If there's any piece of wisdom that I can actually impart unto you folks, it's this: BACK UP your work! I cannot emphasize this enough. See, thinking we are invincible is one thing, but thinking our work will last forever, that's just as foolish. Even if our computers do not have a miserable failure, even if we never receive the ultimate virus, even if nobody touches the keyboard but us, back up your work. I say this, because there's no other fail-safe contingencies set up to battle the worst enemy your computer will ever have: YOU.

It turns out, I deleted the main file of one of my favorite projects, a multimedia presentation of my band which I did a semester ago. I can't find it on my hard drive, and I can't even make my only copy of the CD to work. That was my blood, sweat, and tears, and I haven't even shown it to the band. My only hope is that my instructor still has a copy of that file lying about somewhere. I really don't know.

Let this be a lesson to you, readers: watch out for yourselves. Save your files clearly, date them, mark your CDs clearly, else you may throw away your life's work in an instant.