It’s inevitable. Sooner or later, your hard drive will fail or you will accidentally delete a file you meant to keep. And, as a corollary to Murphy’s Law, it will likely happen at the worst possible time—the day you finish writing a long report or manuscript, complete your annual budget, or have to make a major presentation.

It is happened to me more than once, which is why I am such a fanatic about backups. Here’s the system I use with my Mac.

I recently ordered a new MacBook Pro. It has been two years or so since I have bought a new computer, and I figured it was about time. Apple makes it really easy to upgrade. You simply connect your old computer to the new one and it copies everything over. It couldn’t be easier.

Two weeks ago, two of our dear friends celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary. Their daughter asked me to photograph the event, knowing that I am an amateur photographer. I happily agreed.

I took about 250 photos altogether, using the quantity-over-quality method of photography. (I assume that if I shoot enough pictures, I’m bound to get something I can use.)

Warning: This is a semi-technical posting for Mac-heads with network connection problems. If you aren’t experiencing this particular problem, you probably won’t find this post too interesting. On the other hand, if you have this problem, you may well regard this information as a God-send.

I thought I was losing my mind. About a week ago, my wireless network connection started flaking out. I would be connected for about two minutes. Then the connection would suddenly drop out. All the while the signal strength would appear to fluctuate wildly.