How I backed up 12 gigabytes of World Series photos

It’s fun sharing historic photos like this one, which I shot at last night’s World Series finale. Preserving the additional thousands of post-season shots I took at Yankee Stadium over the past few weeks may not be fun, but it’s important because it will let me mine that photo collection for all sorts of purposes for years.

There are numerous ways to create backups of important files. For a brief overview, see our video on computer backups (embedded below). Our computer backup system buying guide (available for subscribers) provides much more detailed advice along with brand-name recommendations of systems we’ve tested.

Since I back up a lot of photos and prefer quick access to them, I use external hard drives.

(Storing them externally also keeps my computer’s internal hard drive from becoming cluttered with image files.) And because I always make at least two backup copies of important photos (in case one set of copies is lost) before I delete them from the camera’s memory card, I use two drives.

To back up my thousands of post-season shots, after each game, I copied the shots from that game to a 1.5-terabyte (TB) external hard drive. Then I copied those files from that external hard drive to a second, more portable 500GB external drive. (I have a computer at a distant geographical location, so I occasionally take the smaller, portable drive with me and copy photos to the hard drive on that off-site computer.) Only then did I delete the photos from the memory card.

This approach may not be for everybody. If your needs are more modest, an inexpensive thumb drive or writeable DVD might serve just as well.

If you have tips to share on how you preserve your photo files, post them below. —Jeff Fox

Fall Cleaning: Back Up Your Computer

USB flash drives are small tools that can help back-up the data on your computer.
[PHOTO: Consumer Reports]

Any computer clean-up plan should also include a backup strategy. In fact, backing up your computer is probably one of the most important things you can do, and it won’t cost you much at all.

We recommend three ways to back up your data. You can either buy an external hard drive, use a high-capacity flash drive, or set up a subscription with a low-cost online storage site. Here’s a quick look at each option. For more details, take a look at our Computer Backup System Buying Guide (available to subscribers).

External hard drive. Easy to install, an external hard drive usually requires a simple USB connection to your computer. With some, you may not even need software to get the backups running. They also don’t cost much, so you should be able to get a drive that meets your needs for $150 or less. Get a drive that’s at least the size of your current hard drive. If you get one smaller than that, make sure you weigh your future needs as well. Homes with more than one computer will need a networkable hard drive, which costs a bit more and is harder to set up, but a convenient way to share files across all your systems. The downside of an external drive: Most are not very portable.

USB flash drives. Tiny and convenient, USB flash drives have gotten large enough to serve as backup devices. Like external drives, they’re easy to set up, and may run backups without requiring extra software. A 32GB backup drive should cost between $150 and $200. Best of all, you can carry the drive around with you. But that portability can also be a danger, since flash drives are easy to lose or steal.

Online services. One worry with storing backups at home is the potential for theft, fire, or other catastrophic loss. Online storage provides an option outside your house, adding an extra layer of protection by storing your data in multiple locations. We looked at a few sites, and found that they’re easy to use but slow, especially during the initial backup. But you don’t have to worry about setting up any hardware, and you can access your data from any Internet connection. Costs vary, but two of those we reviewed were about $50 a year for unlimited backup.

Subscribers can check out our Guide to computer backup products for reviews on various data storage solutions. —Donna Tapellini

The things no one ever told me about college

If you (or your son or daughter) are heading off to college in a few weeks, it’s worth heeding the usual advice you’ll get—like, buy strange colored towels, so no one accidentally “borrows” yours, and, talk to roommates about who is bringing the rug and microwave. But there are other things no one ever tells you. Here’s what I wish I’d known:

You don’t absolutely need a printer. It is possible to get by using public printers; I did. I found it cheaper and easier to use the printers in our computer labs, which were open 24 hours, rather than buying a printer and keeping it supplied with paper and ink—which will go faster than you think. However, if you don’t want to walk to the lab, especially late at night, you might be willing to pay for the convenience of printing in your own room.

Back up your computer. Do you know what it’s like losing the paper you’ve been working on all semester the night before it’s due, then trying to retype it based on notes and/or memory? And replacing all your software apps, music downloads, photos, contacts? It can be a nightmare to lose everything when your computer crashes. Buy an external hard drive—either portable or desktop—and use it regularly to back up your whole computer, especially if you’ve just completed a big project. Also, you can use flash drives for specific files; just don’t lose them.

Buy a wireless router. You have a laptop so you can take it anywhere. Why be bound to a cord in your own room? Get a wireless router and secure the network with a WEP-key at least WPA and a long encryption key so only you and your roomies are privy to the setup. You’ll be free to roam from desk to bed when you want to, without dragging the Ethernet cord all over the room, or tripping over it, bringing your expensive laptop crashing to the floor (d’oh).

