Eugene's observations

When I worked in large organisations where computers failing meant the loss of lots of money, I used to protect the computers (and my job) by duplicating anything that the computer system depended on. So there were multiple power supplies, system disks, backups...

At home where PCs are not so critical there are some cheap options that it is wise and cheap to take before a problem arises.

• Have a second browser such as Firefox.
• Maintain a dialup modem and server account for when your broadband fails.
• Make sure you know how to access your e-mail from a web browser rather than Outlook Express.
• Take backup copies of any file that you would not want to loose (music, photos, letters etc.)
• If you would really be lost without a computer, why not have a second one ready to be pressed into action.
• Multiple disks arranged as a RAID array can protect from single disk failure.