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Online-backup company Backblaze (Windows | Mac) announced on Tuesday that it has opened its service up to businesses. Backblaze will charge companies a flat fee of $50 per computer per year.

Backblaze's service mimics other, more popular services like Mozy (Windows | Mac) and Carbonite (Windows). Users need only to download its uploading software to their computers and create an account. Once complete, Backblaze starts backing up the contents of the user's computer to its data center.

Backblaze backs up all files on the computer, except for the operating system, temporary files, apps, or files over 4GB in size. Uploading is encrypted throughout the process and works with Windows PCs and Intel-based Macs.

If trouble strikes and a user loses some or all of his files, he can simply go back to Backblaze's site and download the required files. Backblaze already has a consumer-oriented service that costs $5 per computer per month for unlimited storage.

As compelling as its service might be, Backblaze is competing in a crowded space. Both Mozy and Carbonite are doing a fine job of attracting customers. But by using a flat rate, Backblaze is hoping to set itself apart from competing services that charge based on the amount of data that's uploaded. Mozy, for example, charges companies a standard fee of $3.95 plus $0.50 per gigabyte per month for its service.

While online data storage is becoming more commonplace, it is still a risk. For its part, Backblaze said: "Backblaze goes to great lengths to ensure data is safe and to ensure customers are happy. While we would certainly give a business a refund if data was lost (simply out of good customer service)...we don't believe anything can actually cover for the value of the lost data."

Check out Webware's hands-on review: "Backblaze: Possibly world's easiest online backup"

Updated at 1:15 p.m. PST with comment from Backblaze.

Here's how:

Click the Windows button aka "Start."

Type "System repair" in the search box.

Then choose Create a System Repair Disc.

Put in a blank CD or DVD and choose the correct drive from the drop-down.

Press Create Disc.

And let Win 7 do the rest.

Now you're protected.

It has become conventional wisdom in the PC industry that periodically reinstalling Windows can restore an old PC's youthful vigor. Unfortunately, the process has become a challenge—and a real time-sink, to boot. Better to create a disc image of your hard drive when everything's working well and restore that image when things turn sour.

Recently, my nearly new laptop PC froze in the middle of Windows loading. After a forced shutdown, Vista repaired itself and reverted to a saved restore point. Things were back to normal in no time, but the event reminded me that I hadn't yet created a disc image of the hard drive's active partition.

Doing so doesn't cost home users anything other than the price of a few blank DVDs or some other removable medium. Paramount Software's Macrium Reflect disk-imaging software is free for personal use, though businesses, schools, and charities are asked to pay $39.99 for the full version (30-day trial available).

After you install the program, you're prompted to create a backup, including an XML Backup Definition File to facilitate restoring the backup from your desktop. You can also create a rescue CD (or DVD) that uses either Linux or the BartPE boot routines. Linux is the default selection and the one recommended for all but Windows XP and Server 2003 systems.

Macrium Reflect prompts you to create a disc backup after it installs.

(Credit: Paramount Software)

Backing up 68GB of data on a 222GB hard-drive partition took about 45 minutes and four DVDs. Even if restoring the partition required twice that amount of time, the process is still faster than reinstalling Windows, downloading and installing the gigabytes of Windows updates, reinstalling your applications, and restoring your data files and settings.

Backing up a 66GB drive partition to four DVDs took Macrium Reflect less than 45 minutes.

(Credit: Paramount Software)

Once I had created the Linux boot disc, I was ready for nearly any Windows emergency. Now I have to lug around five DVDs, but that's a small price to pay for the added peace of mind.

Of course, there are times when reinstalling Windows is your only recourse—such as when you have to repair a PC that has no backups. You'll find step-by-step instructions for reinstalling XP and older versions of Windows in Lincoln Spector's "How to Reinstall Windows XP." Microsoft's Windows Help and How-to site describes how to use Vista's Startup Repair feature. A separate article on the site explains your Vista installation and reinstallation options.

If your PC shipped without a Windows installation disc—and chances are increasingly likely it didn't include one—your only option is reinstalling your OS from the recovery partition on the hard drive. The steps vary depending on the PC vendor, so check the company's site for the instructions for your system.

