MobilityMinded » Backup

Backupify – Backup your online data

Paul Willen — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 01:00:40 +0000

Backing up data in a proper way is not easy at all. A few months ago I reviewed the Clickfree Portable Backup Drive. That backup drive is good to backup all sorts of data stored on your computer or on your laptop. But what about YOUR data which is stored online.

Imagine you would lose data from one or more of these online services. Flick, Twitter, Gmail, Google Docs, Facebook, Delicious, Hotmail. Personally for me that would be a true disaster. I’ve got all my pictures in my Flickr Account (well over 10.000 photo’s), all my e-mails in Gmail and Hotmail and I’ve got several other valuable data on my Twitter and Facebook account. If one of these services would go down that would be a little bit of a personal disaster. Backupify can be a solution to prevent loosing this data.

Services and Settings

Backupify is a service which brings data-backup of a lot of services on the internet. Currently the supported services are: Flick, Twitter, Delicious, Zoho, Google Docs, Photobucket, and WordPress.
There are a few services in beta these are: Basecamp, Gmail, Facebook, FriendFeed, Blogger and Hotmail.
Other services which should be available soon are: Youtube, Xmarks, RssFeed and Tumblr.

In the settings you can add your settings to the different services. It is possible to add more than one account of a service. In the example below I added two Twitter accounts to the backup service.

The process of adding a service is different for each service. For instance adding a Twitter account can be done by logging in and granting backupify to access your twitter account with a token. But in order to perform a backup for your Gmail account you need to keep you gmail password stored within you backupify account.

An other option in the settings is to choose how often a backup should be automatically performed. You can choose to do a daily or a weekly backup and you can choose when you would like to be informed about the backup status:

Backupify uses Amazon S3 service (http://aws.amazon.com/s3/) to store the backupped files. The backupped files can’t be downloaded all at one to your PC or Laptop, Single files need to be downloaded from the Archives in Backupify

Final Thoughts

First of all I would like to give a question in de FAQ-section on the Backupify website a little bit more attention.

How do I know what was backed up?
Initial backups usually take 24 – 48 hours, depending on how much data you have in your accounts. Once you sign up, you can access all your data from the “archives” page simply by choosing a service from the drop down menu. We also give you the option of receiving daily or weekly digests of which services were backed up

I registered about 24 hours ago and untill now no item can be found in the archives page. According to the FAQ above this is completely normal. I will update this page as soon as I see an item in my Archives page.

But what’s more important to know is that for users who register an account at Backupify until Jan 31st 2010, their account will be a free subscription. New users after Jan 31st 2010 will have to pay for the Backupify service. So go over there and grab yourself a Backupify account while it’s still free.

UPDATE

Jan 8th 2009: My (large) Flickr account is now available in the Backupify Archives – It looks like ALL my pictures are backupped correctly -. I’m very impressed!

My Phone Premium Service and New Features reviewed

Paul Willen — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:30:05 +0000

Yesterday was the day that Microsoft Launched Windows Mobile 6.5, Windows Phones and Windows Marketplace. In addition to these announcements, Microsoft also upgraded their My Phone service. First of all: the My Phone service, covered by Remo a couple of months ago, isn’t in beta anymore and is public to any Windows Mobile user. Go to http://myphone.microsoft.com and signup!

With the upgrade of My Phone, Microsoft included a few extra features.

Archive Items

When archiving in Microsoft My Phone, you basically free-up space data you don’t need directly anymore on your phone. If you have hundreds of Text-Messages or Photos, there are for sure going to be some items you don’t want to keep on your device but definitely want to keep available to you.
Then it is possible to archive these items which means that they will be deleted from your Windows Phone but still will be available in the My Phone web account’s archive section.

Share Photos

You can easily share pictures you took with a number of social networking services. Currently these services are Flickr, Facebook and MySpace. Sadly Twitter isn’t included at this moment, but I hope this service will be added soon too. Sharing photos is possible on 2 ways: Via the My Phone web account and via the My Phone application on your Windows Phone.

If you want to upload a picture to Flickr via the My Phone application on your Windows Phone you need to set up the Flickr service on the web account first (due to the Flickr authorization model).

A close discription of sharing photos can be found on the My Phone help site

Locate your Windows Phone

With the Locate or erase service you can login on your My Phone web account and click on the phone you would like to Locate. The locate functionality shows a Map with the location of the phone when it was last synced with the My Phone service. If GPS is enabled the location shown on the map is more accurate.

