Four (Software) Freebies

Folks, I recently became aware of some software titles you may want to check out, as they are (currently) free, and they seem useful.

I do not know anything about these companies or these titles. I have not tried them out, nor even bothered researching reviews (I don’t review software any more), except to see if the websites are safe (they seem to be) and if there’s major scam complaints (I didn’t see any).

So here you go:

* Protect System & Data in Windows PC and Server with FREE Backup Software
AOMEI Backupper 1.6

• One-click backup your system drive to ensure system security
• Backup disk & partition, create disk images and clone hard drive
• Support Windows 8/7/Vista/XP and Server 2003/2008/2012 (32/64-bit)

Also from AOMEI, Partition Assistant Standard (formerly Home Edition)

Completely FREE for Private and Commercial Use

“Hunting for an easy-to-use software to fix hard disk partition problems for Windows OS? AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is the right one for your PC, guaranteeing you get the full features for creating, resizing, deleting, merging, splitting partition and more… “

Next up are two PDF tools from Investintech.com, that are being given away in a “social media” promotion (aka the “buying Facebook ‘Likes'” game). They are available for Windows, Mac and Linux

“Users who enter can get not one, but TWO PDF software programs for free: Able2Doc PDF to Word Converter 7.0 and Sonic PDF Creator 3.0.

Able2Doc accurately converts PDF images and text to Word and Open Source formats, while Sonic PDF Creator offers advanced PDF creation and editing options. Put together, they form a full featured package of PDF conversion and creation software.

Each PDF tool is valued at $49.95 retail price, but to get both for free users will only need a Facebook and Twitter account. Here’s how it works:

· By Liking our Facebook page, users will get an Able2Doc download code to unlock a full version of the software.

· When they Like the page, users will also get a timed pop-up dialog with directions for getting Sonic PDF Creator via Twitter” You can check out the details here.

So .. there you go.

And, I’m curious..

Today’s quote: “For a gallant spirit there can never be defeat.” ~ Wallis Simpson

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Planet Earth Is Blue…

Folks, I am going to ask you to indulge me in one more video (I guess I am “on a roll”), but yes, there’s some tech, too (just scroll down). Today’s music video was sent in by a reader, who thought I might enjoy it. I did!

I have heard that song, oh, maybe.. 24,336 times in my life. But never quite like that!

Today’s Tech

* Build a complete Windows 7 safety net (by one of my fave tech How To writers, Fred Langa) Note: this is IMHO the definitive How To tutorial for disaster recovery — please read it!

“Every copy of Windows 7 includes a complete suite of backup tools. The suite contains everything you need to back up (and restore) your entire system.
What’s more, after you’ve set up your initial backup, future backups happen automatically.
In fact, Windows 7 makes it so easy to set up fully automated backups, it’s almost nutty not to do it.” Read more.. (please)

(‘Cuz it is nutty not to do it.)

* Cyberstalking Victim Wants LinkedIn to Do More to Protect Users.

“After being sexually assaulted at work, Anna Rihtar quit the job she loved to avoid her attacker. And, like many unemployed people, she turned to LinkedIn to find work. But Rihtar’s attacker followed her online. In addition to phoning, emailing, and pursuing Rihtar on Facebook and Twitter, he began cyberstalking her on LinkedIn, leaving messages that were alternately flirtatious and hate-filled…” Read more..

… 24 signatures on her petition..? What the ____ is wrong with people?!?!

Sigh. Oh, well. Have a great day everybody! (And thank you, Dear Reader.)

Today’s question: If April showers bring May flowers.. what do May showers bring?

Today’s quote: “If you’re in a bad situation, don’t worry it’ll change. If you’re in a good situation, don’t worry it’ll change.” ~ John A. Simone, Sr.

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

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.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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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Backup4all License Giveaway Drawing

Folks, I am pleased to announce my latest software license giveaway drawing.

The folks at Softland have generously donated ten licenses for Backup4all Professional to me, to award to my readers. I sincerely thank them for that. So I am going to do a random drawing¹ contest from those who “enter” by posting a comment (below). The drawing will close Thursday, August 18th, and the winners announced Friday.