With or without a Windows installation CD, restoring a known-good disk image is faster, simpler, and at least as effective as starting from scratch.

You've heard every mantra and cautionary tale a dozen times, but if you still haven't backed up that hard drive by now, the lessons haven't sunk in. It may not seem like a big deal if everything's humming along, but losing files or precious photos to malware, food spills, fire, or any other corrosive indignity brings on those twin sensations of panic and despair. This article takes you through some simple hardware and software solutions to save those files, then weighs the pros and cons of each approach.

Back up to an external hard drive

External hard drives and network-attached storage are local ways to back up your files to a physical drive that lives outside your PC. Since network-attached storage devices are typically for the home networker with multiple computers to safeguard from data loss, most people looking for a basic backup option will lean toward external hard drives, like some of these CNET favorites.

The Clickfree Portable Backup Drive automatically begins backing up your drive for you.

(Credit: CNET)

After purchasing an external drive, you'll just plug it into your computer to get started. Most conventional drives like the ultraportable 320GB Seagate FreeAgent Go will trigger your computer to open a separate drive folder, like "Removable Drive F:". Copying or dragging the files you'd like to save from their original folder into the external drive folder transfers them over.

The purpose-built 320GB Clickfree Portable Backup Drive provides an even simpler backup method. After plugging it in, the drive's native software automatically finds and backs up all of your computer's data. Not bad for about $200. If that's not enough storage space for you, there's also the four-bay Drobo for serious data nuts. It's not without its shortcomings, including its high price. For backups, it's best used for creating redundancy in case one of your other drives fail.

Desktop backup software

One of the primary advantages of using software to copy your files is being able to schedule backups of your data, although all programs will let you manually back up data as well. While most people will find online storage solutions the easiest to maintain, desktop backup software has its merits.

For example, for $50, the Acronis True Image Home 2009 images your hard drive, including your programs, documents, music, photos, and Outlook e-mail. In the event of a crash, you can boot it from the PC or from a CD.

The Undelete Plus 3.0 software.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

I've been raving a lot lately about the importance of backing up, and it seems I still haven't done enough to get my point across.

Case in point: since my most recent backup-related post, I have received multiple e-mails asking how to retrieve files that have been accidentally deleted.

The right question is: Is it even possible to retrieve lost files? And the answer is, it depends. Once you have deleted a file (and even emptied the Recycle Bin), the information from the file is still on the hard drive. As long as the same spot of hard disk hasn't been used by another file, it's possible to get that file back. So, the earlier you try to recover, the more likely it is you will be successful.

Note that during a normal operation, a computer does a lot of writing to the hard drive, because it uses hard drive space as scrap notes for different computations. If you need to recover a lot of data from a main hard drive, where the operation system is installed, it's best to put that hard drive into another computer to do the recovery.

There are many software applications that can recover data, and I was given the opportunity to try out the new 3.0 version of Undelete Plus Tuesday. This is the update to the free version of Undelete Plus 2.93, which can be found at Download.com.

Compared with the free version, this update's new interface is much easier to use. ... Read more

E-mails sent to a non-Hotmail address have been copied to a folder within a Hotmail account in Windows Live Mail.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

I blogged about Gmail's new feature that helps you migrate from other Web-based e-mail services to Gmail and I have received a lot of e-mails asking if there's a way to back up an offline POP3 e-mail archive to an online e-mail service.

The answer is yes, but depending on what e-mail clients you use, it can require a fair amount of work. If you're using Outlook Express, for example, it's fairly easy. If you use Thunderbird, however, there will be a few extra steps.

The Thunderbird <-> Outlook Express archive convert tool.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

First, you will need a Hotmail account, if you don't yet have one; it's free to sign up. After that, download and use Windows Live Mail to connect with the Hotmail account. This process is pretty straightforward.

Windows Live Mail synchronizes with your Hotmail account, which means all the e-mails you have downloaded to your computer will remain on the Hotmail server and be available for you to view using a Web browser.

