Have a question for Ask The Geek? Send it to me.
Dear Ask the Geek,
I see you are moving your blogs over to wp.com: does it work like an hosting service? I mean, if I move everything there I can stop using [hosting service]? What are the pros & cons of using WordPress.com?
Sincerely,
Platform-challenged
Dear Platform-challenged,
Have a question for Ask The Geek? Send it to me.
Dear Ask The Geek,
A small business recently asked me for the use of one of my photos on their website. I’m not a professional photographer, so I’m not sure what to do. Should I ask for compensation? How do I figure out what that is? Or should I just let them use it free of charge?
Thanks,
Sporadic Photographer
Hi Sporadic Photographer, Continue reading
I created this presentation for entrepreneurs who need online tools to make their ideas happen (I gave it earlier this year at the Professional Women’s Association in Milan).
The presentation “Tools for Entrepreneurs: Create. Collaborate. Communicate.“ started out as a way to explain very technical things to non-technical people, but I quickly realized that most people when approaching technology get intimidated by the “What’s DNS? Do I need a dedicated server?” kind of questions and therefore feel they can’t understand technology.
I feel that this technology intimidation is really due to the fact that they don’t really own their idea, and better understanding it will guide any decisions they have to make with their idea moving forward. Continue reading
Have a question for Ask The Geek? Send it to me.
Dear Ask the Geek,
A friend set up my WordPress site and the design for it, but now I want to change it and give my site a new look. How do I do that, and where do I start?
Signed
WordPress newbie
Dear WordPress newbie,
You can find WordPress themes all over the Internet which is the great thing about WordPress – anyone can develop for it. I strongly recommend starting with the WordPress.org Theme Directory as the themes there have been reviewed and there’s a higher guarantee that no malicious/spam/ad code has been inserted in the theme (a small risk of using Google and looking for WordPress themes).
I suggest browsing the Popular themes first. These are all free themes and you may find a few designs you want to come back to. If you have a specific feature or layout in mind (like how many columns, main color, or style, etc.), you can use the Theme Tag Filter tool to narrow it down.
If you’d prefer a theme that is more unique or has support from the theme developer associated with it, you may also want to browse the WordPress.org Commercial Themes directory which lists many companies that offer custom themes for a small payment and give you access to various benefits with your purchase.
There are usually some themes already installed on your WordPress site and can be accessed via the Dashboard at Appearance > Themes.
Make note of which theme your site is currently using (it should be the theme featured as “Current Theme” at the top of the Manage Themes tab) so you can go back to your original setup if necessary.
To add other themes from the WordPress.org theme directory, click on “Install themes” and search for a type of theme or a theme name.
You can preview it or install it directly. Click on Install and confirm Installation.
After installation, you can preview it again how it will look with your content, and if you decide to Activate it, click on Activate. It’s now live on your site!
Open the front page of your site in another browser tab/window and see how it looks – click around to different posts and pages to see if you like it.
If you need to go back to that original theme you made a note of when we started, go back to Appearance > Themes and search for the name of your original theme in Manage Themes, and click Activate it to return to the original.
Note that you can add dozens and dozens of themes to your local theme directory so don’t feel like you have to choose or install just one at a time to your local directory. For a commercial theme, you will have to upload the theme after purchase before being able to activate it.
The only other thing you would need to check is if your sidebar content (recent posts, comments, etc. ) is using widgets (check for their existence at Appearance > Widgets) – widgets are easy and great for you to be able to upkeep, and they are independent of the theme which makes switching themes painless.
If you aren’t using widgets for your sidebar content, now is a good time to set them up before switching the theme. Once we get them into widgets, you’ll be able to switch themes easier, and then it’s just making sure we include your stats.
Note: this is an answer for a self-hosted, paid hosting user using the WordPress.org software – if you have your site at WordPress.com, you can use the theme.wordpress.com directory
Enjoy playing with your site’s theme!
