If you are not regularly backing up your system then you are inviting trouble. I
can remember the old days of the MS-DOS operating system and how I would backup my PC's vital files onto an
ever-growing collection of 5 1/4 inch floppy disks. You remember floppy disks, kids, don't you? Then there were 3.5
inch floppies. And then Iomega introduced ZIP and Jaz drives, and today hard drive storage space is dirt cheap and
virtually unlimited. Now you can buy a 500GB Buffalo
Backup for under $150 and that's considered small!
But through all of the changes in media, the key part of your backup strategy
always was the backup software you used. Many people used the backup and restore functions built into Windows but
it was never really that robust. You want something that is stupid easy to use -- something a three old could
understand. And you want it to be flexible so that you can customize the backup schedule to your specific
needs.
Avanquest, makers of fine tools such as My Logo
Maker and My Invoices &
Estimates, have released a new tool called AutoSave Essentials.
I think this is one of the neatest backup tools I have seen in a long time, and there are a number of important
differences to this tool worth noting.
First, AutoSave Essentials is very easy to install and use. It uses large icons and simple instructions. It's
wizard interface makes it easy to set up your backup plan. You merely select the files and folders you wish to
backup, the destination device you want to backup to, and the frequency with which you want to backup your data.
You can backup to another drive, a storage device and even a USB thumb drive. You can also
setup AutoSave Essentials to backup your files to a CD burner drive and burn the CD for you, too. No other
utilities required. Spanning multiple CDs is also easy.
AutoSave Essentials has a very flexible scheduling option enabling you to use a calendar to set backups
daily, weekly, monthly, with every machine start-up or manually. You can even tell it to backup continuously if
you so desire.
Laptop users frequently have backup challenges that desktop users do
not. Desktops are always connected to a LAN, WAN or backup device. Laptops are not. So it is not unusual for a
laptop owner without a good backup plan to lose everything when hard drive failure
occurs. AutoSave Essentials has a neat solution for this. It can log all updated files and automatically back them
up when you reconnect your laptop to your LAN, WAN or backup device. This is an intelligent backup approach and
very easy to manage with AutoSave Essentials.
AutoSave Essentials can also archive backups. For instance, you might set it to backup data on Monday,
Wednesday and Friday evenings and to maintain backups for three weeks at all times. That's a very helpful
feature when you have accidentally deleted or modified an older file. Now you can easily retrieve files even
from a few weeks or months back. Just create the backup schedule and select the options that are right for
you.
You may, if so desired, maintain a backup off-site using an FTP
server of your own choosing. For instance, I maintain an inexpensive FilesAnywhere account. I could easily provide
my FTP account information to AutoSave Essentials and then have it backup all my local files to the FIlesAnywhere account or even to my
web server. For those individuals or companies seeking the ultimate in data protection, this off-site backup
feature is highly recommended.
We all collect a variety of critical files ranging from music,
photos, videos, financial and word processing documents. Now you can protect them with ease by using
the AutoSave Essentials software wizard to create a custom backup strategy for your system. To try a 30 day free
trial or purchase a copy, please click here.
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