The easiest file backup system I have ever seen

It's been a few days since I posted anything. We had a bit of a family emergency that we needed to attend to. The flexibilty for this type of thing is great with your own business. I ended up taking thursday off, and working 18 hours on friday. The work still needs to get done, but the flexibility to do it when you want to do it is great.

Ok, so on tuesday I left off with a web template I had put together that I thought I could work with. What have I been doing since then?

DAY 9: Mar 14, 2006 - nothing too exciting, but something worth mentioning. I spent most of the day making sure I have an automatic backup system working properly. I know we've all heard this before, but I cannot stress the importance of this enough. YOU MUST BACKUP YOUR FILES REGULARLY OR YOU WILL BE BURNED BY IT. PERIOD. Just Do It !!!

I won't bore you with the details, but I ended up using FolderShare (FolderShare.com) to sync to an old desktop PC over the internet. It's free and very easy to set up. It mirrors all the files in My Documents, and my Internet Favorites (or whatever folders you choose to sync) on the other PC. There is a little task that runs in the background and keeps track of files you either change or delete, and does the same thing to them on the other PC so there is always an exact copy there. There a few really nice things about this:

1. It just works: it runs in the background on both PCs and syncs whenever both PCs are online at the same time. I don't have to manage it at all. I just need 2 PCs connected to the Internet.
2. You can work on either PC at any time: If the PC I normally work on fails and I have to send it to the shop (which I recently did), I just move to the other PC and start working there. All the files are there, same directory structure, everything. When I get my regular PC back I just plug it into the Internet, and viola, it grabs everything I updated on the other PC while it was in the shop. I don't mess with backup CDs, tapes, nothing. Just connect to the Internet, and give it some time to sync up. I have never come accross anything this easy to use as a backup system. Its great if you have a second PC lying around.
3. You could keep your backup remotely: I don't do this, but it would be dead simple to put my second PC at my sisters place and have not only protection against hw failure, but theft and fire as well. If she has enough hard drive space, I could just back up my critical folders to her PC, and she could backup to mine. If either of us has trouble, the other persons PC would always have everything we need.

The FolderShare website also talks about how to invite others the share certain files, security, etc. All in all, its a very nice little tool. I highly recommend you check it out.