How often do you test your online portfolio?

Are all of your videos running properly? Are you seeing that annoying "broken link" icon where your images used to be?

Hard drives and servers crash.

Files get corrupted.

Someone proposed an interesting question during a conversation: Have you ever lost your online portfolio? I can't say that I have. But as I thought about it, anything is possible. It does make you panic a little. You've got to protect your work to get work. So I put the question out in the universe and tried to get a consensus on the best ways people protect their portfolios.

The Mozy ad campaign seems to be paying off. People are swearing by the online computer backup. But what if you can't afford the minimum $5/month backup plan? Here's a cheap alternative:

• Open a free email account like Yahoo!
• Send file attachments to yourself, without exceeding your file size limit.
• Store all of the emails in backup folders on the site.

That's worked for me for the last ten years. And I have had to go to those files to recover work. Others recommend the usual: multiple external hard drives and/or flash drives. No one recommended brand names. It's also a one-time expense over a monthly one. No, it's not groundbreaking info and many will say that's common sense, but let me ask: If your work was suddenly lost right now, do you have backup?

It's all sitting on the computer you're using right now, isn't it?

If you are sending out resumes fast and furiously, I would check every bell and whistle on your portfolio daily. We know that no potential employer is going to send a friendly email saying, "I couldn't get your video to play. Let me know when it's up and running — I'll wait."