I may be prone to worrying, but I don’t think I’m the only one who feels more than a tinge of concern when I need to fill out an online form, especially when its for something important, like a job application.
It just seems like there’s so much that can go wrong and information will be lost before I get to the submit button. Even posting in forums or comments sections can be a little unnerving, because you’re trusting that submit button to faithfully deliver the paragraph you just spent a good 10 minutes getting just the way you want it.
Lazarus, an add-on for Firefox, now makes the internet slightly less ephemeral, and provides an insurance policy in case that submit button isn’t cooperating.
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Mozy, one of our favorite online backup services, continues to expand into new niches. This time around they have their focus on Mac-heavy networks. Specifically, they’re adding MozyPro for Mac to their existing lineup of MozyHome for PC or Mac and MozyPro for PC.
The idea of the “Pro” line of Mozy tools is to give network administrators a way to centrally manage backups, but they’re also useful for home users who manage more than one computer linked together - as many web workers do. They still use the same basic strategy of installing a resident backup application that ships your files off to Mozy’s servers, but the Pro version has additional features.
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Backup! Backup! Backup! This should be the mantra of all web workers! Our ability to earn and work is of course dependent on the digital infrastructure around us, but more importantly, the sphere of our personal and professional data that’s our digital DNA.
Today sees the public launch of Paragon Software’s Drive Backup 9.0 Express, designed for novice users to replicate and backup their entire PC - from OS and apps to preferences, settings and data…a little like Apple’s Time Capsule + Time Machine combo, but for Windows PCs and not quite as pretty.
What’s really interesting about Paragon’s software is that users can create emergency bootable media (CD, DVD, Flash drive) to recover an imaged machine quickly…something I could really have done with when I dropped my MacBook in San Diego earlier this year… Oh, Drive Backup 9 Express is also free and users are provided with an upgrade path to more sophisticated Personal and Professional editions that provide backup schedules, the ability to image individual files as well as drives, along with the ability to directly mount a backup image prior to re-installation.
Backup seems to be a perennially failure-ridden activity for most users- wavering between fatalist, zero-backup strategies and replicating data on multiple drives at home as well as at online services.
I have the feeling that no, one service provider is getting this right for users - do we need something with the ease-of use of Time Capsule+Machine, coupled with the distributed resilience of Amazon’s S3 Simple Storage Service. Come to think of it, why can’t a Time Capsule replicate itself to S3?
At our parent blog GigaOM, Om Malik is tackling a question that will be familiar to most independent web workers: what’s the best way to add a bunch of bulk storage to your network, beyond just putting a larger drive in your computer? After considering his own needs, Om pronounces the Buffalo Linkstation Mini “almost perfect.”
Of course, there’s no guarantee that your own needs match Om’s precisely. While the idea of just adding an external box with storage is attractive, you need to think carefully about what you’re going to do with it. Is it just an extra drive that you can get to from all of your computers? Is it a media server? Is it a backup device? Do you need compatibility with multiple operating systems? Do you need web or wireless access?
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The online backup and storage market gets ever more crowded, but SpiderOak has some features that make it stand out. It’s not the cheapest alternative around, but considering what you get, it may well be worth paying for. They use their own storage algorithm that aggressively deduplicates data, allowing them to save everything you upload, including all versions. They provide nice clients for Mac, Linux, and Windows. And they’re cryptographically secure from the moment your data leaves your computer - unless you hand over your password, even the folks who work at SpiderOak can’t see your data.
This security is under your control - you can also take portions of your backed-up data and make them shareable. So, for example, you could have a folder of photos on your computer that was backed up on a continuous basis, and any time you add a new photo, it’s instantly shared with all of your friends and family (or at least the ones you’ve opened the share to). Your first 2GB of SpiderOak storage is free; after that, you can buy storage in 100GB increments for $10 per month. You can use the client from as many devices as you like for that price.
Like most Web Workers I have moved quite a bit of my work data online into the cloud, but my laptop and USB memory keys still contain quite a lot that is critical to me and my business. With the proliferation of online file storage and backup services, the need for software like GoodSync might seem to be disappearing, but in reality the need for data portability, synchronization and backups is as important as ever.
So when the folks at Siber Systems offered us a copy of their GoodSync file synchronization and backup product to review, I jumped at the chance to put it through its paces. I’m already a happy user of their fine RoboForm password management product so my expectations were high.
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How much do you rely upon services that are out of your control? If you’re like most web workers it’s probably quite a bit. We covered this topic in January, but the recent failures of Yahoo! Mail and Microsoft Live Hotmail have resurfaced the call to have backup solutions in place if your online email provider is unavailable for any reason.
For those of us who depend on web based mail such as Google Mail, Yahoo Mail, or Hotmail; a backup plan is necessary to keep your business running should these services go down. Google makes this process very easy with it’s support of POP and IMAP. If you use IMAP, you constantly have a a backup copy of your emails located on your local drive. For those who are looking for a different solution, check out Lifehacker’s solution, or GmailSync from Nauman Leghari.
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