Carbonite for backup

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

With heavy caveats (see below), I recommend looking at Carbonite.com for
*online* backups. There are competitors, and some people say they are
better. I happened upon Carbonite, first.
The pluses: unlimited server space (amazing!); works in the background--I
never notice it; easy selection of what folders and/or files to backup (it
puts adds an item to the list that pops up when you right click on the name
of a file or folder); only backs up incrementally (i.e., doesn't overwrite
files that have the same date). Here's one potential plus that may not be
actualizable: can you access your backed up files from other people's
computers? I know the files are "up there" on the 'net, but can you access
them from, say, an Internet Cafe?
The minuses: some people are worried about about privacy, encryption, etc.
and say password theft is *possible* (I've heard no reports of it
happening); doesn't make a disk image or anything near that; if you want it
to backup .EXEs, .BAKs, and .REG (as in Xywww.reg), you have to tell it:
default is *not* to backup a whole long list of files that it thinks aren't
worth backing up.
Not recommended as your *only* backup, but since it's fairly cheap ($90 for
two years) with (again) *unlimited* amount of space, I use it as an
additional backup. YMMV. Caveat emptor.


Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx