Did you however think great I have a way to backup the data and its working however my hard drives are filling up quickly. What do I do now?

Well you have options:

1. Backup Less often (this can make things a bit interesting if you are constantly changing files and you may lose critical info.)
2. Delete older backup files. (if your paranoid like me how far do you go back and delete backups?)
3. Backup your data to a outside source.

So I am going to talk about option 3.  We want to publish all the backups to a outside source. Well what source or applications are available?

There are a ton of great backup applications/services on the web. I decided to just reference a few:

Microsoft Skydrive

Amazon S3 and Jungle Disk

Carbonite

Mozy

Sugar Sync

Yes I have tested these applications/services. Here is the break down.

Microsoft Skydrive: 25gigs of Storage. No automatic backup and have to be signed in to upload. Web interface to upload only. Non Encrypted. Free

Amazon S3: Pay per Gig use. Only a service. To be able to interface the service you have to use 3rd party applications (Jungle Disk) to do your backup. Encrypted transfers. Pay.

Carbonite: Unlimited storage. Installs to your local c drive and you can drag and drop files. Non Encrypted. Monthly service plan. *Used this service for 12months. Did not like the inflexibility of the service. Also after multiple emails asking if the data uploads and storage was encrypted. I was told in summary: Not to worry about what we do with your data. I promptly Canceled the service.

Mozy: Limited storage as of writing. A lot like carbonite. Non Encrypted. Monthly service plan

SugarSync : Another Clone to Carbonite and Mozy. Non Encrypted. Monthly service plan.

So there is the run down on services. However some things you might consider because it is your data. Right?

-Auto Backup?

-Where is the Data really going?

-Who has permission to view your data?

-Availability?

-Encryption?

-Support?

-How to Restore?

In summary all these services are very good. It is hard to choose a service unless you really nitpick.

My personal choice after using all these services. Is amazon s3 and Jungle Disk. As a second backup I use SkyDrive and for stuff I want to just publish to the web I use Drop.io.

Why I use these services is partly out of habit. However I like the pricing schema of Amazon s3 and the ease of making the files stored there made public.

Your thoughts are always appreciated.

The software was originally released by Microsoft in January 2005 as a basic virus removal tool. Of course this is not a true antivirus application like Windows Live OneCare or Symantec.

However this little tool (Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool or MWMSRT) is pretty cool. It allows you  to track down the little baddies (Viruses ( Trojans, Worms etc..)). The disadvantage is two things:

Only typically runs a quick scan when the application is run.

Only has the last months known baddies (Viruses ( Trojans, Worms etc..)).

I would highly recommend you run this little tool (MWMSRT) as a full scan.

Here is the how to:

- Click on the Start button(Windows Ball – Vista)

- Click on Run

- In the Open dialog box  add: MRT

You will get a GUI application that looks like this:

This interface looks allot like a antivirus light. It does take quite a while for the scan to complete. Truth be known it makes you feel like it is truly looking hard for the baddies (Viruses ( Trojans, Worms etc..)).

Thanks Microsoft for this little know application that does work.