Apart from Hotmail.com and Live.com e-mail accounts, Windows Live Mail can also handle other types of accounts, including POP3. When you have multiple e-mail accounts with Windows Live Mail, each account will have a separate set of "Inbox," "Sent Items," "Drafts," and so on, as well as other user-created folders.

If you want to upload an existing Outlook Express e-mail archive to your Hotmail account, first run Windows Live Mail and import your Outlook Express messages. (To do this, press Alt-F then choose "Import" on the menu). Once the import process is done, create a new folder within your Hotmail account and name it, say, "POP3 backup." You can create different folders for different groups of e-mails. After that, you can drag and drop or copy messages from the POP3 import into these new folders.

Now all you need to do is sync the Hotmail account and voila! You will see those added folders and e-mails you've just imported on the Hotmail server. This means you can access them wherever you are via a browser and they are saved in Hotmail server.

The sync process can take a long time if you have a big POP3 archive (and a slow connection), and, of course, you can't sync any archive larger than the space allowed by Hotmail, which is 5GB.

If you use Outlook, you can first use Outlook Express to import Outlook's archive before doing the process. Basically, you can use Outlook Express as the intermediary for the import process.

An e-mail sent to a non-Hotmail account has been backed up to the Hotmail server and can be viewed by a Web browser.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

For ThunderBird users, you can use the eml2mbox function of this free conversion tool called IMAPSize to convert Thunderbird's e-mail archive into Outlook Express' format.

Of course, once you have those e-mails in a Hotmail account, you can always import them into Gmail by using the new migration tool. It's good to keep data at multiple places anyway.

So make this your weekend project and back up those precious messages.

Many of my favorite freeware tools have more-than-adequate competitors out there, but you can never have too much of a good thing. Here are four utilities that you may not have heard of to help you back up your files, take screen captures, uninstall programs, and test your download speeds.

MyUninstaller replaces the default Windows Add/Remove Programs utility, and is a strong alternative to Revo Uninstaller. They both uninstall programs, and that's just about where their similarities end.

MyUninstaller

(Credit: NirSoft)

MyUninstaller feels extremely lightweight compared to Revo and contains none of the system tools extras like Autorun Manager that Revo brings to its game. It's far less customizable than Revo, and with the fewer options comes faster uninstall times. Revo took about 2 minutes to get rid of Adobe Reader at the Moderate setting, while MyUninstaller had the task done in less than 20 seconds.

It's not without its little strengths, of course. You can keep files, copy, change installation, and search your list of installed programs. Change installation lets you alter a program by rerunning the installer. MyUninstaller's interface looks like it hasn't changed since Windows 2000, so those looking for a slicker and more robust program will probably gravitate toward Revo. If you're looking for blazingly fast, you might want to make MyUninstaller yours.

(Credit: AutoVer)

AutoVer backs up your files, and does it from another simple interface. This simplicity, though, belies what the program actually can do.

Commands for adding and deleting files you want to watch and backup are straightforward. Adding new files was as easy as creating and naming a new file, adding the folder you want to backup, and then choosing the backup location. Folder creation happens immediately, and backups can be initiated as soon as you save the record. More advanced settings let you include or exclude specific files from the backup process, time stamping, pausing and resuming specific folder backups, and a search feature that lets you explore your backups.

Big, primary-colored icons give the program a WinZipesque feel, but that's just about the biggest drawback.

DownTester is a portable app that tests download speeds from multiple HTTP and FTP URLs simultaneously. It's unobtrusive and gets the job done, but it also comes with some useful features that make it worth downloading.

DownTester

(Credit: NirSoft)

The Advanced Options menu is well-rounded. You can configure the tests to conclude and move on based on time or bytes downloaded. You can also set the program to retry upon failure and configure the number of times that repetition should occur before moving on, with Passive or Active mode available for FTP. Users have the option to export their test list or import a new one.

Users can't paste directly from the clipboard to the test list. DownTester forces you to open the Add URLs List window first, but that seemed to be just about the only drawback to this utility that anyone diagnosing connection speed problems should check out.

