I discovered a cool new web site last week, called mozy.com. Mozy is a web backup tool — you install some client software on your Windows machine (only XP and 2003 are supported), and set a schedule, and it backs up whatever data you want to their site, using https and blowfish encryption. It's smart enough to not back up files that haven't changed since the last backup, and you can store up to 2 GB of data for free. If you need more space, you can pay for it, but I'm only using a small fraction of my quota so far.
I installed it and backed up some stuff, and it's worked like a charm so far. It's certainly easier than remembering to burn a CD now and again. I keep some copies of personal stuff (like my family web site and a spreadsheet containing my weight loss information, for example) on my work machine, and it occurred to me recently (when someone at Gail's work was let go) that if something happened to my job (which I think is unlikely, but you never know), I doubt that they'd let me burn a CD with a bunch of stuff from my laptop before leaving. Obviously in the case of the web site, I could simply download everything, but there are other files that I'd lose. Now I have a copy of all that stuff online, and I don't have to think about backing it up.
The best part, other than the fact that it's free, is that there is no spyware or other crap installed with it, and no advertising either. Now, I haven't tried restoring any data yet, so perhaps that part is painful. I should probably try that, but so far, Mozy is a really cool tool.
Note: If you click on the mozy.com link above and install and start using Mozy, you and I will each get an extra 256MB of free backup space. So if you decide to start using it, use that link instead of going there yourself, and we both benefit! Alternatively, you can use my referral code EN5GHI or my email address gperrow AT ianywhere DOT com when you register.
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