Sara Rosso, aka WIHT’s in-house geek
If you know about how much I like my GTD Inbox, you’ll know I like to keep a tidy ship in my email inbox. A single unread message creates anxiety, so they get read and replied to, marked for action, or archived. Gmail is my preferred email web client and has been for several years, when I switched full-time over from Yahoo! Mail.
I use Google Apps for my domain and integrate several other email accounts into what I call my “control tower” for email.
Gmail keeps growing and adding new features, and gives users a cool way to learn Gmail tricks by becoming a Gmail Ninja, but one thing I really like is that they have Gmail Labs which gives users access to experimental features that can be activated as desired.
You’ll find a lot of great tricks and features in their Gmail Ninja tips, but my 5 favorite Gmail Labs add-ons are:
Undo Send
Undo send perhaps is the most important add-on you can activate. After you’ve hit the “Send” button, it gives you the ability to cancel sending an email for several seconds. That attachment you forgot to send, that email you probably shouldn’t have, the person you forgot to copy on the mail, all now have a savior. At least for a few seconds.
Enable “Undo Send” and the next email you send, you’ll see “Your message has been sent” and then a link to “Undo” that will remain visible for several seconds. After it’s gone, your message has been delivered.
Canned Responses
Canned Responses, especially for someone who has a website and receives a lot of emails with the same types of questions (solicitation, guest posts, advertising, advice, moving to Italy, etc.), are a time saver!
Canned Responses will show up right next to the “Add an Attachment” link in your email editor. After you click “Reply” just click on the Canned Responses drop-down and “Insert” and select the applicable message. Or, if you’ve just crafted the perfect reply, you can save it by selecting Save > Create new Canned Response. It has saved me a lot of repeating myself.
Sender Time Zone
Now that I’m working with a very international team, and very international clients, it’s hard to keep track of what time it is wherever they are. When I need to answer an email, it helps me to use Sender Time Zone so I can know exactly what time it is where they are. Are they sleeping, and won’t see the email for a few hours, or are they just about to walk out of the office, so it’s best to send the email as soon as possible?
Refresh POP Accounts
Multiple signatures for multiple email addresses
This last feature is actually not part of Gmail Labs, but it’s a feature that was added only recently and it’s one I’ve rejoiced about. If you manage multiple email addresses in Gmail, it’s likely that you don’t want to use the same signature for all of them. You can set up individual signatures for each account by going to Settings > General and scrolling down to Signature.
Do you have any tricks you use to enhance your email experience? Even not in Gmail? Let me know.
Images: Google, and screenshots of my own Inbox.
After the fiasco that was Cooks Source copyright infringement, it’s clearer to me while many people are making leaps ahead with online collaboration and sharing, at the same time there is a percentage of people who still don’t get words like “copyright,” “Creative Commons,” “all rights reserved,” “copyleft,” and “public domain.”
Writers*, the Internet and its images are not your ClipArt gallery.
Especially in the case of Cooks Source, an assumption was made by the writer that the material they found online was somehow “available” and could be taken, re-used, re-written and published, and including the original author’s name was enough to justify its usage.
Some people make a living publishing content and photos online. Some just enjoy it as a hobby. Some do it as a second job, hoping for something more. All of these people have the right to full control over their intellectual property’s copyright, no matter what you perceive their aim to be.
In this article, though, I want to focus on photography. While more and more people realize using words someone else has written is plagiarism, it’s not as clear to them how they can use / re-publish others’ photos in their content.
A Photo Illustrates Your Story, or A Photo is The Story?
I think the first distinction to be made is between a picture illustrating or visually decorating content, and a picture as the story. In the first case, the picture helps you, the writer, to illustrate your story to the reader through visual clues. People like pictures, it breaks up text, and it gives them different focal points. In the second case, the picture is the reason for the story. It’s news, a point, a counterpoint, or the basis for a discussion.
Example: this picture of gelato.
In the first case (a picture illustrates a story): the writer could decide to use the picture in a story talking about gelato, about summer in Italy, about ice cream even. They use the photo like clip art – to punctuate a textual story with visual elements.
