Hi guys! I have a question and I'm hoping you can advise...

The most important thing I want to do is backup my computer. As a secondary thing, I would like to be able to access my computer and work on things remotely. I have had suggestions from store people and read about others on the net - but I am not sure what would be the best way.

Suggestions: an external hard drive.
A computer program that will make your computer available from anywhere.
A card? Have no idea what this is.

Hope you can help. Thank you...

ali

I've used Symantec's PCanywhere in the past to remotely access a second computer. It did the job, but was quite little slow.

If it's just files you need access to, then a portable hard drive is probably the way to go. There would just be the security aspect of things to worry about. If your drive was lost or stolen, would that be a big issue.

Or you could just get a laptop. Then you could work wherever it suits you.

As far as backup is concerned. There are solutions to suit every budget. Disc, tape, hard drive, online, it all depends on how much data you want to back up, how much data changes on a daily/weekly basis, how readily you need access to it, etc.

-Mark.

Post edited by: Mark Wilson, at: 2006/11/20 17:07

Thank you for answering that one. I am sure that a laptop is the way to go, unfortunately I am trying very hard to conserve cash at the moment. And, when I am able to get a laptop I want to be able to have a wireless connection.

But I am still hoping you can answer my question about site building from the other post under share you site. Should I start over and build it using xsite pro or nvu? I don't mind starting over if it will be better in the long run.

ali

For backing up your system, there are a variety of methods at your disposal.

As you suggested, an external harddrive is one method. I think that usually, an external harddrive comes with a software package to backup your entire system like Symantecs "Ghost" software. That will do a complete backup of your system as it stands right now to the external hard drive.

Remember, that method will backup all the adware/spyware and viruses that are currently on your system as well as any of the 'quirks' that have accumulated since you first turned it on.

Remember, just backing up all the files on your computer doesn't backup everything in a usable fashion. You can't really backup your applications and then just copy them back after a system recovery and they work. When an installer installs an application (like Microsoft Office for example) it copies files into multiple directories and uses the windows registry to point to all of these files. So, you may not get them all..

If you have a limited amount of data to backup, here is my suggested list of files to be backed up (others feel free to add to the list).

For this, I'll be using Windows XP standard directory structure.

My Documents (this includes "My Pictures", "My Music", etc.)
Internet Explorer Favorites (C:documents and settings[user profile]Favorites)
Firefox Bookmarks (if you use it), do a search on "bookmarks.html" I believe.. Open the file to make sure it has your bookmarks in it)
Backup financial data (if you use quicken, MS Money, etc.)
E-mail (depends on what you use) (Outlook express is located Cocuments and Settings[user profile]Local SettingsApplication DataIdentities{some weird identifying number}MicrosoftOutlook Express backup those files) (Outlook is a .pst file)
Address Book (Cocuments and Settings[user profile]Application DataAddress Book

Anything Else (This is if you store things in crazy directories on the root of your computer or in some directory of a program in program files. I can't really tell you what that might be. It's what I look for when backing up a system)

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Accessing your system remotely.. again lots of options depending on what you want

If you don't need direct access to the system, you could carry a flash drive.

If you need direct access to the system, as suggested above, there is PC Anywhere, there's also GotoMyPC (I might even have an affiliate ID with them ) It's a monthly service fee for access anywhere with a web browser to your PC.. password protected on 2 levels (to login to GotoMyPC and then to actually connect to the PC once logged into their site).

Sorry to ramble, hope it helps. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Thank you very much! Mark too! and you're not rambling. That's how things get done sometimes - different ideas come to mind etc. In the educator's jargon they call it brainstorming... so I thank you.

In my searches for things like GoToMyPC and others, I ran into something by Google called Docs and Spreadsheets. The way I understand it, you can keep copies of your documents on some kind of Google space on the net and then access them from anywhere. I don't know if this is right or not, but would you comment ??

Thanks again,

ali

Thanks guys this info helped me too.

Dan