Articles in Category: Applications

Applications include third party programs, software packages and software suites that run on your computer.

Back Up Smartphone Photos Using Dropbox

Smartphones are a popular way to take snapshots and videos. Tools like Dropbox are great for making sure those are backed up automatically.

Uninstalling Software You Don’t Need

One way to reclaim space (and occasionally even performance) is to uninstall software you don’t need. I’ll review important places to help you do just that.

Why Do You Prefer Macrium Reflect Over Windows’s Own Image Backup Program?

Macrium Reflect is clearer and more fully featured than Windows’ built-in backup. It’s easier to understand and ultimately, I trust it more.

Why Are My Revisions Visible in Word?

Having your document’s dirty laundry exposed to the world by accident can be embarrassing. Here’s how to avoid it.

Why Can’t I Upload a Backup Image to the Cloud?

Uploading backup images sounds good until you do the math.

Dealing With Proprietary Backup Formats

If your backup program writes to a proprietary format, you may not be able to access it decades from now. I’ll discuss how to prepare.

Are You Ready for Your House to Burn Down?

What happens to all your carefully backed up data if your house burns down?

Couldn’t I Just Clone a Drive for Backup?

Cloning to a second drive every night has few advantages over a more flexible image backup solution.

Creating a Backup Image Using EaseUS Todo Free

Microsoft is removing image-backup capability from Windows. We’ll make an image backup using a free third-party alternative.

Is a Microsoft 365 Subscription Worth It?

Before you dismiss it because it’s a subscription, take a look and do the math. Microsoft 365 might be surprisingly affordable for you.

Don’t Use Windows Built-in Image Backup

The Windows 7 Backup and Restore tool is still present in Windows 11, but that doesn’t mean you should use it.

How Do I Restore a Backup to a New PC?

You probably want to keep the new operating system on your new machine. All that you need from your image backup is the data that has luckily been preserved.

How Should I Back Up a New Machine?

Backing up your new machine on arrival can be an important safety net. But there are degrees of safety.

How Do I Turn Off Automatic Formatting in Microsoft Word?

Microsoft Word tries to format items based on what it thinks you’re doing. That’s handy if it’s what you want and annoying if it’s not.

How to Use Cloud Storage Safely

Cloud service providers often give us lots of storage we can use for cloud backup. How to use it safely, however, isn’t always obvious.

How Do I Test Backups?

It’s a good idea to test backups before disaster strikes. Unfortunately, a complete test can be risky. I’ll look at some alternatives.

How Do I Back Up My Computer?

Backing up your computer is critical to avoiding data loss but can seem complicated. I’ll give a suggestion for typical users.

Your Social Media Posts Can All Disappear

Every time you use someone else’s service, you put yourself and your content in their hands… for better or worse.

Backups ARE Security

Don’t overlook backing up as part of your security. When the worst happens, it’s your backup that will save you.

How Do I Transfer My System to a Replacement Drive?

Transferring data to a replacement drive needn’t be difficult. In fact, being prepared for a transfer is a side effect of backing up regularly.

How to Create an Image Backup

Once I’ve convinced you that image backups are important, your next question is most likely to be “OK, how?” Here’s a short-and-sweet answer.

Can I Rely on My Cloud Service’s Backups?

You can rely on online services for many things, but it’s unwise to rely on them too much.

What Good Is an Image Backup If All I Want Is My Data?

Image backups are great ways to back up absolutely everything on a hard disk. They’re also good for retrieving most anything, including individual files.

How to Back Up Windows 10 (& 11)

How to back up Windows using its own built-in tools in eight easy steps. Four bonus steps handle Microsoft’s plans to retire one of those tools.

How Do I Back Up an Encrypted Container?

Backing up is critical, but exactly how you back up your encrypted container data depends on how secure your backups are.

Just What Is a Backup, Anyway?

At its most basic, backups are simple: a copy of something kept somewhere else to keep it safe.

The First Thing You Should Do With a New Computer

If you can, wait to play with your new computer for a little while. I have something important I want you to do first.

Is Cloud Backup Enough?

Cloud backup vs. backing up to an external drive isn’t really a debate. Why not both?

Why Is “Back Up First” Your Recommendation for Everything?

Nothing protects you and your data like a complete, recent backup, even when it might not be obvious. That’s why I harp on it so much.

How Long Should I Keep Backups?

Having a regular backup system in place is critical. But then what? I’ll look at how long you might want to keep those backups, why, and how long I keep mine.

Back Up with Dropbox

Using Dropbox to share files across machines is pretty common. You can also use Dropbox on only one machine as backup technology.

What Do I Do If My Backup Drive is Full?

If you’re backing up regularly to an external drive, chances are you’re accumulating lots of data. I’ll look at how to organize it, and what to keep.

How To Use Microsoft Word for Transcriptions

Microsoft Word online has the option to create transcriptions of audio recordings for Microsoft Office subscribers.

Should I Use RAID for Backup?

RAID is a valuable technology for improving disk speed and fault tolerance, but it is in no way a replacement for backing up.

Restoring an Image Backup from One Computer to Another

The concept seems simple: take a system image of one machine, restore it to another, and avoid lengthy setup time. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

When Backups Might Not Save You from Ransomware

Ransomware is known for encrypting your data and holding it hostage. It turns out that it can do more that backups won’t protect against.

How Should I Back Up an Encrypted Disk?

Backing up an encrypted hard drive shouldn’t be difficult, but it’s important to understand what you’ll get.

Can’t I Just Copy Everything to Back Up?

It’s tempting to just use file-copy tools to back up what you think you need. But you can easily miss something very important.

External Hard Disk for Backups – 8 Reasons They Are Your Best Option

An external drive is by far the best piece of additional equipment you can get for your computer to keep your data safe.

Just What Is a Backup?

“If it’s only in one place, it’s not backed up” really tells you all you need to know.

What’s an Incremental Backup?

Backing up is important, but terms like “full”, “incremental”, and “differential” can easily confuse. I’ll look at what these terms mean.

What Backup Type Do I Want: Full, Incremental, or Differential?

Terms relating to backing up can be confusing. Understanding them helps you make better decisions about backing up.

Testing Your Backups Is Critical

Testing your backups is an easy step to overlook, but an important one to take. Make sure your backups will be there when you need them.

What’s the Difference Between a Clone and an Image?

The difference between a clone and an image boils down to what they contain: everything, or absolutely everything.

What is an Image Backup?

Backup terminology can be confusing. I’ll define one of the terms I use frequently and explain why I think it’s so important.

If It’s All Digital, Won’t You Lose It Anyway?

A single original of anything is not backed up, and backing up is significantly easier, and of higher quality, in digital media.

Should You Use the Free Backup Software that Comes with Some External Drives?

Many external drives include free backup software that I never use. I’ll explain why, and what I do instead.

How You Recover When Good Apps Go Bad

I frequently advise people what to do about unexpected and undesirable software changes. It’s time for me to take my own advice.

How to Back Up Photos and Never Lose Them Again: the Steps You Need to Take

Follow these steps to avoid losing precious and irreplaceable memories.