Computers are very interesting things. They can save us tons of time and increase our capacity and productivity, but because we rely on them so much, when they fail, things get scary.

I have wanted to back up my system or get a new one so I can protect my data for months now, but I have also been doing my best to save money and use my time for what’s most important, which means that buying a new machine or spending time doing extensive backups hasn’t happened. Yesterday evening, I came home from work to find my laptop in the flaming throes of death, like someone had thrown a grenade in the internals. Actually, it just wouldn’t boot to Windows. I feared that all my data was gone. I panicked inside—months and months of lost data and photos.

My laptop has always run very hot. Unknown to me, as it has gotten older, the fan has made the exact same noise but has been pushing less air, which means that my laptop has gotten ever-so-gradually hotter over the last 3 years. Finally, the heat has caused something to fail.

The first thing I did was to very cautiously step through some repair routines and a repair installation of Windows. I repaired or ruled out the system files or the hard drive as culprits. I finally went in to my BIOS to check some settings, and there was the sign that told me what was wrong: 191 MB of RAM. My computer had 256. The memory melted. Hopefully, I can get the computer to boot with a borrowed RAM chip so I can back up all my data. I’m also biting the bullet to buy a new, more reliable machine.

Backups Are Important. Do Them.

Backups are expensive, in time and/or money. But you need to do them. Computers can fail at any time, without warning. My computer had been running well enough for a long time, and then out of nowhere the RAM goes bad and a system file or two gets corrupted. Back up your data to at least one source, preferably off-site. Do it often. Backup your web sites, too—hosting companies have problems, too, even with redundant capacity and emergency equipment. You can’t afford to lose your data.

As a web developer and Internet marketer, I frequently have work that I’m doing that I want to preview and that I don’t want the public to see yet. How can you do testing and writing locally and still see what the public will see?

Install a Local Server

One of the best ways is to install a server that will run on your local machine. That way, you can use the same stylesheets, images, HTML, database schema, etc., that you use on your live site to preview your work without letting everyone see your mistakes before you can fix them.

XAMPP is Easy

Many, many web servers are LAMP servers—Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. The only problem is, most of us use Windows on our machines for day-to-day use. Luckily, there are several solutions for running Apache, MySQL, and PHP on a Windows machine. My favorite is called XAMPP—it’s specifically designed to be easy to install and use.

In fact, beyond unpacking and clicking install, there is only one configuration option that I would recommend changing—block access to your server except from your machine. XAMPP installs a real server on your machine, and if you don’t turn off access, anyone looking for random servers could find it (think spyware, hackers, etc.). Luckily, configuring access to your server is easy.

I love XAMPP because I spend my time on my sites, not in tinkering with obscure Apache, PHP, or MySQL settings. If you need to test and write locally, consider XAMPP.