OT online back up
 

My kid is going to be traveling out of the country for several months with
his laptop. He spends many hours each week writing and I feel he needs to
back-up all that work regularly.

Does anybody know/ have experience with/ recommend any online back-up
services ... I don't even know such things exist, but I'm betting they do.



Thanks

OT online back up
 

On Sat, 03 May 2008 18:16:34 GMT, "Larry L"
wrote:

My kid is going to be traveling out of the country for several months with
his laptop. He spends many hours each week writing and I feel he needs to
back-up all that work regularly.

Does anybody know/ have experience with/ recommend any online back-up
services ... I don't even know such things exist, but I'm betting they do.



Thanks

No experience with online backup services (never had a need), but if
it's just document-sized files, just have him email them to you or
anyone else for safe-keeping. And if it's a LT with an optical burner,
also burn backups for "local" archive without the need for online
access. A CDRW should be able to store more writing than he could
possibly produce and a DVDRW, well, obviously, much more.

TC,
R

OT online back up
 

Larry L wrote:
My kid is going to be traveling out of the country for several months with
his laptop. He spends many hours each week writing and I feel he needs to
back-up all that work regularly.

Does anybody know/ have experience with/ recommend any online back-up
services ... I don't even know such things exist, but I'm betting they do.



Thanks



First of all, it's a really bad idea for him to carry around a laptop
with sensitive or valuable information. There's too much of a danger of
it being stolen. If I were him I'd backup everything before I left and
purge or encrypt all files that I'd never want anyone to get at. I'd
also make sure that my usernames and passwords were expunged from any
"keychain."

I wouldn't rely on on-line backup services. Aside from security issues,
the Internet connections may be slow and unreliable, depending on where
he's going.

I'd get a cheap and compact USB or Firewire hard drive for backup. If
he's only backing up small files, like letters to and from home and
other writing and a few photos, a tiny flash drive or two would work fine.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

OT online back up
 

"Larry L" wrote ...
My kid is going to be traveling out of the country for several months with
his laptop. He spends many hours each week writing and I feel he needs
to back-up all that work regularly.

Does anybody know/ have experience with/ recommend any online back-up
services ... I don't even know such things exist, but I'm betting they do.



I use a combination of flash drive and gmail. Save on hard drive, save on
flash drive, and every so often email to self. Likely not perfect, but it's
cheap and triple redundant, so it would take quite the disaster to destroy
my work.

-Dan

OT online back up
 

On Sat, 03 May 2008 18:16:34 GMT, "Larry L"
wrote:

Does anybody know/ have experience with/ recommend any online back-up
services ... I don't even know such things exist, but I'm betting they do.

Carbonite offers a free trial for 15 days. We have it ($50/year). It
has saved Joanne several times when she has had a crash. Whatever you
select on your hard disc is backed-up. You can access it
whenever/wherever.

http://carbonite.com/

Dave

OT online back up
 

"Larry L" wrote in message
...
My kid is going to be traveling out of the country for several months with
his laptop. He spends many hours each week writing and I feel he needs
to back-up all that work regularly.

Does anybody know/ have experience with/ recommend any online back-up
services ... I don't even know such things exist, but I'm betting they do.



Thanks


Get a couple of 2 gig flash drives and they will hold most of what he could
generate, And lots if Internet points that will copy those flash cards to
CD for $2-3. I back up the camera cards that way. Last time just the flash
card as backup, but lost 1 camera card without a backup. I copied my camera
cards to CD in the Galapagoes for about $2. Prime example of places that do
that in the middle of no where.

OT online back up
 

On May 3, 12:16 pm, "Larry L" wrote:
My kid is going to be traveling out of the country for several months with
his laptop. He spends many hours each week writing and I feel he needs to
back-up all that work regularly.

I agree with what everyone else has said. Firstly, _definitely_ back
up important data (everyone!). Computers and disks do fail (although,
oddly enough, I've never had a disk failure myself, in 25 years or so
of computing). I'd also go with at least two backup copies, not just
one. The flash drives are great if you are just saving documents and
not alot of audio/video/pictures. Burning CD/DVDs is good too. I've
never used an online backup service, but in travelling it might be a
really good idea. It would automatically provide an off-site backup,
which would be extra important if you're on the road. In any case,
don't pack all of your backup media in the same piece of luggage...

Jon.

OT online back up
 

wrote in message

In any case,
don't pack all of your backup media in the same piece of luggage...



the idea that ALL his stuff could get stolen is why I wondered about online
storage ...

He's an aspiring writer and by the time he heads home his laptop will
contain hundreds of hours of work, not so much "sensitive' stuff as just
plain work. Since it's all text and small files I had him install an FTP
client and gave him a pw-protected folder on my web site where he can upload
those files. We're more concerned about theft than drive failure, but
I'll give him an external drive for a trip present. I have a Maxtor
that comes with 'ghost-like' cloning software that stores an image of the
entire HD in case of drive failure and also has pretty cool software for
syncing two machines, if you work on the same files on both, and simple
back-up of defined folders too. It's physically small and light weight,
combined with FTPing his most precious stuff to the website it will cover
most threats, stored seperately from the laptop


thanks all for the input

OT online back up
 

On Mon, 5 May 2008 06:58:33 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

I've
never used an online backup service, but in travelling it might be a
really good idea. It would automatically provide an off-site backup,
which would be extra important if you're on the road.

