Win Repair Disc Reminder
 

As some will have noted from another thread, my "spare" pc with XP/SP3 died the other day.
Full blue screen of death, with no access to "Safe mode".
I was fortunate that I had a repair disc.
It has since taken me some time to restore the pc to usable condition - new progs, new drivers, etc etc.

However, I had the repair disc.

I now have a repair disc for my "main" pc aswell.

So a reminder . Create a repair disc. Do it now.
.....(and, no, I don't know how to create an XP one - all the google explanations are beyond my know how, but Win 7 makes it a doddle.)

No, its a reminder that you everyone should

BACKUP


On a regular basis. A Windows System Repair Disk does not count as a backup ! Useful tool yes, backup, no.

<rant_mode>

How many times on this forum do we see users in precarious situations who have not done a backup of their important files.

Seriously, backup your important files on at least two (preferably three) different devices. Preferably different technologies too (e.g. one DVD, one USB stick, on external HD). Maybe even a copy to the "cloud" (Amazon storage is cheap as chips for example and not difficult to use, they've got a web interface or there are dozens of third party applications integrated with them).

Keep your software license keys to hand... don't waste time and space backing up software you can easily reinstall given the correct license key.

If you can't reformat your PC on a whim and without thinking twice about it, then you're not backing up properly. Data corruption, viruses etc. can occur at any time.

Backing up is neither difficult, nor expensive, nor time consuming. With some simple automation it can be done without you thinking about it (Apple's built-in Time Machine for example happily runs on its own, all you need to do is make sure its working once in a while).

Oh.... and don't forget.... a backup is not complete unless you do the occasional test restore !

</rant_mode>

aah.. that feels better.... :E

I just do a clone disk for my OS on all my computers and back up data disks among computers.

My wife's computer froze her "C" drive last week but I had her back up and running within minutes. Course she's still moaning about the E-mail and programs she lost in the last month.

"Course she's still moaning about the E-mail and programs she lost in the last month. "


Learn and understand the benefits of IMAP and webmail

Or regularly make sure everything on your computer is unimportant.

Yup. That's what they do in the business world.

PCs are disposable assets you can chop and change at the drop of a hat. All the important stuff lives on the servers, and that's where 99% of the IT department's efforts go ....if something goes awry in with a PC its usually quicker to reformat and re-install the corporate image or replace the hardware than it is to mess around trying to fix it.

If you are that bothered, a simple script will back up emails at any chosen interval - or just leave the POP mails on the server?

Nooooooooo !

Don't do that. POP wasn't designed for that sort of nonsense.

As Milo has already said IMAP and Webmail is the way forward !

- hardly nonsense - most folk I know clear their IMAP/webmail folders anyway at intervals - I certainly do not leave years of crud there - do you? We are only talking emails being 'retained' between backups. I certainly leave stuff on the POP server when I am away from home.

POP will be more than adequate for AO, I suspect.

As I listen to/read what is put by the various experts on here, I already have a back up of the important stuff. More than 1.

The e- mail back up is an interesting point. Every now and then I master it, and know what to do. Six months later when I ask myself how to do it, I have forgotten. Back to Google. As I know that I am weak on technology, (Sociology doesn't require any science at all, just an ability to argue) - I then decided to send myself a letter with my "know how" in it.

Er, you might spot the weakness in that plan..........

One minute you're just leaving mails on server between backups, the next you're trying to use the leave mail on server to enable access from multiple devices and do all sorts of other weird and wonderful stuff that POP is incredibly bad at (or doesn't do, but you're trying to make it anyway).

Yes, I do leave my mails on the server and just use IMAP to access them this yields many benefits :

(1) It reduces the amount of stuff I need to backup on my desktop/laptop. It also reduces exposure to security threats of keeping messages on a local device.
(2) IMAP is robust and was designed to be accessible from multiple devices
(3) You can create folders and sub-folders in IMAP to keep things organised
(4) With IMAP you can search on the server, and download headers only... this means that when I'm on the move with my iPhone I need both minimal storage space on the iPhone and minimal use of data roaming when abroad in order to maintain the same functionality I have on a desktop client.
(5) I can also flag messages on IMAP, which is very handy for finding important stuff quickly.
(6) I can use IMAP on as many devices as I want and never worry about one device having a different view of the world than the other.... the message set is consistently the same.
(7) IMAP can also break down MIME parts of a message.... this means, for example, on an iPhone, I can download headers.... then open the message, download the text body..... and if I choose to, I can go ahead and download an attachment right then, leave it till later, or not at all. You can't do that with POP3.
(8) Multiple clients simultaneously connected to a mailbox is not a problem with IMAP.
(9) IMAP does message state information, so if I read it on my iPhone, I can see I've read it on my desktop. Same with replying and marking for deletion.
(10) IMAP has multiple mailbox support and can do shared and public folders, a must in a work environment, but also has uses in a domestic setting.

With IMAP you an also choose to maintain a local offline copy of your messages too, whilst not loosing the server functionality. IMAP can then do a two-way sync when you're back online.

Have I convinced you about the benefits of IMAP yet BOAC ? :E

AO,

IMAP and a reliable hosting provider.

Reason. See above reply to BOAC.

- waste of time - I am familiar with IMAP. My post was for loma and I suspect he doesn't need 80% of your list.

Maybe not.... but the 1% that is the server-side backup is probably worth the 99% of other features he'll have no use for. :E