Backup software

I keep hearing people say: "man, I really should back up my computer" with this look of dread on their faces. Its really not so bad. Here are a few ways, ranging from the absolute easiest to the most nerdly-satisfying :) Oh, and they're all free (at least for the most basic option)

1. Dropbox: for the novice who needs to back up some documents, a couple pictures maybe, or even some music. All in all, less than 2 GB ("500 songs", in Apple-speak). 2 GB is free. If you're willing to pay, you can back up your whole system with Dropbox -- 50 GB is $100/yr and 100 GB is $200/yr. The best part about Dropbox is that its got version control (covered in "subversion" later on) so its great for programming projects or group projects -- its also got a "share folder" feature so everyone can be working from the same files. ALSO: Dropbox works for Mac, Linux and Windows. Awesome! My favorite new piece of software. The downside (or upside, depending) is that its all got to be in one folder called "Dropbox" on Linux or "My Dropbox" on Windows. I put mine on my desktop for easy access. If you want to just sync your whole desktop or documents across a couple computers (Windows only), try www.sugarsync.com. They now offer (because of competition from Dropbox) a free 2 GB option.

2. Picasa web: Backing up pictures can be very space-consuming. If you use Picasa (now for Mac, Windows and Linux) and have a google account, you can back up to the google servers. They give you 1 GB for free (pictures only) which will hold a lot of pictures at medium resolution. Now, you could just use 1 GB of your Dropbox space, but most cameras now take pictures that are really high resolution (and take up more space on your disk) -- Picasa reduces the size of your photos before it uploads them, so its a simple way to make sure you still have a decent quality copy of your pictures even if you disk fails.

These are the 2 most basic options that cover most things. However, some people are concerned with privacy. These sites keep things private (Dropbox is password protected unless you "share" a folder with someone, and Picasa has 2 options to keep things private -- "unlisted", which means the link isn't public, or "sign in required to view" which means even if you have the link, only people you explicitly share it with can see your pictures).

Some people are even more concerned with privacy and are resolutely "anti-cloud". Cloud computers are, generally, computers that you can't see (because you don't know where they are) that have your data on them. So, webmail (gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc.) is a cloud-based service. There are some people (you know who you are) who don't use cloud-based services. This makes life very difficult. So, for these people, there are a few other options. I've gotta write about these later because I have to finish an rsync script first ;)