I do it this way for a number of reasons:

1) Since I do sometimes move a lot of data, I’d rather let the desktop machine stay on for all of the time that’s required to upload the data to the online backup server. My laptop is great and reliable, but why put more burn on the laptop than needed.

2) While I do trust the zero-knowledge policy of SpiderOak (I refuse to use any online backup service that has direct access to my data), I don’t necessarily trust their synchronization feature. To be fair to SpiderOak, I haven’t found a backup service whose sync feature I do trust.

Most of these services seems to store versions of your data, but I’ve yet to see on that lets you do a true left/right synchronization check with approval. One of the big criticisms I have of some online backup services (other than the privacy part which I’ve covered at length in previous posts), is the functionality such that if I delete a file on my desktop, then the backup software will automatically delete the file on my backup. My problem here is that I don’t want anything on my backup account being deleted unless I explicitly allow it to be deleted. Furthermore, I don’t want to go hunting for versions of files that may or may not exist.

With my two-step system, I have 100% control of my synchronization and true certainty that my desktop files are exactly mirrored on my online backup. So for those of you who are using an online backup service — any online backup service — how do you handle synchronization and know for SURE that your data is being mirrored properly and that the service’s algorithm isn’t making decisions for you?

This type of filtering is an added level of security, as even if someone does have your network password, they still need to have a machine with a MAC address that’s “on the guest list”. Note that you can also restrict MAC Addresses as well, so if you know a MAC address that you don’t want on your network, you can specifically exclude it.

Before we can enable MAC Address Filtering, we have to know how to find a MAC address. This post goes over how to find your MAC address in Windows.

Now let’s head to the router to enable Mac Address Filtering.

1. Login to your router as usual.  If you forgot how, look at this post — it’s about how to change your SSID but it goes over how to login to your linksys router.

2.  Head to the Wireless settings and select “Wireless MAC Filter”

3.  In the menu that appears…

Click “Enable”.  And then select either the “Prevent” or the “Permit” option.   Personally I use the “Permit” option as that’s just like having a restricted guest list.

Then click on the “Edit MAC Filter List”. Go ahead and type the MAC address for each machine you want to allow on your network to the list. Press “Save Settings” at the bottom when you are done (I’ve blued out my MAC addresses in this image).

That’s it. Any questions?

1. Change the default router  password.  Here’s a post that explains how to change the default  router password.

2. Change the default  SSID.  The SSID is the router’s “name”, and for a linksys router is set as “linksys” as the default.  Change the SSID to something else — it doesn’t have to be complex but don’t leave it as linksys.   Here’s a post on how to change the SSID on a linksys router.

3. Once you’ve setup the other computers on the network, disable the SSID to hide your network.  Note that more modern machines can see networks with no SSID, but this step is an easy one to do and can still  help secure the network.

4. Setup WPA2 security (tutorial to come).

5. Enable MAC Address filtering MAC Address Filtering is a way to restrict access to your network by using a network card’s unique ID, or MAC Address.  The process is like having a restricted guest list for a party, and only people who are on the list can come in.

With these steps in place you can feel more comfortable about the security on your wireless network.

Exploration
For just the basics, Picsasa is great.  Unfortunately it doesn’t handle any real level of metadata processing, so despite it’s great feature set, Picasa wasn’t an option.  I even tried to look at Adobe Bridge, but being a browser and not a cataloging program, Bridge, too, was out.  I then jumped up and took a look at Lightroom.  A nicely designed product that does fulfill my feature requests, but also comes with a $300 price tag.  Enter IDImager Pro

IDImager
Part cataloger, part organizer, part metatagger, part image-editor, IDImager is a jack-of-all trades image management program that costs a very reasonable $100.  Because I primarily use Photoshop for my editing needs, I won’t focus as much on the software’s image-editing ability.  But suffice it to say that it’s there and it’s powerful.  In this review I will talk more about the other features of the program that make it great; these features alone, however, make the program quite valuable.

