Are cars safe? Are computers safe? Is buying over the internet safe? These are some of the questions people who pose the question above might have asked a hundred, thirty and fifteen years ago. Today, many of us use cars, computers and regularly effect payments over the internet without much thought. When talking about online backups, the simple answer to the question being asked is yes.
I have, over the past year and a bit discussed this topic with my students. My students are normal people taking an office productivity computer course. Their computer is shared by at least one other member of the family. They come from all walks of life and a considerable portion of them have been the victim of some sort of data loss. The loss may have been as a result of a virus, an incompetent relative trying to tinker something on the computer or a hard disk failure. All of them reminisce about lost photos, assignments and other important electronic material once held on the computer.
Outside the dominion of what it is one should or should not do, the fact of the matter is that backing up to CDs, DVDs or other media is a non starter with the absolute majority of commoners. Some may take up the hobby right after a disaster but as soon as the memory of the event starts fading into the background so does the backup regime.
With the internet being consistently stable and fast the possibility of being able to backup your important stuff to an offsite server is bliss. Imagine a solution that is easy to setup and intuitively selects your important folders automatically. When you open the program it gives you a Windows Explorer type interface with the important folders already selected but lets you customize the backup list. When you hit the Backup button, the selected files and folders are copied in the background to a fast, safe and secure server. If the software cannot backup a file because it is currently being used, it prompts you about the matter and tries again later. Once a backup has been completed the programs sits quietly in the background monitoring changed files which it will update automatically. The program would keep deleted and prior versions of modified files for a specified number of days just in case you need to revert back to them.
If something happens to your computer and you lose everything, you simply install the program again and after typing in your username and password, the program automatically downloads saved backup settings so that you do not have to recreate them. This time round, when you hit the Restore button, the Windows Explorer type window comes up and you simply transfer the files from the remote server to your local computer. Similar reasoning would apply if you delete an individual file or need to revert to an earlier version of a document.
There are people who are rightfully concerned about their privacy. Most office productivity products allow you to password protect documents making them unreadable to anyone without the password. Certain file types such as images and audio files cannot be password protected at the file level although there are free programs that will create password protected archives. 7-Zip and Truecrypt are two products I have used frequently for this purpose.
