Have You Seen This?

Mat Honan:

I still can’t get into Gmail. My phone and iPads are down (but are restoring). Apple tells me that the remote wipe is likely irrecoverable without serious forensics. Because I’m a jerk who doesn’t back up data, I’ve lost at more than a year’s worth of photos, emails, documents, and more. And, really, who knows what else.

There are some big lessons we can all learn from this. First, it’s very, very important that your email password is extremely secure because so many other accounts use email for password resets. If someone else can receive your email, they can become you on the internet very quickly.

But more importantly, it’s completely inexcusable for people who know better not to have even one backup. And ideally, you should have more than one: between Time Machine, scheduled disk clones with SuperDuper, and continuous online backup, pick at least two. For the extremely lazy, Time Machine and online backup are automatic and very affordable to anyone who can afford a Mac. (And especially anyone who can afford a Mac, and iPad, and an iPhone.)

If you still won’t back up, you should probably disable remote wipe.

But really, back up, for goodness sake. It’s not hard. You can get a huge external hard drive for very little money, relatively speaking. Then you can set up online backup for a few dollars per month for unlimited space. Really.

Backing up is easy and cheap. Do it. Right now.