This weekend, I had a painful reminder of how important it is to back up your computer. Even if you have a local backup, it's a good idea to have an off-site backup in case your house is robbed or is stricken by catastrophe.

Fortunately, Slickdeals user mem discovered how you can get a free year of Crashplan. Just go to this page, type in your email address, and you're set. It's technically an offer for Carbonite customers, but works with any email address.

I'm personally leery about keeping sensitive data in the cloud, but Crashplan encrypts your files on your computer before uploading them, so your documents are safe.

This isn't a sponsored post, just something I took advantage of that I highly recommend.