In the second case, an article could be written with reference to the author’s original blog post where the picture appeared. Additional details like the original author’s name & link, point of view, perhaps even a small excerpt is incorporated into the story (not only a credit at the end) as the writer uses the author and her photo as a point of reference and source, and as a key component to the story the writer is currently telling that is related to the original author’s content.
Neither of these editorial approaches is more correct than the other. Most of the photos on When I Have Time are used in the first case, as they help illustrate my story, but they are not the story. Often copyright owners find more gratification from the second case – if my photo is your story, most likely I am getting publicity, interest, and hopefully credibility and traffic from its inclusion.
In both cases, the writer needs permission from the copyright holder to use their photo.
Case #1 actually happened to me and this particular photo, and it was included in a post as an visual without my permission. I feel no need to name the site as we rectified the situation cordially and they were very professional. But it became even clearer to me that the assumptions some writers are working on need to be set straight.
Respect Image Copyright
If there’s a watermark on the photo, you can bet the photographer cares about how that photo is republished and used. Even if there’s no watermark, there is copyright on the photo! {Read up on a Guide to Copyright and Creative Commons if intellectual property rights are fuzzy to you} If a photo is available for Creative Commons usage, the author will declare it somewhere in an easy-to-find place like their site sidebar, on their About page, or directly under the photo.
If you can’t find Creative Commons license information at first glance, don’t assume that photo is available for the taking. Assume the exact opposite. It’s not available, for any usage, and you should write the copyright holder for permission. When in doubt? Send the photographer an email!
Proper Usage and Crediting a Photo
If you find a photo available for usage that is Creative Commons, its license dictates how the photo can be used, modified and attributed. If you’re not sure your usage is ok, ask the photographer! Ask!
Some tips for proper usage and crediting a photo:
Build a Relationship with your ClipArt generator, the Photographer
If you’re a site owner, or a community site writer, why not think of other ways to approach photographers so that they will be more interested in your request to republish their all-rights-reserved photos?
Are you a writer looking for images? Start with Flickr’s search for Creative Commons images licensed for commercial use.
Do you have any tips for writers on correctly finding and using images on the Internet?
If you’re a photographer, what would you prefer writers offered you, other than money, for using your photos?
*I use the term “writers” in this case to mean both journalists and bloggers – I have seen cases where both have overlooked copyright.
Photo credit: me, Sara Rosso
Here’s the slides from my presentation at WordCamp NYC.
I cover WordPress featured images in the presentation mainly from a user standpoint and not from a developer’s standpoint, though I include some tips and suggestions for users curious about experimenting with code at the end.
Covered in the presentation are:
I’d love to hear your feedback! The video of the presentation will be made available online at a later date, and I’ll link to that when it is available.
Note: This presentation is being released with a Creative Commons license – Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic.
WordPress may be intimidating to those that don’t know it. It’s got installation files and acronyms like PHP, FTP, mySQL and it’s open source.
Sounds confusing, right? It’s really not.
What you need to know about WordPress is that it’s an easy, powerful, and very flexible platform for blogs AND static websites.
What you may not know is that the WordPress community is very large, which means you’ve got a ton of information, documentation, and helpful people (like me) ready to get you started with WordPress.
Note: I am referring to an installed/self-hosted version of WordPress (available at WordPress.org), not the free, hosted sites on WordPress.com
Ready to get your hands dirty with WordPress? This is what you’ll need:
That’s it! You’re ready to go.