Categories
IDImager is based around categories, and the catalog system is basically a large, fully-customizable hierarchical keyword system.  Adding and removing categories to a single or multiple images is easy and can be done with a simple drag-and-drop.  The software also creates automatic “holding” catalogs for each import and download session that you have.  I find this staging feature very helpful, as I don’t always know what my categories are going to be (or I don’t feel like adding the categories at the time that I import).  As you’ll notice in the image below, the program is configured with quite a few default categories that allow you to quickly find your images.  Also look at the Import and Download Sessions under the Auto Catalog  category heading.  Note that you can also view your file structure if needed under the Catalog Folders heading.

Metadata Explosion
One of the most important things to me in a management program is the ability to really control metadata.  On this note IDImager doesn’t disappoint.  Applying metadata is a snap, and can easily be done for single image, multiple images, or directly on import (more about download/import later).

A fantastic feature that I would not have found had I not started to read the manual is the Stored Group.  A stored group is basically a stored procedure (for you SQL types), or an area that remembers a specific search.  So if you search your 4-star “vaction” pictures often, then you can store that selection as a stored group and quickly get to it whenever you need it.

Two (or More) Programs in One
One of the things I was doing by hand was my RAW to DNG conversion and I didn’t have a great sytem for metatagging on import; the download feature of IDImager quickly solved this problem.  The software allows you to import images and download. I’ve found the download feature to be more powerful than the import one so that’s what I use.

When you open the download interface it’s like having a built-in importing program at your fingertips — there’s no need for a separate import/download application and via the downloader you can  apply pre and post processing instructions, copy to an alternate location on import (a feature of many DAM systems).  And of course you can convert your RAWs to DNG and apply keywords on import.  Further, you can also automatically create a portfolio (a virtual catalog, collection or album depending upon your preferred nomenclature) on import, so you can start your organizing immediately.

And if you have more than one person taking pictures in the family (or in the office) you can setup multiple download profiles. Do you need individual profiles for different photographers (or family members), different cameras, or clients?  Want a profile that downloads .JPEGs with a certain author with one set of lables, and a second profile that converts RAW to DNg with a different author and makes a portfolio? No problem.  Setup the profiles for what you need them to do, and then come back when you need them.

Seeing Double
I’ve had a multiple monitor setup since I can remember, and IDImager rewards we dual-monitor folks by allowing the palletes to be moved to the second screen.  You can always stretch Picasa or Bridge across two monitors (who wants to do that?), but IDImager is designed to reward you for having a lot of screen real estate.

Batch Management
One of the best things about advanced digital photo management programs is the ability to perform batch tasks on multiple images. Here, too, IDImager is up to the task.  There’s an entire batch section where you can apply effects, crop the file, and rename your images, among a ton of other options. Showing the entire list would make this post too long) but here’s a small sample:

More Documentation then you can Handle
IDImager is one of the most strongly documented programs I’ve ever seen. There’s a 500+ page manual, a wiki, and a active forum to help you along with the program as you learn.  Even if you are not a reader of instructions, and you like to dive right in with software, I strongly recommend reading the quick start guide.  IDImager is intuitive enough to run without reading a word, but you’ll miss out on way to much if you don’t do some reading.

Network Support
A big gripe of many photographers is the lack of network support (browse the Lightroom forums to see what I mean) .  IDImager can run transparently on your desktop (e.g. you won’t see any database related things floating around). but if you want a true database-driven solution over multiple machines, the program supports the use of SQL Server as well (and according to post on the forum the free, SQL Express is supported, too).

A Version of Apple Aperture for Windows?  No, but Close to it.
For those of you who’ve looked cross-platform to find a DAM photo management solution for the Mac, you’ve probably found iPhoto, Lightroom, and Aperture (I’m not mentioning Photoshop because Photoshop is not a cataloging/DAM program).  Like many PC users, if Aperture were available for the PC, I’d probably be using it.  I do have a Mac workstation, but because the bulk of my network is PC (and I already own Photoshop for the PC) I use the PC for my digital photo management.   For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Aperture is Apple’s “advanced” upgrade to iPhoto, and it is often loosely compared to Lightroom with its feature set.

