A common practice is to backup essential items to your computing, such as your browser favorites, any personal documents (“My Documents” folder, etc), and software specific to your computer, such as drivers and hardware control tools.

Any information you have that you cannot afford to lose, you should store it on at least two mediums. A good suggestion is to backup your data onto a CD/DVD and then store the CD/DVD and then store the disc in a safe place where it won’t get scratched or broken

To backup your bookmarks in Internet Explorer:

1. Launch an Internet Explorer browser window.
2. Click on the “File” menu and select “Import and Export”
3. Click the “Next” button in the “Import/Export Wizard” window.
4. Highlight “Export Favorites” and click the “Next” button.
5. Click the “Next” button again.
6. Click the “browse” button to select the destination of your backup file. The default destination is the “My Documents” folder.
7. Once your destination has been chosen, click “next”
8. Click the “Finish” button, and then click “OK” to verify the backup is complete.

To backup your bookmarks in Firefox:

1. Launch a Firefox browser window.
2. Click on the “Bookmarks” menu and select “Manage Bookmarks”
3. In the Bookmark Manager window, click on the “File” menu, then select “Export”
4. Select the directory you wish to save the “bookmarks.htm” backup file, and click the “save” button

To backup your bookmarks in Safari:

1. Launch a Safari browser window.
2. Click on the “File” menu, and select “Export Bookmarks”.
3. The default destination to save the backup is the “My Documents” folder.

To burn a folder using Windows XP:

1. When a recordable disk is put in to a CD-RW drive on a computer running Windows XP you will see the following window appear.
2. Select the "Open CD folder using Windows Explorer" option.  Click OK.
3. A window will open showing the contents of the drive letter which corresponds to the CD/DVD-RW drive.      
4. You can now drag and drop items into this window.  Notice that there is a small arrow pointing down on the copied file icon.  This indicates that it is waiting to be written to the disk.
5. You must click on the "Write these files to CD" link located in the upper left corner of the window under the section entitled "CD Writing Tasks".       
6. The CD Writing Wizard will appear and ask you to name the disk.  Insert a name or leave the default and then click on Next.   
7. At this point, the files will actually begin coping from the computer to the disk itself.           
8. When the process has finished, you have written data to the disk.  If you want to copy the exact same data to another CD-R disc, check the "Yes, write these files to another CD".
9. When completed you can select “Finish”.

To burn a folder using OS X:

1. Insert a blank disk into the disk drive on your Macintosh computer.
2. In the window that pops up, select “Open Folder” from the drop down menu and click “OK”.
3. You will now have an “Untitled CD” icon on your desktop. Double click it to open a new window.
4. Drag and drop all of the items into the window that you wish to write to the disk
5. When all of your items have been added to the window, click the “Burn” button in the upper right-hand corner of the window.
6. In the popup window, type the name of the disk in the “Disk Name” field and click the “Burn” button.
7. When the burn process is finished you may eject the CD.