Normally on the hottest day on record, some water would be a welcome break. In my case, it meant there was a minor disaster in my house. The water line supplying one of my toilets burst soaking a fairly large amount of carpet. Fixing the toilet only took about five minutes. Drying and cleaning the carpet is still a work in progress. In addition, the line out of the air conditioner that drains water was clogged leading to more water on the floor. Thankfully it was on tile so it was very easy to clean up. Cleaning out the drain line was also a fairly quick process.

Both of these issues could have been avoided if I had done some preventative maintenance. I should clean out the air conditioner drain line at least once a year and I hadn’t. It probably would be best if I replaced the toilet supply lines at least every ten years. As I was sweating during the cleanup, it got me to thinking about the preventative maintenance we should do to our computers.

There are two tasks that are very important. First, when did you last clean the dust out of your computer and other electronics? I bet it has been longer than you think and some of you have probably never done it. Please read Dust Gets In All Your Computer Hardware for more information on this as well as links for cleaning it out.

Users are also really bad about backing up their computers. Read Name Your Software, Backup Your Computer and a New Service for details on backup and more. Don’t wait until it is too late to backup your data. Spending a little time to do it now could save you an enormous amount of time and money in the long run.