I returned home from work last night to find a letter from the State of New York, where I lived 3 years ago, stating I was “selected for review for possible audit.” Yay. Now I need to dig out old returns, brokerage statements, info about the house we sold, and most likely jump through hoops to see if I can prove to them why they should get another couple of bucks out of me.
That’s a lot of personal info. With spyware, keyloggers, viruses, and hackers – why would I want that on my computer? It screams “steal my identity”! An alternative is to save everything to a secure USB drive, and access it independent of the Internet when you want to file or review highly sensitive personal information.
I work in an IT world for a living. The last thing I want to do when I get home is be "Director of MIS" at the house. How well are all my systems backed up, firewalls, virus scanners, redundant systems, photos, purchased iTunes safe (and on and on)?Sure. Makes sense. Simply put it on a USB thumbdrive and save it. And don't misplace it. And don't let the kids use it for that oh-so-critical file that just-has-to-be-moved right now.
Anyone still have VHS tapes around? Did you ever tape over them for another show? Do you have them all labeled and cataloged and easy to find? Did you capture miles of presents being opened on the kid's tapes, and why do we ever tape what was in the presents?
How easy is it now to find important 'things', and how are you going to manage the really important e-files that much better?
If I handle my bank and investment documents like my iTunes and photos, I'm in trouble.