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Library & Academic IT

Library &

Academic IT

BC Library Café: Your Documents

A guide to the resources of the BC Library Café

Your Documents

Got Important Documents? Don't Risk Losing Them

Despite all the advances in technology the world has to offer today, nothing is perfect. Don’t take anything for granted. Computers will continue to experience problems, errors, crashes, software virus damage, and even unintentional user mistreatment. All these factors are good agents in destroying your important files and making your life miserable.

 

Back Up: Save your documents to an flash drive or external hard drive. If you don't have either, save your document, attach the saved file to an email and send that email to yourself. Online file storage can be helpful too, such as Google Drive or Dropbox.

 

Be Careful: Better safe than sorry always best to EJECT your flash drive from the computer before physically removing it.

(not sure how to eject your flash drive? inquire at the help desk)

Here are some tips in keeping your document files safe:

  • Save early and often. As soon as you sit down on your station, the very first thing you should do is save your new document. Save every few minutes as you progressively build on to your document. Do NOT wait until after your session to do your saving. If your computer crashes, you can resume your work from the point of when you last performed a save.
  • Have more than one copy of your file.
  • Save your work in at least two extra backup: flash drive, email it to yourself, or Google Docs which automatically saves
  • Stop, look, and wait. when ejecting a flash/hard drive from computer wait for a small prompt that claims it has been ejected
  • Use your Email account. Don’t rely on diskettes as your means of storing and carrying your files. Log on to your email account online and send email to your own address with your document files attached. You will be able to access your files on any computer that has a connection to the Internet and support for your file types.
    • If you have more than one email account, send your document files to these addresses as well. In the case that one of your email services experience downtime, chances are the others should be up and running. If either all of your web email servers or the Library Café’s Internet connection is down, you still have your backup diskettes as insurance.
  • Print your document. Even if you are still not finished, you can reassure yourself with a hard copy of your document, in the case that all your disks fail.
Viruses

Viruses. We've all heard of them. They infect computers by destroying files, decoding user passwords, and replicating themselves onto other computer stations. If you are unprotected, viruses will spread like wildfire and can destroy all documents on your disks and on your computer.

The steps written on the above list are all valid ways to protect your files from virus infection.

Here are other prevention tips:

  • Anti-Virus software. If you have a computer at home, it is strongly advised that you purchase and install anti-virus software such as Norton Antivirus or McAfee VirusScan. These programs run silently in the background and will detect any recognizable viral activity attempting to cause harm to your computer, disks, and files. Steps to clean up of any infected files will be taken. If disinfection is unsuccessful, the program may ask you for permission to delete the damaged file in order to completely rid your system of the virus. Again, always have backup copies of your files. Better be safe than sorry.
  • Frequent Anti-Virus software updates. There will always be people out there who have nothing better to do than create new types of viruses. Your anti-virus program will not recognize these new viruses unless you update your anti-virus program at least twice a month. Refer to your anti-virus software manual for information on how to do regular updates on your software.