Scott Seidman wrote:
Actually, computational life has been pretty stable. I do keep a
convenient list of everything I install though, just in case

Scott

Not replying to you specifically, Scott, but nobody has mentioned my current
favorite tool: BootIT-NG. Very inexpensive, excellent partition tool and
imager.
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/

Imaging is the *only* way to go. I image to a spare drive nightly (two
systems) and burn an archival copy to DVD weekly. I also have an FTP robot
run nightly that moves all files touched since the last DVD image up to my
web server. Let's just say I've been burned by backup systems many times
over the past 35 years. About once a month (or so) I do a restore from one
of the DVD images to make sure the system is still working. It pays to have
piles of slightly outmoded systems around.
--
Stan Gula
http://gula.org/roffswaps