Learn how to create subfolders

This and the next few Good Boots will be dedicated to those who are continuing to have a problem making sense of all the good bad and ugly advice they’ve received concerning how to back up what they should back up to where its best to back it up to.

As always I’ll attempt to address the issues that seem to trouble novices the most.

Although it’s not necessary, if you’re a novice and want to participate in the actual backup portion of my tutorial I suggest you:

1. Download a free trial version of Second Copy at www.secondcopy.com. Because it’s extraordinarily novice friendly and doesn’t create proprietary files, I’ll be using Second Copy to illustrate exact and archive backups.

2. Consider purchasing an external hard drive. External hard drives have the capacity necessary to backup all your stuff and are portable.

To begin our adventure and if you’ve not done so already I want you to create Document/My Document subfolders for every program you use to create data e.g., Word, Excel, Quicken, and Outlook. Programs that have a “Save As” option on their File menu. Be sure to include an IE or Chrome Favorites and Important e-mail sub folders. The purpose of this exercise is to get you in the habit of saving all your application data to a corresponding subfolder.

If you’re so inclined you can even create subfolders of subfolders to organize data created by an application e.g., letters to family, letters to the IRS et cetera as sub folders of you Word subfolder.

How enthusiastically you organize your “Stuff” is up to you. But know there’s no such thing as your Document/My Documents folder being too organized.

And for those who have procrastinated organizing their Pictures/My Pictures folder, you might consider beginning a subfolder organization of your photos. However, my tutorials will not require you too organizing your Pictures/My Pictures “shoe box” display of photos as for many it might take the remaining years of their life.

E-mail me if you have a problem organizing any particular application’s data.

Next, install Second Copy and be sure to make a Second Copy subfolder in Documents/My Documents. If you have the time take a look at the Second Copy tutorials on their Web site, but know I’ll be providing a detailed, uncomplicated way to apply the application.

Finally, create two folders on your external hard drive - Exact backup and Archive backup.

Here’s wishing you a Good Boot.