Now as we all know, Apple does not port Aperture to the windows platform, but the point I’m trying to make here is that IDImager is the closest program I’ve seen to an Aperture equivalent on the PC.  There are differences, as IDImager does not have some of the post-production features that Aperture has (e.g. Photo Books), but for a general feature head-to-head, IDImager comes pretty close.

Versions
IDImager comes in a Personal version and a Professional version; there is also a Professional version with SQL Server support for those who need it.  The company’s website has a great comparison-matrix so you can see the differences bewteen the two versions.  The Personal version is loaded with features but for a few dollars more the Professional is worth the upgrade.

Summary
IDImager is a powerful piece of comprehensive digital image  management software that can handle the majority of your digital photography needs.  With its tremendous list of features, intuitive interface, and substantial documentation, in my opinion IDImager serves as a good alternative to Adobe’s Lightroom; and for those of you who wish there were a version of Apple Aperture for Windows, IDImager may be the way to go.  Add networking to the mix and you’ve got yourself one heck a of a program.  But don’t take my word for it — download a trial version and see for yourself.  And do yourself a favor — read the quickstart guide to really see how powerful this software is.

Disclosure. I originally approached IDImager Systems about writing a review of IDImager.  I was given a license to use the product.

As long as your data is less that 4.7GB (the size of a standard DVD) then backing up to a DVD isn’t really a problem. The problem arises when you have more than 4.7GB of data, as windows can’t necessarily take a 10GB folder (or folder with subfolders) and break it up into the three DVDs that would be needed to make a backup. Now you could — by hand — simply look at the folders and note their size, and then copy appropriately sized sets of data to DVD; with 3 or 4 folders in a directory this is a workable technique. But what happens when you have a directory (say you are backing up MyPictures to DVD), then you could have tens of folders, and going through them by hand and trying to sort it into DVD sized groups becomes burdensome.  So spanning DVDs by hand is a pretty annoying project to undertake (unless you like that kind of stuff).

After much searching I came across a program called DVD Span that can take a directory (with or without multiple directories) and arrange the files in these folders so that they fit nicely on DVDs. The problem gives you the option to make the “best fit” or to be a little less strict with space and make sure that the files go in order. You can even create .iso images of your data and then burn the .iso disk images to DVD at your leisure (that’s what I do — I have no patience to sit around and burn 3 or 4 dvds full of files — it’s must faster for me to “set it and forget it” to have the .iso images ready, so I can burn the .iso’s to dvd when I have more time).

Generally speaking I had success with DVD Span except when I had to backup to .iso a directory that had multiple folders and files with very long names. The program gives you two .iso options, and while I was able to backup a lot of data, the program returned errors when I tried to burn the aforementioned “packed” directory with long folder and file names. However, for backing up my pictures and my audio files (which are not really in that deep a directory tree structure), the program did a great job.

At the $12.50 sticker price, DVD Span is a bargain.

Because I wasn’t able to get everything I needed done with DVD Span, I’d recommend you get a trial copy first and make sure the program can handle what you would like it to do.  And other than SyncBack Pro (see my reviews here and here), I haven’t found another program that can split directories to span DVDs.

A:  You’ve discovered a frustrating situation, but fortunately the fix is easy.  When you burn a CD in windows (mp3, data or otherwise), Windows will automatically burn the tracks in alphabetical order and it will thus ingore any order you setup.

The way to do it so that the mp3 tracks stay in order is to use iTunes.  There are other programs that can handle this but iTunes is free and the process is easy.

1. Make sure the MP3’s you  want to burn to the disc are already in your iTunes library.  If they are not, you can simply drag the files from the folder they are stored in directly into iTunes.

2. Create a playlist and add these mp3s to the playlist.  Here’s where you order the tracks.  Make sure in the playlist that the tracks are in the order you wish them to appear.

3. Burn the playlist to disc.

That’s it.

As a general rule, you should try to keep all of your data in one place — or in multiple manageable places (see my article on windows partitioning for more details).   For the basic user, the best plan is to keep all of your data in the MyDocuments folder.  MyDocuments is designed to organize your data, your pictures, your videos, etc.   I like to add folders to My Documents in addition to the default ones to help organize my files a little better.  You can add folders for what you need — for example, financial, work, home, etc — it’s up to you and how detailed you want to make it.

