were gone for good. |
Had I backed up my computer in some way, that lost hard drive would’ve been an inconvenience, but not a loss of memories. If you’ve ever lost photos, documents or your music library, you also know just how fleeting your digital life can be. The same can be true of irreplaceable physical goods. |
Taking a few steps to protect your digital and physical belongings now can mean that, even in a terrible situation, you won’t lose the things that have sentimental or material value. And it’s easier (and cheaper) than you might think. In collaboration with Wirecutter, a New York Times company that reviews and recommends products, here are five cheap(ish) things that will protect your digital files and physical belongings. |
An external hard drive can save regular, time-stamped backups of your entire hard drive. Even if you have an online backup service, such as iCloud, keeping a local copy means you don’t need to worry about having an internet connection, and you don’t have to worry about a cloud-server failure. |
As we explain in Wirecutter’s guide to backing up your computer, both Macs and Windows PCs have free, built-in backup software, which makes the process passive and pretty painless. Take 15 minutes to set it up and your computer will automatically archive your files on a regular schedule as long as you have the drive connected. You can restore the computer’s entire contents in the event of a catastrophe, or any individual files as needed. The 2 TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim USB hard drive is Wirecutter’s top pick for backing up all your files locally. It’s reliable, thin and fast, and you can easily take it with you on the go. |
Using an external hard drive to back up your files is great, but if a disaster like a fire or a flood occurs, you might lose both your computer and your external hard drive. That’s why it’s important to back up online as well. For $60 a year, Wirecutter’s recommendation, Backblaze, will securely copy your computer’s contents to the cloud without storage limits. You can download your files as needed, or even have a USB drive containing all your data mailed to you. |
In addition to backing up your files, it’s important to secure your digital identity. A crucial step is to use strong, unique passwords for every online login you have. 1Password is Wirecutter’s favorite password manager. It holds all your passwords in an encrypted database, and you can use a browser extension to automatically fill them in. The software works across Windows, macOS, iOS and Android, so can access your passwords on almost any device. It even includes 1 GB of secure file storage for your most important documents. |
Even if most of your important documents are digitized on your computer, there are still important physical items worth protecting, like birth certificates, passports, cash and jewelry. A document safe can protect them from damage in the event of a fire or flood, in addition to keeping them out of the hands of thieves. Wirecutter recommends the Honeywell 1104. While it’s heavier and larger than safes with comparable storage volume, the Honeywell is independently rated to last longer, in hotter fires, and it’s also waterproof. |
This week I’ve invited my colleague Kendra Pierre-Louis to give us all an important lesson about digital life: Don’t ever snitch tag. |
Imagine yourself at a party complaining that some author’s latest book isn’t up to snuff. Now picture a nearby stranger pulling the author over and telling them you think their work is terrible. Said stranger also whips out their cellphone to play a recording of you lobbing your critique. |
If this sounds bizarre and cruel, you would be correct. And yet, a variation of this plays out daily on social media. It’s called snitch tagging. |
This happens when someone makes a comment about a person, without tagging them — for example, not using the @ function on Twitter — and a third party decides to tag the person being mentioned, bringing the original comment to their attention. |
Snitch tagging is often cruel for the person mentioned. The expression “What other people think of you is none of your business” exists for a reason. They can Google their name if they want to know what other people think of them — don’t tag them into haterade. |
It can also be dangerous. Many women, for example, avoid tagging or even spelling out Elon Musk’s name on Twitter because it can open them up to targeted harassment. Fielding rape and death threats shouldn’t be the consequence of critiquing Starlink’s impact on astronomy. |
