This is the first time I’ve found something Linux can do that Windows (or OS X for that matter) cannot, that being to backup a large Flickr account. I’ll explain. My paid Flickr account has 1000+ photos in it. I use it routinely, realized it was frickin’ huge and felt the need to back it up. The only semi-decent tool available is flickredit....

If you are a Windows Vista user, before you start looking around for an external tool to backup your important data, consider using Windows Vista’s built-in backup tool. Before going any farther I need to point out this feature is only included with Vista Business and Ultimate (much like the way the NTBackup tool was only included with XP Pro and not XP...

I am about to have to completely wipe and rebuild all of our training machines (15 right now), so the easy way of going about it is to get one machine exactly how I want it and then clone that machine to the other machines. I have used commercial options in the past, but quite frankly I have found them to be so ‘featureful’ that they are overly...

One thing you might not consider when making your backups are your Internet bookmarks. Odds are you probably have quite a bit of time invested in locating and organizing these backups, so having a backup is a good idea. To accomplish this task in the most popular browsers, here is a handy reference. The process is pretty easy and is something which you should...

If you knew me personally, you’d be fed up with hearing me say this like a broken record: “Backup, backup, backup. If your system crashes and is unrecoverable then if you have no backup you’re screwed.”And people still don’t bother. When their system does crash, perhaps due to a hard-disk failure, I see them running to me whining,...

Not too long ago I posted a tip on how to maintain a mirrored directory using Robocopy (this is still the method I prefer by the way), however if you are more a GUI person as opposed to a command line person, then Microsoft SyncToy is for you. This free tool has an extensive feature list which you can view via the link above, but the quick description is as...

Situation: You’re going to upgrade your primary hard drive to something bigger, better and faster – however the primary hard drive is obviously what holds your operating system. So now you’re faced with a choice.Reinstall the operating system on the new drive and reinstall all your apps. Use drive imaging software to copy everything from the...

I use Flickr quite a bit and was wondering if there was any way to backup photos from the service using an application of some kind, and it turns out there is. flickr backup will easily connect to your Flickr account and you can pick’n'choose whatever you want to retrieve. You can backup individual photos or sets. And yes you can mass-select easily. In...

So you have a process in place to backup your data? Wonderful. But if disaster strikes, are you confident you can recover the data from your backups? If you are not sure, now is the time to check. I have seen, on several occasions, where people do have a backup system in place, but the data inside the backups is not recoverable. Usually this happens because the...

When Apple OS X Leopard (10.5) was launched, one of the biggest marketing points was the inclusion of Time Machine. Time Machine is the backup program that goes on automatic when using OS X and backs up every file on your Mac automatically to an external hard drive. If you ever want an old version of a particular file, just find the file in Finder and then...

At work, I have a network location set up and have pointed each user’s ‘My Documents’ folder to a folder with their name on this server. The benefit to this is I can backup just a single location nightly and it includes each user’s documents in the backup automatically. Of course, users love to put virtually everything on their desktop...

When Apple came out with OS X Leopard, one of the more innovative things they included with it was Time Machine. This is, of course, the automated backup utility with a snazzy graphical interface which automatically backs up and archives your Mac. You can restore your entire Mac if needed or simply a single file. To use it, though, you need an external hard...

One widely unknown feature of Outlook Express and the Windows Live Mail client is how easy it is to backup your mail locally (to which you can then burn to CD/DVD, put on a USB stick, etc.) Even if you’re not using Hotmail, you can easily back up any POP or IMAP account by a simple drag’n'drop to a local folder. You could even backup Gmail easily...

Any computer user worth their salt will stress the importance of data backup. Too many people either don’t think about it or put it off into the “someday” category, leaving open the possibility that you’ll get burned. Anybody, though, who has been caught with a hosed system and inadequate backups realizes the cold, hard importance of...

As I have briefly mentioned in my previous posts, for my day job I am the primary technical resource for a small business and as a “side gig” I manage web servers for hosting companies. One of the great benefits to this is I have become quite adept at developing command line scripts, or “batch” scripts. One of the most common, and well...

If you run a lot of Windows scheduled tasks, particularly on a server, it is very worthwhile to have a local account dedicated to nothing but this. The reasons being:If you run the task as a normal user account and that user happens to be logged when the task starts, the process runs in the current user’s session. If the user logs out while the task is...

I’m going to say first that Apple’s Time Capsule – even never having used it – is a good product for the fact it’s easy and it’s got a crapload of space for backing up your stuff. A problem that has plagued computer users for years is that there’s really been no easy backup solution, but Time Capsule truly does make it...

There is a tool inside of OS X called Automator. Automator is a very undervalued utility that is bundled with OS X. It is one of those things that I wish came with Windows, but sadly it does not. Automator is a utility which allows you to create a workflow, a series of software actions your computer will take, and then run it. This allows you to have your...