The Checklist

(Windows 7 caveat – almost all user data is stored in the C:\Users\[username] folder so you may have an easier time putting a backup together vs. your Windows XP friends — but check this list to make sure you do get everything as the \Users directory is not foolproof – see #’s 5 and 6 to see what I mean).

1. MyDocuments – this folder should include all of your data files (word, powerpoint, excel, etc) as well as your pictures, videos and music. So if you are actively using MyDocuments, backing up this folder will cover most of what you need to backup.

2. Pictures (if you are not using MyDocuments).

3. Videos and eBooks (if you are not using MyDocuments).

4. Music (if you are not using MyDocuments).

5. Bookmarks and (optionally) passwords from your web browser. And if you are using more than one web browser, make sure you backup this information from each browser individually.

6. Other Application Data — certain programs do not use MyDocuments unless you tell them. Quickbooks, for example, stores its data in the program directory. So look through your Programs (C:/Program Files) and see if there are any programs that you use that don’t use MyDocuments to store the backups. If you are unsure, open up the program and try to save a file and see where it defaults you to when you try to save (unless you’ve told it otherwise, Quickbooks often likes to backup to C:\Program Files\Quickbooks, so if you just backed up MyDocuments you’d lose this data!

7. Desktop Items. Strangely enough, desktop items are not stored in the MyDocuments folder and many of us (myself included) like to use the desktop as a temporary holding area (that becomes less and less temporary as time goes on). The easiest thing to do here is to find the desktop folder and copy its contents. It can usually be found (in Windows XP) under C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Desktop.

8. Email data. Depending upon which email client you use, you will likely have a data file. If you have online email (Hotmail, Gmail) then this won’t be a problem as your email is stored on the web. But if you are using a program like Microsoft Outlook, you will want to backup that data file. With this data file you can easily move to a new machine and get all of your emails back.

This is a pretty exhaustive list but once you’ve setup your backup plan and have it in place, daily backups (or backups at whatever interval works for you) will be easy. And if you plan to move to a new machine, you will already have most of the work done. If you are moving to a new machine, you can check out this post which is a checklist for moving to a new computer — which I will put out in the near future.

Disk Images

A disk image is basically one big file that copies the exact state of your computer to an external hard drive or another source (the Mac’s Time Machine is a great example of a disk imaging program), so that if you have a catastrophic hardware failure or a severe data loss, you can reinstall your operating system and then reload the image to restore your system to the way it was — prior to the problem that necessitated the restore.  There are many programs out there that create and restore disk images, and because these programs do capture your entire drive, you don’t need to worry that something will be missed. There are two major disadvantages of disk imaging systems, however.

1. Disk imaging systems don’t always allow you to restore individual files.  Say you are writing an essay and you make a mistake and want to go back to last week’s version.  Because most disk imaging programs won’t allow you to restore the single file, in order to get the old version of the essay back, you’d need to restore your entire system to the state is was in when you last made an image.

2. Disk imaging is often non-transferrable.  Say you have an old computer and you want to get a new machine.  Disk images are generally tied to the original machine, so if you have an image of your old computer, you will probably not be able to restore it to the new one.

File-Level Backups

A file-level backup is a backup where you backup the individual files that you need for your day-to-day use. For example, in a file level backup you’d backup your My Documents folder.  So if you are working on the essay in the example above, and you want to go back to a version that’s a week old, then you can go back to your file-level backup and pull out the individual file that you need.  Now of course it would depend upon when you last backed up the essay, and if you saved individual versions, but the concept here is that file-level backups allow you to pull out individual files where disk images often do not.

The main concern about file-level backups is that they do not backup the state of your computer and they do not backup your applications.  The reason for this is that even if you did backup your program files, programs need to be installed on individual computers and therefore cannot be moved.  You cannot copy your Microsoft Office folder from your old computer and place it on your new computer and expect Office to run.  Instead, you’d need to get the new machine and use the Microsoft Office install DVD to reinstall the program on your new machine.  As a guide for file backups,  I have created a helpful checklist that will answer the question, “What files should I backup?”.

