Filed under: Fun, Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware
Four apps that will/might keep your wife from killing you
by Lee Mathews Oct 29th 2008 at 9:00AM
...when her computer crashes.
Jason's writeup of PMS Buddy inspired me to write a sort of Public Service Announcement. Since I'm sure a lot of our loyal readers are "the friend that knows about computers," I thought I'd share some programs that I should've used long before my wife's hard drive took a dirt nap.
Prepping a close one's computer for a catastrophic event is kind of like stockpiling supplies for a fallout shelter. When the proverbial bomb drops, you'll be safe - as long as you've got the right provisions.
1. GMail. I took the liberty of setting up what I think is a phenomenally crafty stealth email backup. Step one: enable IMAP and copy all the old messages to GMail. Step two: set up GMail to automatically check our ISP's crappy POP server. Step Three: set Outlook Express to access GMail via POP and leave the original copy on the server. Step four: twiddle thumbs. All emails are now stored in the cloud where a hard drive is a lot less likely to take a steaming hot bath in coffee.
I've chosen to use POP instead of IMAP because of the odd problem we've had with our GMail for Domains access. Phone calls from home that start "Why is it telling me the server can't be contacted?" aren't good for my health.
2. Cobian Backup. I've used Cobian for a while now. Well, that's not totally accurate. It was installed, and I had a job created to back files up to my trusty old XBox's FTP server, but it kept failing and I never bothered to correct the problem. Since I took ten minutes to fix the issue, it's been working great. I've currently got it saving archives to an external SATA drive as well as the XBox.
Cobian is set to grab the bulk of the important stuff: My Documents, Music, Application Data, Local Settings, Desktop, and the like. It's set to run nightly, and shadow copy support means it'll back up even if certain apps (like Firefox, OE, and Photoshop) are left running.
3. GBridge. Ok, this might not work for everyone, but I work for a smallish family business and I'm "the computer guy." That means I get to build my own workstation and hand-pick the parts in it. The RAID mirror makes an ideal location for offsite storage of encrypted data, and GBridge is a handy way to get it there.
Its Hamachi-like VPN and autosync make maintaining a spare set of fonts, Photoshop brushes, and other things I usually forget so easy it almost hurts (actually forgetting these causes a great deal more hurt). As a bonus, GBridge also gives me zero-config VNC access to troubleshoot other problems I've caused on my wife's laptop from the safety of my office.
4. XXClone. XXClone is a very easy-to-use app for cloning a system drive while still in Windows. It's been faster than Macrium Reflect for me, and Macrium's free version doesn't support incremental backups. After the initial copy, synching the new changes is obviously a lot quicker than re-cloning the entire drive.
One downside is that you can't get rid of the confirmation dialog in the free version - which puts the kibosh on scheduling with command line switches. Cloning a drive on a schedule is definitely the best way to cover your butt, and it may be worth paying for in your case.
For me it's the initial clone with all the vital apps that matters. If I remember to do a few incrementals here and there, GREAT. If not, well, it's the data that's most important and I think I've got that covered.
I won't guarantee that running these four programs will allow you to escape totally unscathed, but if they prevent one angry phone call to your workplace then I've done my job.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mike k. said 9:45AM on 10-29-2008
Can I add that any decent file recovery software is a must have as well to look like a hero in the eyes of your wife or significant other.
My now wife lost an external hard drive that she'd been storing all of her music and photos on (no backup, just on the drive). It crapped out. She was devastated.
I looked around found a program called "recover my files". and Viola all the files were returned (all beit i had to rename a good bit of them by writing a program that organized the photos by their EXIF data, but thats a whole other story).
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mike k. said 9:43AM on 10-29-2008
Note the program i referenced about is about 80 bucks, but the price has been well worth it, I've recovered about 10 of my own and or friend and families drives with it since I bought it two years ago.
techandlife said 10:13AM on 10-29-2008
That file recovery program looks interesting. I wonder how it compares against free ones like Recuva, PC Inspector File Recovery, FreeUndelete, Pandora File Recovery and Restoration. Are these free offerings as good as a paid-for program. Anyone done a comparison?