Let’s break down each piece:
1. Web Hosting Selected (with needed minimum requirements) & Purchased
WordPress has some minimum requirements to run, and most hosting providers will give you this information in the FAQ area or possibly specify if they are WordPress-compliant. If you don’t see this information, don’t hesitate to email the provider before committing and purchasing your web hosting. Some providers may even offer WordPress as a “pushbutton” or “1 click” installation which means they are not only compliant, they’ll walk you through the installation! Read server requirements for Hosting WordPress so you know what requirements your web hosting provider has to have to run WordPress. {Read the WHT article about How to Choose Web Hosting for your Site}
Really quick & dirty: buy web hosting from one of WordPress’ web hosting partners
2. A Domain Name Selected and Purchased
For the purposes of this example, I’m assuming you’re moving from a free blogging platform with an existing (free) URL like myblogname.oldblogsoftware.com, and you’re interested in moving to a hosted WordPress installation on your own domain. If you don’t have a domain yet, read the {WHT article: How to Buy a Domain and What to Do With It}. In this case, as mentioned above, you want to buy web hosting for your domain.
Really quick & dirty: most domains can be purchased directly from your web hosting provider and you can do it during the setup of your web hosting account or directly after.
3. A Backup of your Current Blog’s Content (Posts and Pictures!)
WordPress can accept just about any blog’s content on the planet. Your job is to find out how to export the content of your particular blog and save it to a safe place on your computer.
Here are some shortcuts for the most popular blogging platforms – if you are given a choice, you’ll want to export in XML format:
You’ll also need to download pictures and other content you’ve uploaded in your current blog. If you’re using Flickr for your images, and you embed the HTML code directly into your posts, you won’t need to do anything.
Really quick and dirty: Pay a friend to do this for you. Or dinner works, too. But not pizza – don’t be cheap, man!
4. A Theme / Design for your New Blog (and pertinent files)
I could write several posts about choosing a theme, but for now I will keep it simple: visit blogs (if you’re reading RSS feeds, click through!) and start noting which sites make you sit up and take notice and what you don’t like. Then start to understand what kind of design you’re looking for with your new blog (2 columns, dark, rotating header image, red, etc.) and then go here to narrow down your choices: WordPress Themes
I suggest downloading at least 2-3 blog themes that you like, so after you get your content imported and the themes uploaded, you can switch from one to the other if you find your favorite theme doesn’t suit your content. You may also consider paying someone to make you a custom design, but for now let’s just concentrate on a clean free design for the first iteration of your WordPress blog!
Really quick and dirty: Use one of the 30+ free themes that are automatically included in your WordPress basic installation, accessible via the Administration panel : Appearance > Themes.
5. FTP Client Software and/or Web FTP Access to your Hosting Server
You’ll also need a FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client software so that you can transfer files from your hard drive to your web hosting server, including most of the WordPress installation files (if you don’t have assisted installation through your web hosting provider) and your blog’s content like themes and photos. I suggest FileZilla FTP Client – it’s open source!
Really quick and dirty: Your web hosting may provide a web interface to upload files via web FTP, so you won’t have to install anything additionally, but you may find an FTP software to be easier and faster.
6. WordPress Installation Files and Instructions
You can always find the latest version of WordPress at: http://wordpress.org/download/ – you’ll need to save this to your computer. Then you’ll want to get started with Installing WordPress. You’ll especially want to have the detailed instructions page as well as the Famous 5-minute installation pages open.
Really quick and dirty: Use one of the WordPress hosting partners with 1-click installation for WordPress. Otherwise, you’ll definitely want a friend who’s installed WordPress before to help you with this – bribe them nicely!
7. Import Content from Existing Blog (optional)
Now you’ve got a working version of WordPress with some default content. Now to import your content. After you’re logged on as administrator, Click on Tools to expand the submenu on the WordPress administration panel. Next, scroll down if necessary and click Import to show the various import options. Next, click your previous blog’s type and follow the directions. Read more about Importing content from other blogging software into WordPress.
Geek Tip – only for the adventurous: If you have a large blog, you may get an error uploading your content as the uploader times out. MAKE A COPY/BACKUP of the original import file you downloaded from your previous blog interface. Then take the file and divide it into two or three pieces (you’ll want to make sure you cut off before the <ENTRY> or <POST> XML tag)
Really quick and dirty: It can’t get much quicker or dirtier than this. Be content.
That’s the end of the quick and dirty guide to Getting Started with WordPress. Below is a bonus chapter that has to do with cleaning up after yourself and your move.
