I'll second the approach of using a USB thumb/keychain drive to backup your most important documents and data. It's simple, small (although easily lost), and can plug right into most newer computers that have a USB port.

Mine is stashed in one of my BoBs. I keep all important files/documents in one particular main folder. Then I just copy that main folder over to the thumb drive every week or two.

Although there's a CD burner on my computer and two packs of blank CDs in the house, I found I was only backing up via CDs maybe two or three times a year. (Shame on me! I should know better after losing two hard drives in a year.) <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />