The way ISPs these days deliver connectivity to customers is a mixed bag, but it’s probably true the wireless router delivered by your ISP has a battery backup in it. In the event of a power outage, your modem runs on battery for a maximum period of 4 to 6 hours, depending on how good the battery in the modem is. Those who are fortunate receive a modem...

Smart Windows users place all their files in their user folder because after all, that’s where they’re supposed to go. Documents, spreadsheets, downloaded files, pictures, videos and so on are all meant to be housed in the profile folder the same way it’s done in a UNIX or Linux user folder. (And if you’re wondering, yes the Desktop...

In the context of this article I’m referring to local wireless and not the cloud, meaning backups are sent over your local network to another computer/backup device in your house. Backing up your data wirelessly is obviously not a new thing. Automated nightly backups can be done in any number of ways be it a simple cron in Unix/Linux, Windows...

The first question people usually ask is, "If I can simply right-click and archive a profile folder, why would I bother doing it from the command line?" The answer is that if you use a scheduler, such as Windows 7′s Task Scheduler, you can’t instruct that program to right-click or click anywhere for that matter. You must give it a...

The browser is probably the application you use the most on your system. As a result, there is a lot of customization and configuration you may have such as passwords, add-ons, bookmarks, themes, etc. If you were to lose this data or want to easily sync it with a browser installation on another machine, this can be a time consuming pain. However, if you are a...

Installation/driver discs are unfortunately a necessary evil we all have to live with currently, and what typically drives people up a wall is best described like this: You buy a printer. It has proprietary software needed to function, which obviously comes on an installation CD. A year or two later you replace your computer and need to reinstall the printer...

Good through Friday (6/18/2010), The Windows Club is offering a free copy of Paragon’s System Backup 9.5/2010. While I have never used this product personally, I pass this link along because everyone should have a reliable backup process and if you have nothing in place this program may fit the bill. You can read the full description on Paragon’s...

Webmail is no doubt my preferred way to access email. Because it is available from any computer connected to the Internet (both sent and received mail) the convenience simply cannot be beat. Of course, with this convenience comes a price: you are at the mercy of the provider. For example, if you use Gmail and it goes down for some time, with it goes your email...

It should be noted up front that this method only covers software that is registered in Add/Remove in Windows. Other software (like PuTTY or JkDefrag which are standalone executables) won’t show up in a list like this. But if it’s in Add/Remove, it will. Why would you want to do this? There are several good reasons:You plan on upgrading from XP to...

Hotmail allows for a full seamless backup by means of the Windows Live Mail client using the DeltaSync protocol. Gmail allows for a full backup by means of freely available IMAP access. Y! Mail doesn’t have either of those options. A full backup includes not only your inbox, but also the "Sent" folder and any other folders you have. Even if you...

If you have a need to do a simple file backup where you need to keep a certain number of historical backups, a simple utility to take a look at is Gammadyne’s Backup9. The BACKUP9.EXE utility will maintain a number of backups (9 by default) of a file. [For example] foo.bar.bk1 is the most recent backup, foo.bar.bk2 is the next most recent backup, et...

If you do all your emailing via POP where your messages are stored locally only, one thing you might want to consider having is a backup email account. This way in the event something goes wrong or you accidentally delete an important message, you can have access to your messages. Of course you will first need to have another email account. I would recommend...

If you do not already have a backup process in place (don’t worry, I am not going to harp on their importance… you already know) and are looking for an easy and free solution, check out FBackup. Like most backup software, you configure your job and schedule a time for it to run. However, FBackup offers several features which are not always available...

Something interesting to think about is how long data will last, because as everyone knows, nothing is forever. Here’s a rundown on how long you can expect the media you use to last. "Media" defined: Data storage on something physical that you own, be it hard disk, optical, flash or tape. I don’t list floppy diskettes because nobody uses...

Typically, prefaced before anything which requires you to make a change to your Windows Registry, you see a warning which basically says “be careful because if you do something wrong you can mess up your system”. This is absolutely true. Whenever you make a change to your registry, you should create a backup first. You can do a full registry backup...

The advice to back up your data is something that is probably said at least once every 5 seconds by some random person on the internet. Every person who says this is 100% correct. You should back up your data often. However what isn’t ordinarily covered is how to back up your data that you have out there on the internet, i.e. external or cloud data....

Y’know ordinarily I don’t crown the title of "best" to any particular application because there’s usually something better. However, this… THIS… is the best mail backup I’ve ever used. KLS Mail Backup is free and it will backup your mail so easily it’s a wonder someone didn’t write something this good...

While it’s true the Desktop Flickr Organizer for Linux can’t be beat as far as backing up your Flickr account is concerned, I was searching for a way to do the same in Windows and yes, I found a way. The app is called Downloadr. It is very basic but it does the job it’s supposed to do and furthermore doesn’t crash like flickredit...

When you backup your data (if you are not currently, you should be) you should always place the backup files on a drive other than the source. The reason is simple, if your source drive fails you need to restore the files from another drive. While you can use an external hard drive or dump the files to a server (if you have one set up), the method I prefer is...

Modern day home computing is not as it once was. Not-so long ago it used to be that in order to bring the most potential out of your computer box you had to use proprietary software. Any app that runs solely on a specific operating system is proprietary. And yes there’s still lots of this stuff out there. For the past few years I have been slowly...