I've been fixing and supporting computers professionally for about 15 years. So it was unlikely that I was going to find a topic set in the Atomic Learning site for PC Security and Maintenance that was new to me. Nonetheless...
Which tutorial did you choose?
I chose the File Backup Options section.
What was one thing you learned that you will definitely be sharing with others?
The Comparing Backup Options tutorial did a really thorough job of describing backup operations: full, partial, incremental, etc.. I could definitely recommend this (type of) tutorial to teachers or administrators that don't really have a grasp on the nuances of backing up data. The information is a little dated, but the core concepts still ring true.
People tend to not think about backing up their data until they experience a loss (or potential loss). The MacOSX operating system has a great built in tool that makes it seamless and invisible to backup the entire system on an hourly basis. Just two days ago, I restored my entire system (OS, applications, and user data...totally 350GB) using this Time Machine utility after having to re-format my hard drive. Time Machine just requires an external hard drive, and it really takes care of the rest. You can restore individual files or folders, but you can also restore the entire drive from backup. That 350GB restore operation took approximately 6 hours, but the system is working flawlessly now.
I also use the cloud-based Carbonite service to back up my user documents and photographs off site in case of a total catastrophe. That comprises about 30GB of my most precious data.
Was there any information that surprised you?
I had never heard of Karen's Backup Replicator, which seems like a slightly better tool than the built-in backup tool in Windows. I know that the built-in Windows Backup tool will fail if it reaches a file that's open or has some other sort of lock placed upon it. Therefore, it's not the most reliable tool.
I am glad there was at least something new for you. Sometimes when you come across a topic that you know a lot about, it can be looked at from a different perspective. When you went through them, did you think they were done well and would recommend it to someone else? Would it be a good teaching tool for a class?
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