8. (Bonus) Modifying Old Internal URLs and Images for the new blog
Chances are, if you’re a decent blogger, you’ve linked to yourself at some point, or often, within your posts. While WordPress will change the structure of your posts’ permalinks (URL) from oldblog.oldblogsoftware.com/mypostname to http://www.newdomainname.com/mypostname when you import your content, it will not change any internal references to your content. Oh dear, what’s a blogger to do? If you’ve got a friend who is comfortable rooting around in your database (MAKE A BACKUP FIRST BEFORE ANYONE PLAYS!), they can do a find and replace in your wp_posts table and do a partial replace (find: oldblog.oldblogsoftware.com substitute with: http://www.newdomainname.com).
If you don’t have any friends like that, or you prefer not to take chances, I can only say you’ll just have to go in by hand to each post, update the URL and save the post again. I suggest starting with your 10 most recent posts (more likely to be seen with random “Older posts” browsing) and your top 10-20 most popular posts and update the URLs.
Geek Tip: You’ll want to understand permalinks well when you import your blog – if your old blog post URLs were structured oldblog.oldblogstructure.com/day/month/year/postname, and your new blog’s URL structure is http://www.newdomainname.com/postname, you’ll have to pay attention when updating your URLs.
Anything I’m missing from the Quick and Dirty Guide? Let me know.
Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/photonoob/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Have a question for Ask The Geek? Send it to me.
Dear Ask the Geek,
I’m beginning to get a decent amount of hits on my blog (5000 pages/3000 unique per month…not millions, I know, but they’re increasing steadily), along with lots of requests to advertise. I need to determine the best way to monetize both the blog, and/or all my sites. I use text-link-ads at the moment, but I need some advice on where to go from here.
Sincerely,
I Work Hard for the Money
Dear I Work Hard for the Money,
Monetization is a formula that’s very specific for every site, and one that needs to be constantly evaluated based on your website’s goals and content, and perhaps your business needs at large. I think talking about the three following things will help answer your question:
Understanding your website’s main objective (and in particular, if there is a monetary correlation) is called a conversion:
Conversion is the process of successfully achieving the primary objective of a specific page or website.[1]
Focusing on defining what the conversion for your website is will make things much clearer for you regarding advertising – what kind of advertisers you’d like to host, pursue, and what type of visitors you’ll want on your site to fulfill your website’s goals. Also, it will help you further define your audience (existing or ideal) and therefore understand what type of advertising will not be intrusive or a nuisance but rather a service to them! i.e., you have a site about Venice, but you get an offer to host an ad for part replacements – does it make sense? Does your audience want that?
Of course, conversions don’t have to be strictly monetary – perhaps you’re hoping to turn visits into writing opportunities, photos sold, or email inquiries received. Perhaps after defining your website’s conversion, you’ll find that you should actually think about BUYING advertising instead of hosting ads on your site for others, or make it available in a subscription format, etc.
Here are some questions that you should answer to help define what your website conversions might be:
Write the answers to these questions down along with your other brainstorming, or perhaps create a light business plan, and then you can use this to base all your other decisions regarding partnerships, revenue goals and advertising.
Tip: If you end up instead buying advertising, understanding your website conversion is essential to measure if your investment is giving a good return on investment (ROI).
Google doesn’t like paid text links, or more specifically: Google doesn’t like links that are not labeled as advertising (“selling links”) because it compromises the integrity of how they calculate PageRank and therefore the influence a certain site has. I’m not sure exactly how you have configured your advertising/paid links (or what you’re getting in terms of revenue) but you might want to read this article about paid links by Google. With that being said, many have decided not to care what Google thinks and use them anyway.
I can give you some advice regarding monetizing, but I think monetizing your website is like finding the perfect pair of jeans: every site is going to have the perfect fit and mix of advertising that’s different from everyone else.
I think the best type of advertising to sell is that which respects the trust relationship you have between you and your audience. In my case, I believe graphic advertising, in designated advertising areas of one’s site and clearly labelled are best. They may affect the aesthetics of your site but the transparency is very clear to your audience.
