My one-line, no-frills backup solution

Friday, August 28th, 2009

I’ve heard it said that there are only two kinds of people in the world: those who appreciate the value of backups, and those who will.

It’s a maxim that’s been particularly on my mind lately, after I spent last month testing 21 external hard disks – almost all of which came with some sort of backup software – and then, this week, looked at two standalone backup applications as well. Right now, if there’s anyone who’s apprised of his backup options, it’s me.

But do you know which backup package I’ve chosen for my own use? None. (more…)

No upgrades to Windows 7? Microsoft is doing us a favour

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

Microsoft’s pricing and upgrading plans for Windows 7 in Europe are bordering on a farce. You can’t upgrade from a previous version of Windows, but you can elsewhere in the world. You can buy the upgrade product but you will get full retail box instead.

And it won’t come with Internet Explorer 8, in a strangely “the sky is falling down” reaction to the antitrust spat with the EU. Microsoft hopes that this is enough, the EU doesn’t appear to be convinced.

But this could be a marvellous thing indeed. By forcing you to wipe the machine and start afresh, it is possible to ensure that all that accumulated crap is wiped from the machine. A clean OS is a happy OS. (more…)

The withering of Ma.gnolia

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

It is extremely easy to sit on the sidelines and say “hahahahaha” when someone else’s system goes bang. Schadenfreud is a particularly self-indulgent emotion.

But I strongly advise you to go to http://ma.gnolia.com and watch the video. The background is that magnolia was a service which stored bookmarks. A lot of people relied upon it for their bookmark stores, and it was a “software as a service”. A cloud computing thing, if you like.

Unfortunately, it has gone bang, with irretrievable data loss.

Without question, this has been a learning experience for those enthusiasts who put a lot of effort into building the service, irrespective of their understanding (or lack of it) of risk assessment.

When you watch the video, you too will wince as I did about the choices they made. “Did you do any backup testing?” “Nope” made me squirm.

But think of the wider SaaS perspective. When you put a SaaS into your business process, do you really know who you are dealing with? Have you really looked at the SLA, the recovery tools and so forth?

Of course, it would be wrong to scale up a disaster at a community enthusiast site into the wider space of Azure or Google or Amazon services. But vendors will be selling SaaS services hosted on those platforms, and on all sizes of platforms all the way down to one PC with no working backup.

At the end of the day, it’s your business and you have to take responsibility for it. SaaS is not a major thing which cures all known ills.

The joy of backup

Monday, November 24th, 2008

I think it’s fair to say I’m all things that are wrong with man. I’ve known for many years that I really should have an organised backup plan in place, but – just like putting in my expenses form – I’ve been putting it off in favour of, you know, writing articles about backup. That sort of thing.

But about three weeks ago, after a brutal personal slur on my character by PC Pro’s deputy editor David Fearon, I finally did it. “For [insert preferred deity here]’s sake Tim, we’ve got the software on the cover disc, just load it up and follow the wizard.” (more…)

The clouds are coming!

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

There’s something in the air. In fact, look closely and you can see it. Up there, white and fluffy, and apparently full of exciting new technology. You see, all the best new technologies are moving to the cloud, and if you haven’t moved your data to the cloud yet… well, heaven forfend.

I’ve just deleted filed two press releases in the space of two minutes that sell themselves on the back of cloud computing. The first was from respected backup specialists EMC: “EMC has today announced its first major step into cloud computing as EMC Mozy and Lenovo will now offer unlimited online backup for SMBs” to quote the first line – head to Lenovo’s Protect My Data site for details.

(more…)