Backup4all is a program for creating “backup copies” of the files on your computer, which regular readers know, is something I repeatedly urge people to get into the habit of doing! With a backup program like Backup4all, you don’t need a ‘habit’, you can set-it-and-forget-it. Below, I will give you my impressions and some screenshots, but first…

See the full review

See the full review

Publisher’s description:

Backup4all is an award-winning data backup software for Windows. This backup utility was designed to protect your valuable data from partial or total loss by automating backup tasks, password protecting and compressing it to save storage space. This backup application is feature rich and offers an intuitive interface making all features easily accessible for both beginners and professionals.

Here is a “slideshow” of screenshots of Backup4all Professional. For this series, I show setting it to do a basic backup to CD/DVD discs.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

You may remember Softland from last week’s review/giveaway, and I can (again) say that my main comment on this product is it delivers what it advertises, and (again) I can say I largely agreed with all the (consistently positive) reviews I read (such as the two above). However I found one point of disagreement: I do not think the interface is all that “intuitive”, and I suspect the “average computer user” would not get the lead-me-by-the-hand experience they often need (my guess is they would stop at slide 6 of the slide show..). I was told that Softland is working on an improved wizard..
And they do offer a video How To guide, as well as illustrated online help files, so learning is easy.

So, this is my ‘prejudice’ but, my recommendation for this valuable tool is reserved for Intermediate to Advanced computer users and/or folks willing to learn the simple steps. If you have ever used a backup program where you had to create the backup set, and set a schedule, then you will have no troubles doing the Backup4all configuration (and you will appreciate the full feature set). Nice thing is, once you get it set, you can pretty much forget it.

Literally, the list of features is too long to fit on this page. So here is the link: click here. (I like the fact files are saved as ZIP’s.) Even more are available as “plug ins”. The default plug-ins are shown in the first slide; and, in the 3rd, I have added one for MSN Messenger (chat). Again, the list of plug-ins is too long to post here.. so here is the link: click here.

I should not have to tell you how important having a backup copy of your digital stuff is. It should be self-evident and obvious. Anyone who has lost documents and images due to a hard drive dying (and yes, Virginia, hard drives die) will tell you how they wished they had gotten around to making copies. (Often.. in tears..) Don’t be sorry. Make backups. (Yeah. Yeah. I’ll get to it tomorrow.)

Backup4all is compatible with Windows 7/Vista/2008 Server/XP/2003 Server/2000 and requires approximately 50MB of free disk space.

(There are also “Lite”,  “Standard”, and “Portable” editions available. “Professional” is the top of the line, and retails for $50. A comparison of the editions is here.)

How to enter? Residents of the US and Canada only may enter the contest drawing by simply clicking on “comment” (below), and entering 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.)

¹ All entrants will be placed into Random.org’s “list randomizer”, and the top 10 results will be the winners. A 30-day trial of Backup4all Professional 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 the folks at Softland for making this Giveaway possible!

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

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5 Tips For Choosing A Cloud Backup Provider

Loyal readers know that I harp on having a good backup solution in place and working for you (to insure your data, and to make recovering from ‘disaster’ easier). And loyal readers have heard me say that my articles about ‘backups’ are real ratings bombs.

For example.. I wrote a rather informative article, A Parachute for Your PC | Advice about “online backup” solutions, (which included links to reviews of such services) and it got maybe 20 reads.

But this is an important topic, and online backup is a viable option that folks should be aware of, so .. the link above is a reco’d read, and also there’s this reco’d read: Five tips for backing up your data to the cloud

“Cloud backups may seem like an ideal offsite storage solution. But as Brien Posey discovered, you need to do your homework before selecting a cloud backup service.

In many ways, the cloud has solved the problem of storing data backups offsite. In spite of all the marketing hype the cloud has been receiving lately, though, it is not necessarily the ideal solution when it comes to backing up your network. Here are a few factors you may want to consider before you adopt a cloud backup solution.”

Now.. since I used the word “cloud”.. and”parachute”.. and it is the weekend…

Vodpod videos no longer available.

YouTube – Blue Angels, posted with vodpod

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

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Special Holiday Edition (A Giveaway!)

Folks, I am pleased to announce my latest software license giveaway drawing.

(So much for my “hibernation mode…”) Yesterday I received a note from one of my contacts out there ‘in the biz’, asking me if I would be willing to run another contest, and help them promote a special sale they are offering for the holiday season. (Loyal readers may remember, I had reviewed their product in May.) Always thinking of you, Dear Reader, I agreed.