Since your sites are quite focused, and you have the opportunity to find local/niche businesses that might want to be featured, you can probably take a pro-active approach and contact them with your rates, whether it be graphic advertising or text links. You may try to attract a quality advertiser with discounted rates if it adds then to your site’s own reputation to have them advertising there or helps you get other advertising contracts based on the reputation of your current advertiser.
If you’re determined to have ads on your site, whether you’re selling them directly to the business or opting into an ad network (like Google) you’ll need to understand how your payments are calculated.
Ads, in terms of payment, can be broken down into two general categories – CPM (cost per thousand page impressions) and CPC (cost-per-click). Google AdSense, for example, pays per click. Usually CPM are offered in conjunction with several ad networks (like BlogHer, Federated Media, etc.) who sell a level of exposure to advertisers across their network of blogs, but CPM can also be inferred if you’re offering an ad space for a specific period of time, like a month.
The CPM formula can be calculated by dividing the cost by the number of thousands of page views. For example, if your blog gets 10,000 page views a month, and you’re selling an ad space for $30/month, the CPM is therefore: 30.00/(10,000/1,000) = $3.00/CPM. Alternatively, you may negotiate a CPM that is good for X number of impressions and the advertisement is removed by you after meeting this quota.
Google includes a CPM rate in their calculation, but it’s actually a post-facto calculation that is made based on the ads clicked and however much they negotiated per-click with that ad owner. They call it Effective CPM, which is why you can see different CPMs for the different advertising spaces you have on your page. It depends on how many clicks they have received.
A third type of advertisement type is called an affiliate link / ad / offer, which means that you don’t receive anything from the ad owner unless the user purchases something on the ad owner’s website, and you’ll receive a percentage of this sale. These affiliate links can be internal to your site’s content (much like text links) or an offer/link to an affiliate store in your sidebar.
Sara Rosso (aka WHT’s In-House Geek)
Gone are the days when a blue screen would strike terror into our hearts and bring thoughts of lost data!
Hopefully I don’t need to spend a lot of time convincing you that backup is essential to anyone that has digital data. And who doesn’t these days? Some of the benefits for backing up are avoiding data loss and gaining data independence from your physical computer and therefore, being more prepared for an eventual failure or crash.
In short, anything you have on your computer you can’t bear to lose.
I backup what I consider to be the most important documents to me: my photos, my writing, organizational and university documents, and archives of important orders or noteworthy digital receipts. Anything I can’t replicate easily, or whose historical value means something to me. I also backup my ebooks, music and films I’ve purchased as some sites don’t provide you with a bookshelf or a way to re-download the media after purchase.
I often download files, programs and installation files to a specific folder (like C:/downloads) so that I can find the exact program later and re-install if necessary. Backup your installation files if you’ve downloaded them from the Internet, especially if they aren’t easy-to-remember program/website names.
If you’re using an email client that downloads mail directly to your computer, you’ll definitely want to have a backup of those email, too.
Backup is generally divided into two methodologies: file-based and image-based backup.
Image-based backup or disk imaging is like taking a snapshot of your computer’s current state and configuration. It will make an exact copy of your operating system, programs and drivers in that moment, useful for restoring at a later date. The entire backup is saved as a single file that is not navigable / explorable because it’s a complete package – you won’t be able to just restore a particular file or driver. If you’ve ever seen an installation CD for your favorite software, the data on the CD is usually in an .iso format which means it’s a disk image.
Image-based backup can be helpful to capture a particular state of your hard drive, installations, or system settings and is more popular for servers that are in a production environment, or a commercial setting. Most end users will not need to make an image backup. If you have a disk that is partitioned (i.e., on C: you have all your programs and operating system, and on D: you have just your data) you may decide to image the entire data drive instead of selecting particular folders.
