Software Giveaway Drawing(s) – Oops!Backup

Folks, I am Pleased to Announce My Latest Software License Giveaway Drawing(s)*.

The folks at Altaro have generously donated some licenses for Oops!Backup to me, to award to my readers. I sincerely thank them for that. So I am going to do a random drawing ¹ contest* from those who “enter”. The contest will end midnight Thursday, June 24th, and the winners announced Friday.
(What? Another backup program?! Read, and I think you’ll agree – this one’s different.)

I am going to start this out by confessing that I had never heard of Oops!Backup, and my initial reaction to the name was.. not positive — but I also confess it tweaked my curiosity! Oops!Backup is a ‘time machine’ backup for Windows program that creates “backup revision copies” of the files on your computer.

With Oops!Backup, you do not have to be “computer savvy”, and you  set-it-and-forget-it. The program constantly monitors your file system for you. I will give you my impressions and some screenshots, but first…

“Plain, straightforward English–I love it. This versioning, continuous-backup package is one of the more impressive I’ve run across…“ — Jon L. Jacobi, PC World magazine, Editorial Review of Oops!Backup

“The initial experience I have had has been great… it is possible to remove the human “oops” from the process… This could be a great step forward in the arena of helping get computer users to back up their data as often as possible.“ — Derek Schauland, Tech Republic, Product Spotlight: Altaro Oops!Backup

“I haven’t had to rely on Oops!Backup many times, but when I did, it did not fail me… Restores are snappy and take mere seconds even for large folders.“ — Erez Zukerman, Downloadsquad, Altaro Oops!Backup is Time Machine for Windows

From the publisher:

Oops!Backup is no ordinary backup product: Thanks to its unique BackInTime™ technology Oops!Backup allows you to travel back in time to recover different versions of your important documents, photos or any other files. Oops!Backup is a hybrid backup and version control.

This video shows Oops!Backup in action… (How it works)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

And a complete set of screenshots are available here.

Oops!Backup’s main features are:

• BackInTime – Oops!Backup works like a time machine for your backed up data. It will save your data, and your folders, in the state that they were in when a backup occurred. This allows you to browse your data and folders and see what they contained at different periods of time.
• Silent File Versioning – Oops!Backup uses Near-Constant Data Protection that runs in the background and monitors the folders you are backing up for changes to files. Once it detects a new file, or a modification to an existing one, it will back them up for you in the background.
• ReverseDelta – When Oops!Backup backs up your data for the first time, it backs up the entire original file. Each time thereafter, it only backs up the differences between the original and the changed file and saves these differences in a delta file. This allows you to restore any of the backed up versions by merging the differences in the delta files with the original one. Altaro’s ReverseDelta feature, works slightly different in that it will always have a complete backup of the current data file and store the differences between that file and the original one in delta files. Thus if a delta file became corrupted, you still had the most current file safe and available to restore.
• Plug & Protect – This feature will automatically back up any changed, or new data, that Oops!Backup monitors to an external drive when it is plugged into the computer.
• Backup to your existing external hard drive, network, or NAS drive, or USB memory stick. – With Oops!Backup you do not need to buy a separate external hard drive just for backups. Oops!Backup can make use of your existing external hard drive or optionally backup to your USB pen drive. If you have a network drive or a NAS then you can backup directly to it by mapping the network location to your computer. With this you can have multiple Oops!Backup installations backing up to a central server.
• Integration with Microsoft Volume Shadow (VSS) Copy – Oops!Backup integrates with Microsoft Volume Shadow (VSS) technology. This integration allows Oops!Backup to automatically back up files that are currently open and in use, such as Outlook’s PST files.
• System Requirements –
  32 – bit: Windows 7, Vista, Windows XP
  64 – bit: Windows 7, Vista

I found many reasons to like, and recommend, Oops!Backup. I’ll start by saying that it may very well be the easiest file backup tool I have run across. It is so easy it is, IMO, ideal for the “Computer Novice”. Setting it up the first time was very simple; and, accepting the defaults will be fine for most people. Using it was very simple too, and “visual learners”, like me, will appreciate the visual method for “exploring” your backups — being able to see the various versions of a document/photo/file is simply hands down a superior way of choosing which version of the file you want to recover (go back to)… the usual method is to look at timestamps and.. guesstimate. (See the video above, if you haven’t yet).

Oops!Backup is not a true “disaster recovery” type of backup program – like, say a “disk imaging” program is; but it can be used to transfer files to a new PC, or recover from a “disaster”. Though I only tested Oops!Backup on a single machine (XP Pro, P4 @ 1.6GHz, 1 GB RAM), and only for two weeks, (I did test several backup destination configurations) it performed flawlessly for me. Oops!Backup is light on resources, and doesn’t nag (or brag) with annoying popups. I very much like that restoring a older version does not destroy (overwrite) the current version of a file.

My critiques are minor: when the initial backup was made, I did notice a lag on my machine which made ‘multitasking’ unpleasant. (On the plus side, though, that initial backup was completed remarkably quickly, and subsequent operation was unnoticeable.) Also, Oops!Backup allows you to choose your local hard drive as a destination, which is not where you want to store your backup copies! (And a “Computer Novice” should probably not see this option.. it should be buried under 3 layers of “Advanced settings menus.) As I said, minor. I do not hesitate say that those looking for a file backup program should consider Oops!Backup.

* So what’s up with the plural?
This week my Giveaway is going to be a little different, Folks, and I am actually running two contests — but you (still) only enter one time (the usual rules apply!). Keep reading…

How to enter? To enter the drawing, simply click on “comment”, and enter a name and valid e-mail (so I can send you the key) in the form. Actually commenting is optional. And, I shouldn’t have to say this, but it seems I do — multiple entries will result in disqualification. (In this contest. Entry in prior contests doesn’t count against you.)

¹ All entrants will be placed into Random.org’s “list randomizer”, and the top  result will be the winner of the 1st Prize: a 3-pack of Oops!Backup (retail $94). I will then remove the 1st Prize winner from the list, and “re-shake the hat”, so to speak, and then, from the new result, the top 7 names will each receive a single-use license (retail $37).
[Note: If you do not have 3 PC’s, or otherwise do not want to be entered in the 3-pack drawing, please indicate “1 license only” in your comment. I will mod the lists accordingly.]

A 30-day, fully-functional free trial of Oops!Backup can be downloaded here, Free 30-day trial. Try it out yourself. (And then leave a comment. You may just win one of these valuable prizes!)

Again, my thanks to David at Altaro for making this Giveaway possible.

Copyright 2007-2010 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved. post to jaanix.

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