What’s the Best Method?
The best method combines a disk image backup with a file-level backup. A good rule of thumb is to make weekly images of your machine, and daily backups of your frequently used data. This way, if you do have a problem where Windows won’t start or the system becomes unusable, you can first restore your disk image – which will bring your system to the functioning state is was in when you made the backup. Then, you can restore yesterday’s data to bring everything back as close to the way it was before you had the problem.

Also note that if you are planning on moving to a new machine, you must make some kind of file-level backup so you can easily move your data from the old machine to the new machine.

What’s the Best Strategy?
That’s simple. NEVER rely on one device to store data which for which you only have one copy. Put another way, always keep TWO copies of any important data. For most people, this should be straight forward. If you have a computer with a 250GB drive, make sure you have a 250GB backup drive. This way, if your computer hard drive fails, or the external drive fails, you always have a good copy. People run into the most trouble when they have a 250GB computer hard drive, and offload some files (usually videos and other multimedia) on to the external drive to save space on the computer hard drive so they can download more multimedia onto the computer. What happens in this situation is that you now have files on the computer that aren’t backed-up on to the external drive, and vice versa. Thus, if you now lose a drive, you will not have a backup because you only had individual copies of the data you need.

To solve this problem, simply purchase two external hard drives. It may sound like a lot of work (it’s cheap $75-$100 each — a small price to pay not to lose data), but it’s not. Here’s what you do: (and you can use a program like SyncBack [freeware version] to do it).

1. Copy all of your needed data from your computer hard drive to the External Drive 1.
2. Copy all of the data from External Drive 1 to External Drive 2.
3. When you want to move “overflow” data off your computer hard drive to make space for new data (e.g. movies you haven’t watched in a year) — no problem. Just copy the data onto External Drive 1 (you may want to create a new folder on the drive to keep the data organized (e.g. /oldMovies), and then mirror (copy the data onto External Drive 2).

In this manner you now have a copy of everything that’s current from your computer on External Drive 1, and you also have the “overflow” data (e.g. the /oldMovies folder) you copied to make space for more data) there, too. With only one External Drive, you will now have only ONE copy of the /oldMovies folder and its data. With the second external drive, you now have a copy of the oldMovies data on External Drive 2.

In summary, no one manufacturer of External Hard Drive will guarantee not losing data. The key concept here is to make sure that all important data is backed up in at least TWO places (or more depending upon how important your data is). The system above is one basic approach to use to mirror (copy) your data. I’d be interested to see what methodologies others use to mirror their data. Let me know.

1. What is the level of security that is being offered?  Is it possible for the company to recover your password if you lose the password?  Recall that if the company can recover a password for you, then they can probably access your data.  Clearly no honest employee at a company would compromise client data, but what is your protection from a rogue employee or from an attack on your backup company’s servers?

2. Encryption.  Practically every online backup software provides some level of encryption.  You need to find out what level of encryption is appropriate for your data (family pictures vs financial data and medical records).

3. Accessibility.  Is it possible to restore a single file and not just the entire backup.  There are many times where you just need to access a few items, and some providers in the past did not allow individual files to be restored from a backup.

4. Do you  mind having software running in the background all the time?  Most backup software that connects you online prefers that you keep the software running at all times so that the backup can stay current.  Personally I understand why the companies want the software running, but I don’t like programs running all the time.  I also use an external hard drive backup, and I generally run my online backup software once per week (or before that if major changes are made)

5. Pricing,  Is the pricing built for expansion?  Some companies charge a flat rate, while others charge per GB (usually you get 2GB free and then you are charged in 5, 10, 50, 100GB increments depending upon the company).  Also, because many companies do offer a flat rate unlimited backup (for personal use only), what other features are you getting by paying more, and are these features you will actually use.

6. I’ll leave the most important question for last.  What level of support do you get?  Is there a phone number or is there only email support?  How quick is tech support’s response time?  Because if you are in a situation on a Saturday afternoon where you need to restore a file and for some reason are having a problem, do you need to wait until Monday before someone can help.

Selecting an online backup provider is one of the most important decisions you’ll make when in comes to protecting your data.  Hopefully these questions will give you food for thought in selecting a provider.