Review and Giveaway – Office Backup

User Friendly Backup Solution?

In talking with the folks at Novosoft prior to my most recent software license giveaway, which featured the top drawer Handy Backup Standard, (to read my review, click here) a lesser-known product of theirs came up, which – it was suggested – might be easier (aka more “user friendly”) for the Average Computer User, called “Office Backup”.

Publisher’s Description:

Novosoft Office Backup 4

Novosoft Office Backup is a usable and reliable backup software designed for backing up and restoring your documents and important files.

Novosoft Office Backup is designed to work with just about any type of storage media, including: CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray media; SFTP or remote FTP servers; local network drives; ZIP, JAZ, MO; USB-flash; HDD and floppy disks.

Automatic backup of most frequently used applications: Outlook, ICQ, AOL IM, registry, etc. Email Backup via POP3 directly from the mail server.

If you are looking for a simple yet powerful backup utility, you have just found it – Novosoft Office Backup.

Benefits

• With Novosoft Office Backup you can easily keep all important files synchronized between servers, desktops, laptops, LANs, ZIP disks, secondary hard disks, etc.
• It helps you to protect your business from risks associated with loss of valuable data.
• Guaranteed technical support.

Key Features

• Support for different types of backup storage (including “cloud storage”)
• Windows-based flexible interface
• Integrated ZIP compression
• 128 bit encryption
• Free backup plugins
• Email Backup via POP3 directly from the mail server
• Flexible and powerful scheduler
• Flexible file and folder selection criteria
• Multi-threaded transfer engine
• supported: Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000 and Windows Server 2008/2003/2000.

Unfortunately, I only had time to do the briefest of  testing with Office Backup, but I can give you my ‘initial impression’. And say that the key to “user friendliness” is a good wizard.

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It seemed to me that Office Backup is a “sister” (or.. close cousin) to Handy Backup, and most of what I said about HB in that review is applicable here. Installation was smooth (and it uninstalled cleanly). After the setup completed, the wizard opened automatically. Step One of any backup program is to create the backup rules. Immediately, I hit a ‘bump’ (see the second & third slides) – the boxes on the left, and on the right, are empty…

Most of us have learned to “expand” folder trees. And most of us know how to “select” by placing checks in check boxes. And.. I hope most of us know how to “add” those selection from one window to the other by using the ‘arrow’ in the center column.. (see 3rd slide). But some people are going to be stuck at Step 2 of the wizard, and I think they should have (at least) My Documents expanded and selected by default.. and so I think Office Backup’s powerful tools are more appropriate for Intermediate to Advanced Users.

Office Backup is intended to be run quietly in the background, keeping your source (your computer) files ‘synced’ with the “destination” (the backup copies). It seemed to me that it does so with negligible performance impact, and was light on system resources. But the initial, Full Backup, and the (full) “on demand” backup sets, took a long time to complete (but, I was testing on a rather old machine). It was easy (for me) to retrieve and restore files from the backup (but again, you have to understand folder trees..). My opinion boils down to – the keywords “flexible” and “powerful” are more apt for this product than the “easy” or “simple”. But, I think most people would be better served choosing their top drawer Handy Backup Standard version.

The potential uses for Office Backup are many — besides creating backup discs, you can ‘sync’ folders across your LAN, or simply ensure your .pst file is copied in an up-to-date way, and much more.

Novosoft has generously donated 3 licenses for Office Backup to me, to award to my readers. I sincerely thank them for that. So I am doing another random drawing giveaway, in my usual way.

How to enter? Residents of the US and Canada only may enter the contest drawing by simply by leaving a comment – click on “comment” (below), and enter a name and a valid e-mail (so I can send you a license key) in the form. Actually commenting is optional. And, I shouldn’t have to say this, but multiple entries will result in disqualification. (In this contest. Entry in prior contests doesn’t count against you.)
Entries must be received before midnight (Pacific), Thurs, Oct. 20th.

Again, I thank the folks at Novosoft for making this giveaway possible. A 30-day free trial can be downloaded here, Download Office Backup. Try it out yourself. (And then leave a comment. You may just win an activation key..)

¹ All entrants will be placed into Random.org’s “randomizer”, and the top 3 results will be the winners.

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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