Backups make it easy for me to retrieve files that may have been lost or corrupted. But backups also make reformats a cinch! Back in the day I would spend HOURS, if not hours spanning over several DAYS re-downloading files and bringing in backed up data that would be all over the place. Now I just synchronize everything between my desktop and laptop, and create backups of music, pictures, videos and programs on my external hard drive (which also has online backup capabilities; I just haven’t bothered to configure it for remote access).

Backups are important because I don’t want to lose a single photo or a song. Photos are irreplaceable, and retrieving music from an iPod is a huge pain in the ass. I should know, because I had to do it once in the past.

Why all the talk of backups? Well, I installed Windows 7 on both of my computers last June, and then I reformatted them and installed a clean version of Windows Ultimate retail last month. Obviously I lost everything both times, and so I relied on backups to bring everything back.

Oh, and another great backup tool? Well, two actually: Firefox’s FEBE and Xmarks extensions. FEBE makes it easy to import backed up extensions and general profile and preferences settings, and Xmarks syncs bookmarks and saved passwords between your computer and an external server.

Tags: technology

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 at 7:06 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.