Where will your computer files be in two years or twenty? With a little care, you can give your important data the best chance of staying useful for your future use and your family’s. My course on Udemy, Personal Digital Preservation: Keeping your files safe and usable, covers three general areas: avoiding file loss, recovering unusable files, and keeping your data organized and understandable. The course includes PDF reference materials to supplement the lectures.

You’ll learn about:

• Backup strategies, local and online. The 3-2-1 rule.
• Saving data from mobile devices and Web services, with specific advice for iOS, Android, and several popular websites.
• Recovering files that break or that software stops recognizing.
• Effective ways of naming and organizing files so you know what you have.
• Avoiding file obsolescence from proprietary formats and ecosystem lock-in.
• Working with metadata so your files are self-explanatory.

You don’t need a lot of computer experience to benefit from this course. If you’re concerned about keeping your data for the long run, this course will help you. I’ll be available to everyone who takes the course to answer questions.