Premium Services

Besides the Share and Archive services Microsoft introduces My Phone “Premium Services”. These services won’t be free of charge, but will give a Windows Phone user the ability to take a few actions when the device is lost.

Ring your phone

If you’ve lost your phone you can go to the web account of your My Phone and choose to ring your phone. The phone will start to ring EVEN if you set your phone to mute or vibrate. The phone will ring for 60 seconds and when you look at the phone a message will appear on the screen that the owner (with the registered “Live” email address) is looking for his device.

Lock your Phone

The new My Phone service also gives you the possibility to Lock your device remotely via the web account of My Phone. If you’ve lost your device or if your device is stolen this is a good way to secure your private data.

In the web account enter a 4-digit PIN number and a optional message to display on your phone’s homescreen. The optional message can contain 53 characters, more than enough to enter a telephone number (please not your own cell-number) or an email address.

Erase your phone

The third premium service is to erase your Windows Phone completely. With this My Phone service you have the possibility to erase all the content of your phone AND storage card. Using this functionality your device will be restored to factory settings and of course will also loose it’s connection to the My Phone service. But if you’ve got a lot of confidential information on your Phone and Storage card and your phone is lost, this is a perfect option to make sure your data is not viewed by strangers.

Thoughts & Wrap-up

The My Phone update is really impressive to me. Normally when beta software is going public you would notice some bug-fixes and speed improvements. Microsoft managed to add some really nice features to the My Phone service. The premium services can be a real life saver if you’ve lost your phone, or someone stole your phone. Overall I would say My Phone is a must-have for every Windows Phone user. So go over to http://myphone.microsoft.com on your PC and http://mobile.microsoft.com/myphone on your Windows Phone and start using My Phone!

Microsoft MyPhone Service Public Beta, Sign-up today !

Remo Knops — Wed, 20 May 2009 11:17:47 +0000

Back at Mobile World Congress 2009, Microsoft announced the MyPhone service in addition to Windows Mobile 6.5. Since the announcement and the first launch, the MyPhone service has been an invite only program, however yesterday Microsoft MyPhone for Windows Phones is in the public beta stage. If you want to get an overview about the functionality check out the MobilityMinded Microsoft MyPhone (p)review after MWC 2009.

“With today’s release, we’re opening the beta to all users — no more waiting list or promotional codes! So you can tell your friends, family and colleagues with Windows Mobile phones to visit http://myphone.microsoft.com and start using My Phone today.” [ref02]

The first change I noticed was the slight changes in the logo design, perhaps symobiling the “global” roll-out of the application. Indeed no more waiting for a promotional code, and furthermore the Microsoft MyPhone Team did some huge improvements:

“Today’s web site upgrade includes enabling 19 additional languages on the web portal, adding a Video Demo on the welcome page, providing Help content, and making a number of other improvements based on your feedback.” [ref02]

The localization into 19 languages is a huge improvement, resulting in a custom lozalized user experience. Second great that a “help” or FAQ section is added to the website so users can troubleshoot if necessary and decide if they want to decide or not. Great from a customer perspective, and you should certainly check out the video demo on the homescreen.

Overall wrap-up

Jack Cook of Experience Mobility describes it as: “MyPhone – You need this !”. Personally I fully agree and can tell you from my own experience that this is service is of great value for you Windows Phone. It feels good that your important personal information is stored somewhere safe in the cloud (in case your Windows Phone get lost for example). If you are still a little uncertain check out the review about the MyPhone service on this website.

The localizations make it possible for consumers to have the Windows Mobile experience in their own language, and the help-section answers the most important questions of this service in an good overview. However these improvements are not the only improvements, since the MyPhone Team has also announced to upgrade the client in the near future:

“Over the next few weeks, we will be updating the companion software for your phone, at which time you will be prompted to download the updated software. The upgrade process is quick and easy – all your settings and data will be retained — so we encourage you to upgrade when prompted to do so.” [ref02]

Finally simply don’t wait any longer, sign-up today and get your copy of the client over here !

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Clickfree Portable Backup Drive Review

Paul Willen — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:23:00 +0000

In this review I’ll point out my thoughts about the Clickfree Portable Backup drive.