You may not have thought that the world needed another screenshooting program, but GreenShot works pretty well after a half-day of testing.

(Credit: GreenShot)

Like many of its competitors, it lets you take screenshots from your monitor using a user-defined rectangle. It displays coordinates as you draw your capture rectangle, and then opens the captured area immediately in a quick-and-dirty image editor with limited but focused features. You can draw boxes, ellipses, lines, or arrows, or add text. You can save the image as a PNG, JPG, BMP, or GIF. You can change the color of any shape or text you add to your screenshot, and change the line thickness.

There's also a good variety of other options, including toggling the save-to location, naming convention and folder, file format, and hot key hooks. Light on resources, it's surprisingly effective for a beta. The arrowhead implementation could use some work when you choose double-arrowheads, but overall it's a freeware worth keeping an eye on.

If you're using a freeware program that you think deserves more attention, mention it in the comments below.

(Credit: CNET)

Everyone knows they should back up their data, but a surprisingly small percentage of people actually do. Unfortunately, when the big crash finally comes or you experience a hard-drive failure, that's usually the time you realize you should have been backing up all along. There are a number of programs that make it easier to regularly back up your hard drive, but in my experience, many require several steps to get the job done.

Nero's BackItUp and Burn ($39.99), released yesterday, attempts to make the whole process easier for everyone. Using an intuitive tabbed interface and simple controls, just about anyone can pick up BackItUp and Burn and start a regular schedule for backups or folder syncing in only a few clicks. The software even offers the option of sending you an e-mail notification when automated backups are complete.

It's incredibly easy to set up a backup schedule so you never have to worry about your data again

(Credit: CNET)

BackItUp and Burn also includes full burning capabilities (as the name suggests), letting you burn your music, videos, data, and pictures to CD, DVD, or Blue-ray Discs so you have a hard copy of your most important personal files. Nero offers a free Gigabyte of online storage for a three-month trial, but you'll need to buy a subscription (there are three tiers to choose from) if you want to store more data in the cloud. You can pay as little as $7.49 for 5GB of storage for three months, or as much as $59.99 for 25GB of storage for a year. You should be aware that this program requires the latest Microsoft .NET Framework in order to run (you will be prompted to download during install). You also will have the choice of installing the Ask Toolbar during install.

Nobody wants to lose all his or her data, but too few of us actually take the steps necessary to create regular backups. Nero's BackItUp and Burn provides novice and advanced users a way to keep music, photos, and data safe without a lot of hassle and at a fairly affordable price.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

Backing up data is important and should be done often. But remembering and knowing how to do it is a different story.

With this in mind, Memeo--an online digital company that offers a variety of online services such as photo sharing --has released a backup solution for business users that will help keep track of backing up data. Memeo Backup Professional 4.5 is tied to an online console, from which an admin user can remotely view the status of backups of other users. This means that once it's installed on network computers, a single admin can oversee the backup status for the whole business.

The admin user can send the remote user, via e-mail, a license to download or software to install. After that the admin can view the status and then contact the user of a particular computer if something is wrong, or to make sure that the user is backing up data regularly.

Unfortunately, for now, there's not much else the admin user can do. It would be much more helpful if he or she could initiate the backup itself or make the software send a pop-up message to remind the local user to start a backup. Memeo's representatives say that this is along the lines with what the company is working on for future releases of the software.

Other than that, Memeo Backup Professional 4.5 is a standard wizard-driven backup software that offers a variety of backup options, including backing up to an FTP server and to Memeo online storage. Backup to an FTP site offers an option for you to make a personal "online" backup. It also allows for differential backups and backups to local/network folders or removable drives.

Memeo Backup Professional 4.5 works with all versions of Windows 32-bit and 64-bit and is available now for $76 per license, which is rather expensive considering the limited functionality of the online console. However as this online console feature is rather unique and if you are an existing customer of Memeo's online backup service, this software will make a good addition.

If you just want good backup software, I would strongly recommend GFI Backup Home Edition, which, apart from the online console and the tie to Memeo online storage, offers the same options and more, including the ability to back up to an FTP site. Best of all, it is yours for free.