backup
Cloudberry Online Backup Review
December 17, 2009
Cloudberry Online Backup doesn’t quite follow suit where backup solutions are concerned, as in it’s designed specifically for use with Amazon’s S3 storage system, Cloudberry helps users manage their online file storage and bolster their backups for $30. When using Cloudberry Online Backup, you’ll be able to schedule your backups, encrypt the contents of your backups and if disaster strikes, you can restore your computer to how it was at a particular date to keep things as simple and efficient as possible.
When you open Cloudberry, you’ll be presented with a tabbed interface which allows you to select from the welcome screen; your backup plans; online backups and your backup history. I found the interface to be extremely intuitive as a first time user, and quickly got used to the layout of the program. Setting up a backup plan is extremely simple – on the welcome page there are two buttons to select from titled “Setup Backup Plan” and “Restore Backup”. To the right of the page, you can see an overview of your backup, including how much space you’ve used and a list of your backup plans.
Continue reading »CopyTrans 4 Review (Backup/Transfer Your iPod/iPhone To iTunes)
December 8, 2009
You may have seen our recent reviews of CopyTrans Manager and CopyTrans Photo, which are an easy to use, free iTunes alternatives that allow you to get music/photos on and off your iPod.
CopyTrans 4, the latest version of this impressive iPod/iPhone backup utility is iTunes 9 compatible and available for Windows XP, Vista and 7. When I used CopyTrans the first time round, I loved the easy to navigate interface and simplicity of the application, and CopyTrans 4 has made great strides in maintaining that usability while packing in some great additional features.
The most notable feature is the “Smart Backup” function which is new to CopyTrans 4, and backs up the entire contents of your iPod to iTunes. When first using the Smart Backup, I was amazed at the speed at which CopyTrans backs up all your songs and imports them to iTunes.
Continue reading »EASEUS Partition Master Review (Free Hard Disk Partition Software)
December 2, 2009
I’ve never enjoyed the prospect of editing the partitions on my PC; my data’s too precious and I’m a computing malfunction magnet! So I was naturally cautious when I downloaded EASEUS Partition Master to review, which is available as a free download from EASEUS’ site. I’m always slightly wary about editing/creating/deleting partitions, but Partition Master gave a good impression from the offset, in fact it works better than a lot of paid solutions I’ve come across.
Partition Master does everything you’d expect from such a piece of software – you can manage partitions on internal and external drives (both USB and Firewire) and even copy entire partitions and disks, which makes a very nice feature list for a free piece of software. The user interface is extremely simple to navigate for both beginners and professionals whilst still offering more than enough features to keep even the most demanding consumer happy (although no one can complain at the price).
Continue reading »CopyTrans Manager Review (iTunes Alternative)
November 24, 2009
Apple’s iPod has never been as popular, accounting for over 70% of the MP3 player market in its many forms and having a larger library of games than the PSP and Nintendo DS put together. That means that over 70% of MP3 owners are using iTunes to manage music on their iPod’s then right? I personally don’t know anybody who doesn’t use iTunes to manage their digital music collection, in fact I use iTunes myself, but there are more alternatives than people think. One of these alternatives is CopyTrans Manager, which offers a bulk free way to get your music on and off your iPod and is available for Windows XP, Vista and 7.
During my testing, CopyTrans manager worked great with everything I threw at it, namely an iPhone 3G, iPod Touch (1st Gen), iPod Nano (4th Gen) and an older iPod Nano (2nd Gen). The interface is fairly easy to navigate and brings up the contents of your iPod almost immediately after connection.
Continue reading »EASEUS Todo Backup Review (Free Windows Backup Software Solution)
November 12, 2009
You may have seen my review on Carbonite online backup service a few weeks back, an online computer backup service, which I liked quite a lot, mainly because it didn’t intrude on my workflow as much as most backup applications. EASEUS Todo Backup faces some tough competition from a lot of similar utilities on the market, but it has one big advantage – it’s free!
The installation is very quick and easy and when you start the backup tool for the first time, you’re presented with a simple, easy to use menu. The main screen highlights the backup, restore and clone disk options, with the backup process being extremely straight forward – using Todo Backup for the first time reminded me of using Windows XP for the first time after using Windows 2000 with the new “bubblegum” interface, with everything nicely laid out and visible.
Continue reading »Windows 7 Review – Part 7: Compare & Choose Which Version To Buy?
October 25, 2009
If you’ve been following Windows 7 review week, then you’ll have a pretty good idea of the various features included in Windows 7, but like Vista there isn’t just one version of Windows 7, there are 6.
You’ll probably only come across 3 though, which are Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate edition. If you buy a new PC from a manufacturer, you won’t have to decide which version to buy as it will come pre-installed on the PC. Most home computers will ship with the Home Premium version, although more expensive builds may ship with Ultimate.
So what’s the difference? The obvious difference is the price, with pricing at £99.95, £147.95 and £157.29 respectively for Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate version of Windows 7. (Pricing taken from PC World – who somewhat surprisingly have the cheapest prices for each of the Windows 7 full versions I could find!)
Continue reading »SharePod Review (Transfer Files From iPod To Computer Without iTunes)
September 26, 2009
Let me talk you through one of my worst nightmares. I wipe my computer a lot for various reasons, but often have one machine that’s left completely untouched. There are times, however, where for whatever reason I re-install the OS on that untouched machine, which happens to link in to the aforementioned nightmare… I’ve been collecting music on my iPod for years, and my iTunes library is just over 30GB in size, not counting any of my TV shows or movies. If I forget to back up my library and format my hard drive, then I’m screwed.
That was the exact situation I was in a few weeks ago. My iTunes library was gone, and I needed some way to get all the files off my iPod and on to my hard drive. If you re-install iTunes and sync your iPod with an empty library, you’ll just end up with an empty iPod, and then you HAVE lost your music! Before you start panicking about your precious music collection being lost though, try a program called SharePod.
Continue reading »Windows Essentials: How To Backup – Part 1
August 23, 2009
Windows Nerd Essentials: Understanding and Effectively Using Data Backup Systems
Yesterday. All my troubles were so far away. But now my data’s gone, there’s hell to pay. I believe in yesterday…
I fucking hate having to back-up my data, but you know what? I hate losing it even more. You may have read about my experiences as a technician in a little computer shop before, but apart from the viruses, shitware and porn (oh yeah, by the way, some of you people have real problems), the number one question I got when working in Gary’s grot-shop was “can you save my photos and emails!?”
The fact of the matter is, most people don’t run comprehensive backups and to make matters worse, most people who think they do, errmm…don’t.
Continue reading »A Dead Computer, Backups and Living On a Cloud
July 17, 2009
Have you ever considered using an online backup service before? What would you do if your computer died on you? Have you thought about how you’d cope in terms of potentially losing your important files forever?
Well I’ve recently got to find out that for myself as one night last week my computer’s power supply died with a loud bang, plunging us into darkness as it knocked off the whole house’s electricity and left me with the definitive smell of dead power supply – definitely not something that I like the smell of in the morning, evening or any other time of day!
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