Imagine your PC and Harddrive would crash right here, right now. What kind of data would be lost. Valuable pictures, Video’s, Important Word Documents? Or even worse like financial data.
The magic word would be backup. But isn’t it always the same thing with backups. You do it once and then the next time you forget. How many people backup their data? I don’t have actual figures, but I can image that most people don’t backup their data on a regular basis. I even can imagine the majority of the people don’t backup at all.

The big question is why people don’t backup their data. Is it because they don’t know how to do it (right). Is it because of the faith they have in their computer not crashing. Or is it because making proper backups takes a lot of time, needs the right (often hard to use) software and needs to be done at a regular basis.

Clickfree comes with a nice backup system for everyone. They have a great philosophy. On every decision they make they ask themselves the question: “Would my mother be able to do this”.

How does the clickfree portable drive work

Making backups with Clickfree is really simple. You only have to plugin the Backup Drive and accept the End user licence agreement once.

When this is done Clickfree’s backup software starts directly. The first screen is a 24 second count-down timer, which gives you the possibility to edit settings (which will be explained in the next chapter). If you choose to not edit settings the backup will start after 24 seconds or directly if you click the “Start” button.

The clickfree start screen.

The backup scans your complete computer for over 400 file extensions. So all your .jpg, .doc, .docx, .xsl, .xslx and other popular file extensions are backupped automatically. The first time you use the clickfree all the files with these extensions are backupped automatically. Every other time there will be made an incremental backup. If there’s a new file on your computer or the file is changed only these files will be backupped again. This of course speeds up the backup time. When the backup is done the user interface shows a summary of the backupped data.

Backup in progress

Backup Completed

For beginners and more advanced users.

The power of the Clickfree is that it is a versatile solution, not only for the beginning, but also for the advanced user. The default settings will backup more than enough for the normal user who makes word documents, pictures and has some music and videos on their PC.

But also for the advanced user Clickfree came up with a solution to backup more specific filetypes. As a developer I use a lot of .cs files (C# code files) and by default this is not a filetype which will be backupped by clickfree. A other possibilty in the settings is to backup specific folders. In that case all the files and folders within this folder are backupped, no matter what their file extension is.

When you plug in the clickfree in your system, as I pointed out above a windows is shown with a 24 second count down timer. This is the time where you have the possibility to edit the settings. Lets go through some screenshots of the settings.

Manage Settings and PCs

In the “Manage Settings and PCs” screen you can rename or remove PC’s from the Clickfree system. Further you have the option to Change Backup Settings. The Backup settings shows a wizard where you can select which files or folders you would like to add to the backup or exclude from backup. In this screen you can also add file types that you would like to include in the backup.

The tab “Tools” gives you the possibility to give the Clickfree a Master Reset, which basically means that all the data on the Clickfree portable drive are removed.

The button update will let you download the latest updates for your Clickfree. If I can make a suggestion to the clickfree-team, I would like to ask them to inform users more about the software updates. As a developer and power user I am interested in what has been changed when I receive a software update.

Updating the Clickfree

The Clickfree has the possibility to edit language settings. But on my tests the language was always restored to Dutch for somehow. Maybe because my Windows XP version is in Dutch. Maybe this is something the Clickfree team could look at as well.

The next tab is “Reminder” and gives you the possibility to Install a small reminder application on your PC that will remind you to make a backup. This tool is installed in just one single click which makes it really great. The tool has a few features like helping you to perform a backup right away, it reminds you when you have to make your backups, and informs you if you haven’t made a backup for a while and it lets you create a backup scedule.

Install the reminder tool to automate you backups.

Restore data

Making backups is useless when you’re unable to restore the backupped data correctly. This is something where Clickfree has an other power. Restoring files is really easy with the Clickfree.

The Restore screen

The restore screen shows a few options to restore your data which is backupped on the Clickfree. You could use the Restore Summary, to quickly restore different file types. You can also browse, or search for files to restore them.

There is a special module to restore photo’s. This module directly lets you view the photos which are backupped on the clickfree. So you can select which photo’s or other images you would like to restore.

Restoring photo’s

When restoring files the Clickfree software asks where the restored files should be restored. You can choose to restore the data on it’s original location or to restore the files to a specific folder.

Restore to original location

Restore to a specific folder

A succesfull restore of the data

Putting clickfree to the test: Windows XP & Windows 7RC1

So what do you do when you want to test something like a backup solution? Putting it to the true test would be to make a backup with this solution of our data and completely wipe your system.

