8 Tips for Surviving PC Failure(Part 2)

5. Install Foxmarks

Foxmarks backs up your Firefox bookmarks to a central server so they can be accessed online or synchronized with other PCs. It was a relief not to lose 15 year’s worth of website links.

6. Automatically forward your emails

Emails can be instantly forwarded to a GMail or any other webmail account. This allows you to check messages from anywhere and provides a historical record of messages you may have lost otherwise.

7. Move your work into the cloud

Although there have been a number of high-profile failures, cloud computing is here to stay and most applications will be more resilient than your own PC. Online applications such as Google Docs, Zoho Office, Buzzword, and ThinkFree offer viable alternatives to desktop suites.

8. Use “no-install” applications

Reinstalling your essential programs on a new PC is no fun. However, many applications provide ZIP, USB drive, or XCOPY deployment versions that can be installed by copying the files to an appropriate location and creating a shortcut. If the configuration files are also saved locally, your whole environment can be available within seconds.

Have you ever experienced catastrophic PC failure? How did you cope? Would you do anything differently?