I have blogged about free ways to backup and a free anti-virus program in the past. While these are good tools , I have had a life altering experience. Well not really life altering but it was very cool. I have started a 90 day trial of OneCare (
http://onecare.live.com). I really like it. I would explain this product as having a corporate IT department for your home computer. My IT department at work does regular scans of my work computer for viruses, backs up my files and does all the maintenance tasks that we should be doing at home, but for some reason we never do them. Well OneCare changes all of that. Not only does it do all that stuff, but it works as seamlessly as Microsoft Update, they also include a help center. I would have to give this product 5 gold stars. The only think I don’t like is that costs money but they do provide a 90 day trial and they allow you to use it on 3 computers.