backups

Car technology: it's a bit of a double-edged sword. With one edge, it can be harmful, creating a distraction to drivers. The 15-year-old Antuan had a hard-enough time operating a CD player while driving without running into everything in town. Young drivers today are expected to deal with browsing MP3 catalogs, navigation, touch screens, and incoming calls, and that's just the tip of the tech iceberg. And they must do this while resisting the siren call of texting, tweeting, and Facebook.

With its other edge, however, cabin technology can actually cut through distraction and make the vehicle safer … Read more

Areca Backup is a free, open-source, Java-based backup utility. It's designed to be extremely easy to use for backing up files, directories, and settings. It supports incremental, differential, and full backups. But it's not designed to be a primary system backup tool like Windows Backup or Acronis. It's a fast, lightweight, and easy-to-use tool for backing up, recovering, and searching your archives. It requires an up-to-date version of the Java Runtime Environment, a free download.

Areca Backup's user interface has a familiar layout and look. A left-hand sidebar let us select an archive to display, and … Read more

There are several ways to display disk usage in OS X, with some of the more-common options being the Finder's status bar, or to get information on your hard disk in the Finder, or to use Apple's Disk Utility program. However, while these options will display the available disk space on the system, in OS X Lion you might see some differences between the numbers reported in these areas.

For example, on my Mac running OS X Lion there is currently 184.43GB of free space reported as being available on the disk if I get information on … Read more

A critical part of any storage solution is having reliable backups. Dropbox keeps backups of all the files you store on your Dropbox account, but having a local backup can often make it easier to recover your files. You'll also want to back up your files if you're considering switching to another provider, like Google Drive or one of the many other cloud-storage services.

To back up everything from your Dropbox account, log in to your account via the Dropbox Web site, then hit Ctrl+A to highlight all your files and folders. Click the Download button that … Read more

Though iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches are becoming less and less dependent on being connected to a computer, one important part of owning an iOS device still requires a Mac or PC -- backup.

The piece of mind that comes along with having an accessible backup for all your contacts, calendar events, texts, apps, and photos goes a long way. For users who experience a malfunction of their device that requires it to be replaced, they must have a current backup of their information or be subject to losing it when Apple replaces their unit.

The wireless sync hubs that … Read more

Ascomp's BackUp Maker is a free data backup solution for Windows. It automatically backs up your files and folders on schedule or when something changes, and it can create new backups or add changes to existing backups. It doesn't create system images, so it can't restore your entire system, though Windows Backup already does that. What it's best for is backing up critical files and folders on a daily basis. BackUp Maker Standard Edition is fully functional freeware that displays a nag screen at startup and when backups complete.

BackUp Maker's user interface shows prominent … Read more

Programs don't have to be fancy to be useful, and Snap Backup is proof of that. Its interface is plain and its features are basic, but we like it because it's an incredibly easy way to back up your files. And when you have a task that's so important -- yet so easy to forget about -- anything that helps you do it on a more regular basis is worth checking out.

Snap Backup has a simple interface that's easy to figure out. First, select the directories you want to back up. Next, select a destination … Read more

Apple's Time Machine is a convenient option for backing up files in OS X, and for most people running the standard "client" version of OS X, the use of Time Machine is fairly straightforward. However, Apple offers a Server variant of OS X that can be used for running work groups, classrooms, and other business applications, which, depending on your setup, might take some extra steps when managing via Time Machine.

If you run into a problem with the configuration for a single service in your server, then restoring components is usually fairly straightforward. In most cases … Read more

Today is World Backup Day, and though it's not a recognized holiday celebrated with praying to the cloud or gifting loved ones with hard drives, it does serve as a good reminder to back up your data. (Not to sound like a nagging mom telling you to eat your vegetables, but backing up your data is good for you. Really. And I'm reminding myself as much as I'm reminding you here.)

Now in its second year, World Backup Day was created by Ismail Jadun, a biology student from Youngstown State in Ohio who saw the need for it after reading comments on the lack of backup awareness on social news site Reddit. "I was just a college student who was looking for something interesting to do," Jadun said. Turns out there was a need for it, too.

A recent Harris Interactive online survey found that only 7 percent of respondents backed up their data on a daily basis, while 23 percent said they performed backups every month. Considering that people create and generate 1.8 zettabytes (!!) of data per year, that puts a lot of info at risk. … Read more