Articles in Category: Applications

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

Back Up!

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.

Disks

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.

Backup with Dropbox

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.

An External Backup Drive

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.

Office.com home page

How To Use Microsoft Word for Transcriptions

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

RAID array

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.

Information Transfer

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.

There's more to ransomware than just encryption.

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.

Data Vault

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.

Backup 74% Complete

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.

COnneceted Exter

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.

Back Up!

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.

Blocks, stacking on one another.

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.

Incremental? Full? Differential?

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.

Failed!

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.

Clone or Image?

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's an Image?

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.

Photo Album Page

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.

Moving from Evernote to Todoist

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.

Selfie

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.

Office?

Are the Free Microsoft Office Alternatives for Windows 10 Any Good?

Depending on how you use your word processing program, you may be able to find a good, free alternative to Word.

Back Up!

How to Back Up Before a Windows 10 Upgrade

Always back up before a Windows 10 upgrade, update, or reinstall. Create a full system image backup of up your entire machine.

Back Up!

What Backup Program Should I Use?

Backing up your computer’s data is critical. What backup program should you use? There are many, but pragmatically, the best is whatever you’ll actually use.

What Good Is an Image If I Can’t Restore an Old Backup to a New Computer?

What Good Is an Image If I Can’t Restore an Old Backup to a New Computer?

Image backups are excellent protection against data loss, but restoring an old backup to new computer isn’t why you do them.

Why Don’t You Back Up Your Computer?

Why Don’t You Back Up Your Computer?

Backups are one way you can protect yourself from everything from hardware failure to virus infections. So why don’t you back up?

Getting Microsoft Office for Free, Sort of

Free Microsoft Office in Windows 10? Sort Of

Microsoft Office appears in every new install of Windows 10, but is it really “included”? Yes and no.

Back Up!

Can I Back Up to an Internal Drive?

Backing up to a second physical internal drive can be a good tool in your backup arsenal, as long as you understand its limitations.

Setting Up Macrium Reflect Free (Webinar #2)

Setting Up Macrium Reflect Free (Webinar #2)

I neglected to set up automated backups on my rebuilt laptop. I’ll walk you through downloading and installing Macrium Reflect free, and scheduling automated backups.

Windows 10 Backup Underway

Creating a Backup Image Using Windows’ Built-in Backup

I don’t think much of the Windows backup utility–but any backup is better than no backup. Let’s take a look at how to use it.

Hard disk under a stethoscope

How Do I Restore a Backup Image to a Smaller Drive?

Restoring to a smaller drive is often difficult. I’ll list the steps necessary to get the job done.

Hard Disk

Can I Back Up Files to a Separate Partition on the Same Hard Disk?

It’s tempting to back up to a separate partition, because it’s somewhat like another disk. The problem is, it’s not. You could be risking your data.

Do I Need to Make a New Rescue Disc Every Time My Backup Software Updates?

Do I Need to Make a New Rescue Disc Every Time My Backup Software Updates?

If you don’t have rescue media, you can use another machine to make it. You certainly don’t need to make one every time you back up or update the software.

How to Protect Your Computer from Natural Disasters

How to Protect Your Computer from Natural Disasters

Natural disasters remind us that our computers, among other things, are at risk. I’ll look at protecting your computer, and more importantly, your data.

Are Deleted Files also Deleted from Backups?

Are Deleted Files also Deleted from Backups?

Old backups typically have all of the files that were on your machine at the time the backup was taken — and that’s what you want.

Microsoft Office Installations

How to Move an Office 365 Subscription to Another Machine

The Microsoft Office 365 subscription model makes moving to a new machine very, very easy.

Backing Up Files

What Is Your Most Trusted Method of Backing Up?

Backing up is important. Knowing which tools, techniques, services, and even advice to trust can be a challenge.

Some backup programs can wake up a sleeping machine, but there are still things that could go wrong and cause a backup to fail.

Will a Scheduled Backup Wake My Machine Up If It’s Sleeping?

Some backup programs can wake up a sleeping machine, but there are still things that could go wrong and cause a backup to fail.

Office 2003 on Windows 10

Can I Use Office 2003 with Windows 10?

Installing 14-year-old software on current operating systems is likely to create problems. Office 2003 and Windows 10 is one such match.

Adventures with Image Backups and Secure Boot

I loaned my laptop to my cousin for several weeks. Here are the steps I took to give her a clean machine, while restoring the machine to my configuration on her return.

Restore Individual Files from a Windows Image Backup

Image backups are good for more than restoring entire images; you can use them to restore individual files as well.

Restoring an Image Backup Using Windows 10’s Built-In Backup

We’ve backed up an image, and we’ve created our recovery drive — it’s time to restore an image using Windows 10’s built-in backup program.

Backing Up

Enable File History in Windows 10

File History is advertised as Windows 10’s backup solution. In reality, it can be a useful component of a larger strategy. I’ll show you how to set it up.

USB Options

How do I Copy Photos from My Phone to My PC?

Copying photos from your phone to your PC is simple with a few readily available tools.

System Reserved Partition

Why is My Backup Program Saying There’s Not Enough Space on System Reserved Partitions?

Your computer’s system reserved partitions should have nothing to do with backing up (other than needing to be backed up themselves). I’ll review what they are, and how a back-up program might be mislead.

Back Up!

What Should I Back Up?

Backing up is incredibly important. Knowing what to back up, where to back up, and how often to back up are just as important.

EaseUS Partition Error

EaseUS Todo Gave Me An Error on an “Unknown Partition”. What Should I Do?

EaseUS Todo will throw an error if one of the partitions you want to back up has an error, or isn’t in an understandable format. I’ll walk you through your options.

External Backup Drive

How Should I Back Up My Hard Drive with Several Partitions to an External Drive?

Backing up to an external drive is an easy way to make sure you’re covered in event of failure. But how should that external drive be configured?

Backup Slate

A Peek Behind My Backup Curtain

I talk about backups a lot. So how do I back up? It’s not for the faint of heart, and you may be sorry you asked…

Link to System Image Backup

What about Windows 10 backup?

While Windows 10 backup is included as part of the operating system, I consider it to be barely adequate, and prefer a more full-featured solution.

Schedule Automatic Backups

Why Are My Incremental Backups so Large?

Understand why incremental backups can sometimes be much larger than expected.