As you may have guessed from the post below, my Macbook was stolen early yesterday. It was a great little laptop, and I’ll miss it.

But what I’ll really miss is – and I can hear the nodding of everyone else out there who’s suffered the loss of a computer – the data that didn’t make it into backups. Some creative writing that was very important to me; the high-res versions of the cartoons I’ve created in the past two weeks; various other pieces of data – all gone.

Needless to say, there’s a reward if you happen to come across it (it’s a white, 13.3″ midrange model). I won’t hold my breath, but it would be a pretty sweet day if it popped up.

Still, I’d like to see some good come out of all of this. So here’s what I’m asking you to do:

• If you back up religiously already, good on ya.
• If you don’t, but you’ve been meaning to, then commit right now to backing up. Not your whole hard drive, not your entire life – but promise you’ll back up three files, today, that it would break your heart to lose. Upload them to a web site. Burn them to a CD. Copy them to a spare hard drive. Whatever works: we’re all about the small, imperfect start here.

And then let me know you’ve done it down in the comments section below.

Thanks.