Here’s a discovery: a PR guy who doesn’t bombard you with off-target pitches. A PR guy who actually wants to help reporters by providing a much-needed service. A PR guy who provides this service for free.

Such a PR guy exists? Yeah, who knew?

I wouldn’t have believed it either, except that I know of Peter Shankman (http://shankman.com) and have been a fan of his service ever since it started. (I was among the first hundred on Facebook. Yo, Peter, you listening?)

Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is a free service for reporters that started off as a Facebook group, but now has grown into an e-mail list with thousands of subscribers. The purpose is to help reporters find case studies, experts and people on the street for their stories.

How it works is this:

1. Go to www.helpareporter.com
2. If you’re a PR person, sign up for the main list. You get three e-mails a day letting you know which reporter wants what.
3. If you’re a journalist, fill in this form here: http://www.helpareporter.com/press

That’s it. Easy.

I have a tough computer. That’s an understatement, considering what the bugger has been through in its short life—water spillage (a whole bottle), falling from a moving vehicle (twice), and a constant barrage of key-pulling, food particles, and random punches of frustration.

It’s loyal. It’s trusty. Which is why I never quite felt the need to back up my data. Who does, until they lose all of it?

About six months ago, however, I had a dream that I had a hard drive failure and lost everything. A few days later, a woman in my writer group said she’d lost a novel she’d worked almost a year on to a computer crash. She stopped writing for about six months after that. And on the very same day I heard on a radio show about an online data backup service. Since all these things happened in the span of a week, I took it as a sign, and spent $50 (that I didn’t have at the time) on the online backup service.

And what do you know? Three days ago, I had a hard drive failure and lost everything. But, and this is what I’m completely amazed about, barring a couple of e-mails and a song I downloaded, I really lost nothing. Absolutely nothing. It is now a full day after I got my fixed hard drive back, and I’ve downloaded almost all my data back to its original location.

So if you’re lazy about back-ups, consider this your sign, and go do it. And if you don’t like backing up constantly, consider automatic online systems.

(ETA: I just realized was rudely reminded that it’s Halloween. Well, if losing your data isn’t scary, I don’t know what is. Boo!)