How to Save Music
I've been reading about so much data-loss-woe this Christmas, so many people suffering catastrophic storage failure with no reasonable chance of reclamation. One of the things often lost in such situations is the digital music collection. A victim may have spent years accumulating and editing that massive chunk of data and it's just heartbreaking to think of them having to start over with a music folder containing nothing but Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Highway Blues. But there is a solution that I think might prove both simple and popular:

What you should do is back up all of your MP3s (and other portable music formats) to CDR or DVDR and give this backup to a friend. In the case of your house burning down with your hard drive and your entire collection of source CDs inside you will at least be able to reclaim the digital equivalent from the chosen custodian. In return for this security your friend will have complete access to all your music - an adequate reward, I think, for holding onto a handful of CDRs. And, of course you should encourage your friend to give you a complete copy of their music collection for safekeeping. In fact, it would be wise to exchange copies of music libraries with as many people as possible over the largest geographical area you can, just in case it's the whole town that burns down.

Safe to say, if enough people are doing this, it will make us all so much more secure, and very happy.