From
Mark at Compulogix ... getting IT to work! 
Dear All,
Hi! It’s your friendly
local neighbourhood all-things-PC fixer-upper. I hope that your
PC(s) and/or Laptop(s), Wireless and Wired Networks, Websites and the like are all
working the way you want them to.
This time I want to talk
very briefly about backups. It never
ceases to amaze me how often people don’t make backups of any kind. Most of you
will almost certainly have something on your computer that you would be upset
about losing, be it family photographs or videos, business accounts, that time
consuming genealogy project, letters, CVs or whatever. Now just imagine how you
would feel if you didn’t have those anymore. Hold that thought and ask yourself
what you are doing to stop yourself being in that position.
Doing a backup simply
means saving all those things that you hold dear, so that they are in more than
one place. It’s not like traditional photo’s, videos
and documents, where it is often impractical to have copies. Things stored on a
computer can be copied umpteen times, to umpteen places, so why not do it? The answer is usually that most people simply don’t
know where to start.
Now I asked around a bit
before writing this, and the general consensus was to keep this to just being little
more than a ‘nag’ type email, avoiding any techie stuff, and provide a bit more
information in an addendum available on my website Newsletters page. So that is what I have
done – another version of this can be found there, with a good bit more to
think about. Here’s a link if you want it.
What is a Backup?
Essentially, it’s a copy
of the stuff that matters to you, to a safe place, outside of the PC. Once you
know where your ‘stuff’ is, you just
need to decide where to put it, and how to get it there.
Get your stuff in order.
So where is your
‘stuff’? You need to do a little checking to make sure you know where it all
is. It’s probably in easy to find places like “My Documents” or “Pictures” or
“Videos” or “Music”. If so that’s great, you know where it is and can now back
it up to something. If it’s not then you may need some help to find it.
What do you backup to?
OK the one thing I hope
we can all agree on is we need to be able to copy our ‘stuff’ to something
else, something that could be taken away afterwards and locked in your safety
deposit box in your Swiss Bank. That would be pretty secure. So what thing
would allow you to do this? The easiest ones are USB Flash Drives and external
hard disk drives. There is more information on all the main types in the
Addendum on my web site. Whatever you pick make sure it is big enough for all
your stuff with plenty of room to accommodate your probable future needs.
Making your backup.
OK if you are still
reading this then you must be keen (or worried!), good for you!
Windows has its own
inbuilt backup program - if you are on Windows 7 then look in Control Panel for
‘Backup and Restore’. Or access the Help and Support system and search for
Backup.
You could just use Copy
and Paste or ‘Send To’ in Windows Explorer to do you backups manually, but this
can be very slow and tedious, if all you really want to do is to copy new or
changed files to (and optionally remove deleted files from) your backup. It’s
also hard to manage if the ‘stuff’ is in a few different places.
There are any number of software products out there that make backups
simpler, I often set up SyncBack Freeware for people. It is a little tricky to
set up initially with lots of options, but once that is done, it is very quick
and easy, which is the secret to doing it regularly, and safely, and it’s also
a free product.
Whatever you decide to
use, just ensure you do something!
What if it’s too late?
I should quickly say
that ‘stuff’ can usually be recovered from a PC even if your hard disk or your
PC does die, so even if you don’t have a backup, if you find yourself in this
position give me a call and I shall see what I can do. For the same reason, you
should be aware that when you dispose or pass on an old PC, your stuff may
still be found by someone who knows how to get at it, even if you have
formatted the disk drive and reinstalled it or if you have run your System
Recovery. There are tools out there that can make sure that this is not possible.
This newsletter is
available on my web site www.compulogix.co.uk Newsletters page, as are the older
ones.
Thanks for your time;
I hope some of you found some of it useful. If your PC / Network / Internet / Email
/ Backup or whatever isn’t running smoothly at the moment, my number is below,
or if you want to ask the odd question or have any suggestions for a topic for
another email or you are finding something particularly frustrating /
problematic on the computer front, why not send me an email.
Kind regards.
Mark
Mark Bright
Compulogix
07968 550 938
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list.
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