File-based backup is based on selecting files, folders or even file types for backup. This is the most common usage of backup and allows you to have clear control on what exactly is being backed up. To allow for some flexibility, I select high-level folders (like C:mydocs) where I save all my personal data. Centrally saving your data and downloads so you can easily locate them later is a good practice to get into – try to override any default settings in programs to save in their particular folders.
Doing a backup by file type (like all images: .jpg, .gif, etc.) can be useful to someone who just wants to back up photos or a particular type of document they have on their hard drive. Backup by file type can be limiting, though, especially if you’re not sure what kind of data you’re going to be producing in the future or if you don’t regularly check your backup settings to see if something needs to be changed to be more inclusive.
Archiving is different from backup. Backup means that a file is copied to a secondary location where it will reside until it’s needed to replace or restore the version on the primary device. With archiving, the primary copy of the data is on a secondary device (like an external hard drive), and the original copy is deleted from the primary device (i.e., your laptop hard drive). Archiving a file means future versions of this file will not be synchronized to the secondary device and/or if the file is deleted from the primary device, the archived version on the secondary device is not affected.
Be careful that you don’t mix up the terms backup and archiving when looking at backup software and online services. Most software and solutions available today are based on synchronizing or backing up your computer’s actual state and files and are not archive solutions. If a file is deleted from the primary device, then a version of the file is available from the last time you backed it up on the secondary device. But if a file is deleted/changed/lost, and then a synchronization is executed before recovery is attempted from the secondary device, that file will be deleted/changed/updated on the backup repository and therefore non-recoverable.
With scheduling, you can really harness the true power of doing a backup – being able to schedule your backup automatically. Depending on your data generation/modification habits, I would suggest scheduling a backup once or a few times a week to keep your backups fresh and relevant.
My Backup Setup
For fun, I’m going to share the backup and archiving solution that I use at home. Perhaps you might feel I’m a little cautious with a lot of my failover, but it definitely goes back to the benefit of backup – feeling independent from my computer. My laptop is 4 years old, but I don’t worry anymore about the day that it might break down. My laptop drive is so small that most of my new content can’t fit on it anymore.
On A, I keep some personal documents and photos, which I then back up to B. On B, I now also have some photos and original content which only exist on B (and not on A). These documents and photos from A & B are backed up onto D, my online backup service. Then the entire contents of B (backed-up files from A, and primary content on B) is backed up to C. On C there is some primary/original content that is not backed up, and for now I’m ok with that.
There are many options for online and offline backup, many of which are listed in the articles at the end of this post. If you already have an external hard drive you back up to, you still might need software to help the scheduling or synchronization process. I use Synkron which is an open source software that synchronizes folders which works pretty well. If you don’t have an external hard drive, what are you waiting for? They are getting cheaper every day – pick up a Western Digital or Seagate drive.
If you’re running Windows, you may not have to buy anything. Microsoft XP comes with its own backup software = Windows XP Backup – installed automatically on XP Pro and available to XP Home users, too. I’ve never used it so I can’t vouch for its effectiveness, but it appears you can select what to backup and even schedule it. Read more about how to set up Windows XP Backup.
As far as online backup options, there are so many. I use Mozy (Pro) Carbonite for my online backup – I’ve since moved on to look for other solutions. Here’s a list of online backup providers at About.com.
Another popular solution for online backup is Dropbox. We use it often at work to share files and folders among members of a virtual working group. Similar to Mozy, you get 2GB free and they have other, more robust options for pay.
Worth mentioning, and one you might not have thought of is Google Docs, an online document service that will actually import files into their online versions. If you’ve got text, presentation or Word files that you’d like to be accessible online, this is a great way to have a copy of them online, but it’s not a good solution for continuous backup. Note that Google Docs does NOT have a guarantee for users so it’s possible that some day your documents could be lost or they could turn off the service.
What concerns or issues do you have when it comes to backup? What’s your setup like?
(img by zebble)
Note: There are affiliate links in this post which are clearly labeled.
Refresh” link to the right of your main navigation buttons, and it will show up to the right of the “More Actions” button.