For about a buck a week, Carbonite does just that. If we lose a
computer from theft, electronically, or whatever, it is backed up on
Carbonite and accessed anywhere in the world. Pretty neat, actually.
And no fuss, nothing to mess with, nothing to lose; it's just up
there, somewhere in the sky, ready to be accessed. d;o)

Dave

OT online back up
 

On Mon, 05 May 2008 14:53:07 GMT, "Larry L"
wrote:

the idea that ALL his stuff could get stolen is why I wondered about online
storage ...

Carbonite, Larry. Accessable wherever you are. Complete electronic
backup.

OT online back up
 

"Dave LaCourse" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 05 May 2008 14:53:07 GMT, "Larry L"
wrote:

the idea that ALL his stuff could get stolen is why I wondered about
online
storage ...

Carbonite, Larry. Accessable wherever you are. Complete electronic
backup.




That does look good, Dave ..... though I admit to a bit of worry about ANY
program that " works quietly and continuously in the background" I've
encountered a few making a similar claim that sometimes got very noisy and
obnoxious

OT online back up
 

On Mon, 05 May 2008 14:53:07 GMT, "Larry L"
wrote:


wrote in message

In any case,
don't pack all of your backup media in the same piece of luggage...



the idea that ALL his stuff could get stolen is why I wondered about online
storage ...

He's an aspiring writer and by the time he heads home his laptop will
contain hundreds of hours of work, not so much "sensitive' stuff as just
plain work. Since it's all text and small files I had him install an FTP
client and gave him a pw-protected folder on my web site where he can upload
those files. We're more concerned about theft than drive failure, but
I'll give him an external drive for a trip present. I have a Maxtor
that comes with 'ghost-like' cloning software that stores an image of the
entire HD in case of drive failure and also has pretty cool software for
syncing two machines, if you work on the same files on both, and simple
back-up of defined folders too. It's physically small and light weight,
combined with FTPing his most precious stuff to the website it will cover
most threats, stored seperately from the laptop

A (physically) small flash drive or two might be a better _traveling_
gift than an external HD (but if you do get him one, remember that he
may need an extra plug adaptor set) and since the files are text, it's
unlikely that he'd ever fill a flash up. Some seem to forget that while
a remote BU service is, technically, ready to be accessed from anywhere,
having that access _from_ anywhere isn't guaranteed. In certain cases,
one might not want to access anything - for example, I'd not recommend a
US citizen access such a service from Cuba, regardless of the ability to
do so. Then, in certain areas of China, it might be impossible to
access it. IMO, I'd look at remote BU as a redundant BU rather than a
primary, esp. in the case of traveling.

TC,
R


thanks all for the input

OT online back up
 

On Mon, 05 May 2008 15:51:54 GMT, "Larry L"
wrote:


"Dave LaCourse" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 05 May 2008 14:53:07 GMT, "Larry L"
wrote:

the idea that ALL his stuff could get stolen is why I wondered about
online
storage ...

Carbonite, Larry. Accessable wherever you are. Complete electronic
backup.




That does look good, Dave ..... though I admit to a bit of worry about ANY
program that " works quietly and continuously in the background" I've
encountered a few making a similar claim that sometimes got very noisy and
obnoxious

If this is a full backup scheme/system/service, it has a big plus and a
big minus - if something goes big-time wrong, you got everything, but if
one important file gets whacked, you might HAVE to get everything...and
I'd offer that if it works "continuously," the connection must be
"continuous" for a least-resources-possible operation (and if the
connection isn't continuous, having the BU data stored in a local cache
ain't gonna help a whole hell of a lot in the event of theft or HW
failure...).

HTH,
R

OT online back up
 

On May 5, 9:51 am, "Larry L" wrote:

That does look good, Dave ..... though I admit to a bit of worry about ANY
program that " works quietly and continuously in the background" I've
encountered a few making a similar claim that sometimes got very noisy and
obnoxious

Carbonite looks very nice. I may recommend it to family and friends. I
do, however, resonate with some of Larry's hesitations. I'm a geek and
I like to set up and control my technical environment.

Larry, you set up an FTP server, so you must be technically capable.
Did you do this on Unix? If so, a very nice alternative solution would
be to set up a Subversion server. This would not only back up your
son's file's but also keep a change history in case he wants to access
older versions. And there are some nice Windows clients for Subversion
available.

http://subversion.tigris.org/

This may be a bit more technical than you or your son want to get, but
it's a nice system. That said, FTP is tried and true, nothing wrong
with it.

Jon.

OT online back up
 

One of the nice things about Apple's OS X operating system is an
automatic incremental backup utility called Time Machine. When your
computer is connected to an external drive it automatically backs up
everything on whatever schedule you want, and you can retrieve files
from whatever backup date you want. The backup doesn't take long because
it's incremental -- saving only the recent changes. The user interface
is pretty cool, too. Unix has had incremental backup for ages, and Time
Machine may built on top of that utility because OS X has Unix under the
hood.

BTW, I just posted this to annoy Jon. :-)

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

OT online back up
 

On May 5, 10:28 am, rw wrote:

BTW, I just posted this to annoy Jon. :-)

Gee thanks...now the rest of my day is ruined...

Jon.
PS: http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2...n_homedir.html