Friedbeef’s Tech

“Of the nine in ten computer users who store personal information on their computers - such as family photos, personal contacts and resumes - about 24 percent report that they have lost personal information in the past month, generally because of system crashes.  Just 57% of those who store personal info on computer back it up” via CNN

As you might imagine, backing up your data is one of the most essential computer habits which people forgo - many a time, because they’re just too lazy.  Setting up an automated backup solution is something we will tackle today.  In this post I am pitting two options against each other, one paid (Backup Platinum), the other free (Comodo Backup). 

Now, unless it can really blow my socks off, I usually find it very difficult to recommend paid software.  SoftLogica’s new ‘Backup Platinum 3.0′ which is a one-stop data backup software solution is unfortunately, no exception to the rule.   

Backup Platinum may be powerful…

Make no mistake, Backup Platinum is a very well designed piece of software which has a ton of useful features which include:

• CD-RW and DVD support
• Local Machine, Network & FTP support
• Synchronization
• Incremental backups
• Secure ZIP compression
• Scheduling
• Ability to run in service mode without user login
• Email notification

But FREE alternatives are just as good!

Backup Platinum costs USD$67 at the time of writing.  Now there are, tons of free backup software systems out there, almost all of which don’t hold a shade to Backup Platinum.  However, you only need ONE free viable alternative to make paying money for a license seem like a bad idea.

That viable free alternative is Comodo Backup (Guaranteed 100% safe at Softpedia).

Now there are some minor differences between the two (particularly in Backup Platinum’s security and Windows settings backup features), but Comodo does a great job in covering the most of Backup Platinum’s key features.  Hence, I find it very hard to recommend the latter (simply because of it’s price) in favor of Comodo’s free offering.

What could Backup Platinum do better?

It is truly difficult to win this battle based on software features as proven by their head to head comparisons to Comodo. 

Better emphasis on a solid support plan needs to be in place.  Premium pricing is only justifiable if you can provide companies with a strong guarantee that their backups are truly robust and easily recoverable.  They currently offer a 2 day response time which I feel is inadequate at this point. 

As for me, I’m sticking to the free Comodo Backup for my daily use.

UPDATE: Comodo Products come with a launchpad which can be annoying. To turn it off, click windows start ->Run -> type in msconfig, -> go to the startup tab and uncheck the 2 items found in the comodo directory. This will prevent this program from starting up the same time as windows. The next time you startup windows, turn off the notification for selective startup, and you’re home free.

If this process is too much of a hassle, you can try a softpedia search for backup software (apply the filter to list freeware items only), which has some decent but not as powerful solutions or you could of course shell out the extra USD$67 for Backup Platinum.

UPDATE : 6th July 2007 - Check out Cobian and Backup4All as much better alternatives for both commercial and freeware backups solutions

Links:

Backup Platinum

Comodo Backup

Disclaimer: Backup Platinum has paid me to review this product, and to give an honest opinion.  Please note that all opinions expressed in this post are completely my own, and have not been influenced by the manufacturer (which I think is pretty obvious if you read the review).

[tags]backup, backup4all, comodo backup [/tags]

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VS

Two Malaysian blog advertising networks Nuffnang, and Advertlets recently launched within a month of each other, and I just had the privilege of interviewing the founders of both projects.

The main purpose of this interview would be to give a voice to these two companies on how they would compete in the local blog advertising market and the role they would play in it.  Personally, I feel there is enough room for both parties to succeed and grow the blog advertising market - which also means more business for all of us.  For this reason, I wish both of them great success in their ventures.

This is the longest post ever on this blog, so a suggestion to my good readers would be to zoom down to the questions which interest you, and maybe read the rest in a separate sitting :)

Due to the potentially loaded nature of this post, let me disclose a few things.  I know both founders personally and I wish to keep a neutral stance here.  Identical questions were sent to them via email, and were replied directly to me, with neither party seeing each others anwers prior to this post.  I am quoting their replies directly, so this is not a 3 way conversation.  All opinions expressed below represent their views and not my own.

How do you compete with Google Adsense?  Their ads are contextual, allow specific site advertising - and they will cater all types of blogs.  What’s your edge over them from a bloggers point of view, and from an advertisers?

Nuffnang says: In the case of bloggers, I would not compare ourselves to Google Adsense or see them as a competitor since many blogs (including many whom have joined us today) use Nuffnang Ads as a complement with Google Adsense.

In addition to that, we are also targeting a rather different market. Contextual ads work very well for tech blogs, automobile blogs, or blogs that are of a specific category since certain keywords pay very well. They don’t work so well for personal/lifestyle blogs that write about various topics but that does not mean that the traffic personal/lifestyle blogs have are of no value to advertisers. It just means that they need a rather different targeting method to bring the best out of its audience. That’s what Nuffnang is aiming for.

Now lets talk about advertisers.

To be honest, if I were an advertiser of an online business myself, it will be very hard for me to ignore advertising on Google Adwords which explains why most of the online advertising expenditure to date is spent on Google. That being said, Nuffnang offers an alternative that does not necessarily aim to act as a replacement, but more of a complement. If you are looking to tap the audience of the highly influential blogging community in Malaysia, come to Nuffnang.

Furthermore, because we are a local company, part of our job at Nuffnang is to educate and convince local advertisers that online advertising is just the way to go especially if you’re looking to the younger generation of today. Much of this generation are big spenders when it comes to mobile phones, cameras or computers but they don’t watch much TV anymore, nor do they read much of the daily newspaper. They do read blogs though… and if you want to reach them. You advertise on blogs.

Advertlets says: I’ll start by asking you how many local ads do you see anyway, on Google Adsense? Our competitor isn’t really Google Adsense – the Malaysian bloggers here who make a lot of money through Adsense, manage to make it because their content is skewed towards an international audience, mainly technology or gadgets.

What we offer is the chance for the bloggers to write local content and be matched with local advertisers, and for advertisers to be able to target and the right audience through blogs – using demographics and geolocation..

“Contextual” advertising has its logical limits – at some point, the audience has to tell you about them for it to be accurate. For example, let’s say you ran a blog that posted lots of hot, glamourous female celebrities - contextual advertising might match you with lingerie and clothing ads based on the keywords in the blog – but let’s face is, men like to look at women more than than women like to look at women. Demographic based advertising would make sure that the ads are targeted at the majority of the audience, in this example, it probably would be mostly men between the ages of 20-25.

Your rival blog advertising network has just launched - What is your competitive strategy against them?  Why would bloggers/advertisers choose your over them?

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It’s one thing to read someone’s blog, but it’s always great to meet the people behind the writing.

I managed to attend a pretty large Malaysian blog gathering last week and got to meet a whole bunch of interesting bloggers including fellow Malaysian tech bloggers, LiewCF, Zeo and HongKiat.  Thanks Wingz and co. for organizing the event!

Picture Source: Shaolintiger

If you want to know how the event turned out, check out undebug.org’s comprehensive list post about the event.

Also, on another note, I also did a quick interview by Wordpress specialist blog WPThemesPlugin.com.  Check out his post!

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