If you're like me, you probably use Gmail as your primary email client. Heck, I even have some of my other email accounts feed into my Gmail account just because it's easier that way. There are a number of obvious advantages to using Gmail but one glaring disadvantage: all of my emails, contacts and calendar data live on Google's servers. While Google normally seems more trustworthy than most, we all know that everyone makes mistakes. Sure, I could use a client like Thunderbird or Apple's Mail to backup by Gmail via POP but that would require running one more program that I don't really need. The answer? Running an automated, nightly backup script using fetchmail. At the moment it's PC only (boo!) but if you've got the Unix skills and a little time on your hands, I'm sure you can figure out something.

For more on backing up Gmail:
- see this Lifehacker article