There are so many files in a web site - and those files keep changing - and those files are linked - and there are both the local version and the remote version to keep clean and orderly. It's no surprise that managing your web files can become a nightmare. Here are a few strategies that might help you not lose your work.

Strategy 1: Start by backing up a copy.

1. Create a folder called Archives.
2. Inside of Archives create your main folder structure. For example, if your site has a folder called Information, create a folder called Information inside of the Archives folder.
3. Open the file you want to work on.
4. Before you do any work on that file, save a dated copy in the Archive structure. For example, if you have a file called Information/AboutUs.htm. After you open the file, Save As and name the file Archives/Information/AboutUs4-04-06.htm (but use the actual date!)
5. Close the new file.
6. Open the original and do your work.
7. If you make some really bad mistakes, you can go back to the file in the Archive and Save As over the original file. You have lost your new work, but at least you have a copy the way it was.

Strategy 2: Know who worked on that file last.

1. If you are in a situation where more than one person is working on a web site, you may need to know who worked on a page last and what changes were made.
2. In this situation, put your initial in front of the file name of the back up copy. For example, Information/AboutUs4-04-06.htm will become Archives/Information/NAboutUs4-04-06.htm. This assumes that everyone working on the site can get to the Archive folder from a local or remote host to look up whose initial is in front of the file name.
3. Or, keep a database about who worked on what when. This one causes more of a break in the work process, because the designers have to have the database open and go to it every time they work on a file.

Strategy 3: Don't overwrite files sent from another location.

1. If you are sending files to the web server from two different places (home and work) or someone else is working on the same files you are working on, there is a good chance that files will be overwritten that shouldn't be. This happens because now there are three sets of web files (two local and one remote.) Let's say you work on your web site from both home and your office. If you work on your local office files and upload, and then remember that a typo needs to be fixed when you get home. So, you open your local files and home, make the change and then upload. You just overwrote all the changes to that file that you made in the office because you didn't download the changes to your home computer before you started working.
2. Dreamweaver has a tool called File Synchronization to fix this problem. Like many other handy features in Dreamweaver, this one has its own set of side effects. Here are some links to articles that describe both the functionality and the side effects:
   http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.asp?p=337155&seqNum=4&rl=1
   http://www.tom-muck.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=101
3. Another way to "synchronize" your files is to remember to download all the files you worked on to the other computer. If someone else is working on those files, you both have to religiously email each other to download the files worked on.