So what I did: Make a backup with the Clickfree solution and wiped my netbook. To be quite specific: Before the restore there was some valuable data on my netbook, nothing shocking to loose but this was the only backup I made. I used the more advanced settings and placed all the valuable data on the desktop in one specific folder.

I went from Windows XP home edition to Windows 7 RC1.

The whole story unfortunately has a anti-climax. Windows 7 doesn’t Recognize the clickfree USB device, which obviously isn’t a problem since it’s a Release Candidate and it’s unfair of me to test this on a non-final windows version. I’m absolutely positive that Clickfree will add Windows 7 support when Windows 7 will be released.

Because Windows 7 didn’t work, I connected the Clickfree portable backup drive to my home laptop. And tried to restore my data on my home laptop. This worked without any problems and I transferred my important data from my home laptop to my Windows7

Conclusion

Clickfree is just awesome solution for lazy people like me who don’t like to make backups. Not only the backup process is very good, also the most important part (restoring) is made very easy in the clickfree software. There are more than enough options for advanced users, and the most important files are backupped for non-technical users who want to make a backup.

I cannot imagine there are computer users out there, who are unable to make a backup with Clickfree. If you can put a USB-stick in a USB port, than you are able to make a backup with the clickfree. An average PC user is able to restore their own data, but for the completely non technical users I can imagine that restoring their data can be somewhat difficult. Don’t get me wrong, restoring is easy, but my mother could not do it. On the other hand she can ask me to do the restore of the backup she created.

MWC 2009: Microsoft MyPhone – A new backup restore service for Windows Phones

Remo Knops — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:55:00 +0000

A week ago the::unwired already published an article about Microsoft MyPhone service that went live, prior to its scheduled date. Today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona during the Microsoft keynote with Steven Balmer and Andrew Lees, not only the Windows Mobile 6.5 is unveiled, but also two additional services: (1) Microsoft MyPhone, (2) Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

Some of you might saw the demo during the MWC-keynote, but -with many thanks to Scot Rockfeld from Microsoft for providing the screenshots of this service- I will be able to focus more on some details, in the following walk-through. Microsofts strategy is aimed at providing the Windows-experience on (1) the personal computer, (2) on a mobile phone, (3) in the cloud, and provide an exhange of information among the different “platforms”. The Microsoft MyPhone service connects these platforms, resulting in synchronizing, editting and sharing of personal information.

Currently MyPhone is offered as a free backup-service, which includes 200MB of storage. For using this service you need to install a client on your Windows Phone, and this also emphasizes that this is not an Exchange Active Sync solution for the mass market, although this might be a direction to go for the furture. However if you use a Microsoft Exchange solution now, you can use MyPhone as a complementary service because it backups your text messages, your photo’s, your video’s, your music and your documents. The Microsoft Exchange partnership has priority over the MyPhone service for managing your contacts, calender, tasks and e-mail just to be perfectly clear. For the documents backup and restore the following file-formats are supported: ppt, xls, doc, one, wks, as well as txt, rtf, pdf, html and xml.

The screenshot above shows the option “connected devices”. It is possible to connect multiple phones to this service, extremely helpful for technology enthusiasts lik we are. On the other hand the normal consumer probably just has one Windows Phone. Furthermore you can browse on your personal computer and upload a picture to the MyPhone account, and add it to a contact, restore it to a Microsoft Phone (one or more if you have connected more phones), or Archive it to the web. The last option just puts the file on your MyPhone account, while the icon clearly shows that the file isn’t on a device but in the cloudservice.

The MyPhone service is compatible with all Windows Mobile 6.0, 6.1 devices (professional and standard) up to the today announced version 6.5. Furthermore the MyPhone service seems to work both over a cellular data connection as well as over WiFi. The MyPhone business model is currently based on advertising, in order to provide the free storage. However for the future one could also think of premium subscriptions, which offer more storage space, or even operator “branded” services. For example: “My T-Mobile Phone” or “My Vodafone Phone”.

The bottomline is that I’m really enthusiastic about the MyPhone service, because it can keep all my important information in the cloud. And for instance in comparison with DashWire it is a total Microsoft solution which builds upon the existing Windows platforms, Microsoft Exchange and cloud-services, resulting in a solid and robuust backup and restore solution. If you are as enthusiastic as I am, please read on over here for additional information.

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