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mike k. said 2:56PM on 10-29-2008
I've never done a comparison. I remember when i was looking for that software 2 years ago their really was no freeware programs I could find at the time that adequately did what I needed to do. I'm sure things evolve.
I'd say any decent, free or pay, file recovery program is a must have in your arsenal of utilities.
xdreamwalker said 10:32AM on 10-29-2008
On a side note, I have not had any problem using IMAP and GMail for my domain.
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Jash Sayani said 4:15PM on 10-29-2008
Yeah, Google Apps is great. Works flawlessly!!
Not had any problems so far too.....
Jon Turner said 9:50AM on 10-30-2008
I've just discovered google apps myself and haveset them up to handle my domain email, all i can say is......WOW!
I can't believe its all free! Absolutely fantastic system!
On a side note, with regard to recovery, I'd recommend Recuva for the free option, but I have previously had superb results with 'Power Data Recovery'.
sean bean said 6:48PM on 11-25-2008
i used "recover my files" when one of our hardrives failed four years ago... granted it found photos... but it was useless for my personally created text files and e'mail... it found every single microsoft .txt... (which of course reside on the MS install disk...) but none of my personal texts or anything... found none of my far more important e'mail from firefox and netscape...
i still have the drive and live in hopes of retrieving the 1989-1998 archives of e'mail...
if i can ever find a decent recovery program that doesn't spend hours retrieving the ms-install disk files
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D said 10:12AM on 12-01-2008
Hi, I'm surprised no one has mentioned SpinRite from Steve Gibsons' site
GRC.com .
If it can't recover the data on a pooched drive then the data no longer exists.
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waffler said 6:27AM on 12-17-2008
Regarding the comment about the confirmation box in xxclone - try installing AutoIt and using that to generate a script to run xxclone. You can then compile the script into a .exe which can be scheduled - and Robert is your Mother's Brother.
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bobby said 11:22AM on 1-07-2009
Takes a slightly different mindset, but knoppix or RIPLinux will do ya.. and they're free downloads ;-)
http://www.knoppix.net/
http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/
As for safety, use a live linux distro with a big swap partition/file & a usb key for persistent data.. if the whole damn 'puter dies, just get a new one & on you go. Best part is, you (she) can take your computer (cd & usb key) with you wherever you go. Insert the disk in a friends computer, boot & it's 'your' computer.. Heck, with 5gig keys, dump the cd & go for portable! - Don't forget to keep a duplicate key.. Still, even keeping Microsoft as a main system, linux makes the best all-round recovery systems out there.. My first intro to linux recovery (knoppix 6 years ago) was from a Microsoft system maintainer who needed to do some XP recovery work.
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Wayne said 8:31PM on 1-11-2009
Thought I was the only one using XXclone.
I don't really know that much about b/u software and I hope I did it right.
There is a boot listing for it.
My question is, how important, and why, is the "speed" slider in the app.?
My last b/u took a day and a half on an 80 gig drive w/ about 30 gigs of data.
And one last thing.
At the top right of this very page is a link tohttp://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/10/12/13-great-free-backup-programs-for-windows-mac-and-linux/
and it doesn't even mention XXClone.
My first time here. Gonna' subscribe to RSS.
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Aaron said 5:45PM on 2-20-2009
Its not free but its Awesome... Windows Home Server. It will doing a nightly backup of your entire system. If the hdd fails all you do is put a new one in and then load from a dvd that you get with the home server and select the last backup you did and bam your computer is back to how it was. No having to reinstall the OS and all of your programs and copying over all your music / files from another hdd its all done in one shot. I've used it before after I got a virus and just didnt want to take the time to find it and get rid of it I just backed up to two days before I got it and bam everything was just fine and dandy.
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