When you run a computer all day everyday like I do it’s crucial that you make routine back-ups of all your data. I found this out the hard way back in college while I was working on my thesis animation (needless to say it all worked out). From now on I keep copies of old projects on several different drives.

Since I bought my Macbook in October I’ve been using Time Machine to make weekly back-ups of my current projects. Macs aren’t particularly known for their reliable hardware so I’ve actually been anticipating something crapping out which is why I started using Time Machine in the first place. Sure enough, when I turned my computer on last night I got the white screen of death and a miserable ticking noise where the hard drive is located. Not cool!

So… off to the Apple store I went and had a new hard drive thrown in there in less than and hour, no questions asked. Went back home, plugged in Time Machine, and voila I’m back in business. Awesome!

Now if this happened when I had my PC I would’ve shit a brick because there aren’t too many options out there or making easy and automatic back-ups. It’s also difficult to get parts and repairs unless you keep a stash of extra drives laying around. Yes, Windows has System Restore but that only replaces system files which doesn’t help if you had some important personal files you were working on.

So what did we learn? First of all, get a mac. They make the general experience of using a computer much more enjoyable. Everything just works (at least software wise). Even though the hardware can be shoddy at times, if you simply set up Time Machine it won’t even matter. Lastly, get a warranty. It’s cheap and makes the whole process of getting things fixed completely painless.