The folks at Novosoft have generously donated five licenses for Handy Backup Standard to me, to award to my readers. I sincerely thank them for that. So I am going to do a random drawing¹ contest from folks who “enter” by posting a comment (below). The drawing will close Thursday, Dec. 30, and the winners announced Friday, in the last post of 2010.

Handy Backup is a program for creating “backup copies” of the files on your computer, which regular readers know, is something I repeatedly urge people to get into the habit of doing! With a backup program like Handy Backup, you don’t need a ‘habit’, you can set-it-and-forget-it.

Publisher’s description:

Handy Backup™ Standard is an easy-to-use backup software designed to perform automated backup of your computer. User-friendly interface and a rich set of backup features make it one of the best PC backup software for home and small office use. Handy Backup Standard features:

• Selective data backup. Back up folders and individual files with file mask filtering (allows to back up only photos, music files, videos, etc.)
• Free plug-ins. There are presets and plug-ins designed to facilitate My Documents backup, Windows registry backup, Outlook backup, etc.
• Variety of supported storage media. Backup to DVD, CD, any local or external HDDs, network drives, remote FTP servers
• Backup options. Enable backup compression, encryption, verification and other options for most convenient and smooth backups
• Flexible backup scheduling. Perform all backup and synchronization tasks on a regular basis by assigning a schedule
• Run backup as Windows service. This option allows performing absolutely inconspicuous backups, not requiring the user to be logged in

(Businesses will want to look at Handy Backup Server.)(Holiday sale expires on January, 10, 2011.)

To see my full review of Handy Backup, complete with slideshow, click here. (the article will open in a new window.)

How to enter? Residents of the US and Canada may enter the contest drawing by simply clicking on “comment” (below), and entering a name and a valid e-mail (so I can send you the license key) in the form. Actually commenting is optional. And, I shouldn’t have to say this, but multiple entries will result in disqualification.

Again, I thank the folks at Novosoft for making this giveaway possible. A 30-day free trial can be downloaded here, Download Handy 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 5 results will be the winners.

Please have a safe and joyous Holiday!

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

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Backups on a Budget

Sometimes the questions readers write in with are worthy of your attention.. and the answers worthy of an article.

Q: Paul:
I have been following your tech advice for quite some time and recently watched the video of “Don’t be a Billy”. One of the subjects you are constantly telling your clients and readers is to back-up, back-up and back-up. Kind of like Real Estate, location, location, location.

My question to you is I can’t spend the money now on a portable hard drive. CD’s and thumb drives do not have the space to do a full system back up. What is the common person to do if we don’t have servers, or another means to do a back up?
~ L.C.

A: L.C.,
Yes. It’s true. Making a backup copy (on some other media than your hard drive) of your digital photographs, important digital documents, business-related emails, etc. is one of life’s DO IT! items — that nobody does.
FACT: computers/hard drives fail.
FACT: without a backup copy, your files can be gone for ever. Poof! Gone. (Or cost a thousand or so to “recover”.)
FACT: Do the right thing (now) so you won’t be sorry (later) – backup!

OK. To your question:
External hard drives (such as USB-attached) are quite affordable these days and are the preferred destination for large backups – for several reasons. (I have seen deals on these items recently that truly make them hard not to recommend. [<$60])

The next best alternative destination for most people is optical discs – CD’s or DVD’s. (I backup to both discs and an external drive, btw. The redundancy has saved my bacon more than once.) The easiest way to do that is to use a Backup program that allows you to point at your optical drive…

.. as the place to Save to (aka “destination”). You will be prompted to insert blank discs until the backup session is completed; which, depending on the amount of data, can be several discs! (Especially the first backup.. the “full” one.) Be sure to label your burned discs properly.

If your version of Windows Backup, or your current Backup software, does not allow this, simply install one that does. I happen to use Macrium Reflect Free Edition for this job, but Easeus Todo Backup is another excellent choice. Both are free, and both are simple, wizard-driven tools.

So you see folks, there’s no excuse: back-up, back-up, and back-up!

[update: a comment came in I think you should see..

“This article is probably some of the most important advice that can be given to a computer user.  Backup, backup and backup!” ~ Rick Robinette]

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

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