[Aug. 14, 2009 UPDATE: As several readers have pointed out, there are several different data encryption standards and options currently available to protect your WiFi router and wireless network connections. Here’s the bottom line: Even though it's better than nothing at all, WEP can be broken by a determined hacker, and it's especially vulnerable in a college environment. That's why we recommend the stronger WPA. —Ed.]

Consider a landline. Even though you might use your cellphone for 99.9% of your calls, it can’t hurt to have a regular phone in your dorm room—especially if your school provides an in-room phone at no extra cost. And there are still some schools that use the landline as your official contact number, so check the voice mail occasionally, just in case the financial aid office is trying to get in touch about a windfall coming your way.

Don’t forget the cables. You brought the TV, but did you remember the coaxial cable to hook it up to the cable connection in the room? I recommend at least 25 feet so you will have flexibility in where you place the TV. You can also use an HDMI or DVI cable to connect your laptop to the TV, and play movies on the computer DVD drive or stream video from sites such as Hulu. Noise-canceling headphones are another good idea; throw in an extra-long cord to use with your TV, so your roomie can rest up for a test while you watch late-night TV.

For more college tips, check Consumer Reports Back to school hub.—Will Dilella

Photo courtesy of Flickr

To iTunes, with love — for retrieving my music collection

After the author's iPod and computer died, iTunes helped restore her MP3s. [Photo: threefingeredlord/Flickr]

In a stunning reversal of my life-long good luck, my newish Mac mini computer blew its hard drive last month. This followed on the heels of the fatal crash of the five-year old iPod that had served as my back-up for thousands of songs, bought from iTunes, that were on my now-dead computer.

Two strikes - am I out? Is it too late to buy the back-up copy of my music that iTunes has been offering me, for about $250?

I searched the iTunes site in vain for any remedy, and finally, without much hope, made a phone appointment to speak to Apple support. The rep called, exactly at the appointed time, and said that iTunes would reload my music, gratis, to another computer. (No, I never told them I worked at Consumer Reports; we’re explicitly forbidden from using our affiliation for personal gain.)

I didn’t quite believe her. But soon after I brought home a new computer, an iTunes rep, Sandra, working on Mountain time, began to retrieve my songs and sending them to me via e-mail. I was thrilled—and also secretly convinced my good fortune was the result of good karma from skipping illegal downloads and buying all the songs in a way that supported artists for their work.

Conficker worm: Imminent threat, or another Y2K?

The Conficker worm—as in an online worm,  a type of virus that lives unnoticed in your PC while spreading itself to others over the Internet—has been one of the hottest online-security stories over the past few months. The worm started infecting systems big-time last fall. But the biggest chapter in this story might be yet to come.

Up to now, Conficker, which affects only Windows computers, has clogged networks and infected an estimated 12 million computers. It's also been able to shut down antivirus and other security software. "But it hasn't implemented a nasty functionality, yet," says Ed Skoudis, co-founder of IntelGuardians.

However, experts fear it may, come April 1. There's plenty of speculation about what exactly could happen on April Fool’s Day, the day Conficker is programmed to connect to other PCs forming a “botnet”, but no one knows for sure. So you'll want to take whatever steps you can to protect yourself.

That means ensuring your security-software subscription is current and checking that updates are being implemented. You should also run Windows Update—look for that or Microsoft Update on your Programs menu—to get the latest critical patches and the malicious software removal tool which will kill Conficker. Finally, this is a great time to make sure your data is fully backed up, using one of the several available options.

For more on staying safe online, take a look at our Online Security Guide for more tips. — Donna Tapellini

Photo-sharing sites: No place to back-up your photos

Do you have your photos securely backed up somewhere at home? Or, after you upload them to Snapfish, Flickr, Facebook, My Space or wherever, do you just erase them from your memory card? If you do the latter, you run the risk of losing them, or at least having to pay to get them back.

You might lose them because the site, like Kodak Gallery recently did, decides it will delete them after a period unless you buy at least a certain number of prints from that site every so often. (Sites with such policies may issue you a warning before they lower the ax, but if you miss that warning, it's curtains for your shots.)

You might also lose your photos because the site goes belly up. Think that's far-fetched? Not any more so than Fortunoff's, Linens 'n Things or Circuit City going bankrupt.

Even if your file doesn't disappear entirely, you may have trouble retrieving a full-resolution version of it from a photo-sharing site without having to pay. On some sites, the only versions you can download for free are low-resolution ones.

Buffalo Tech's Shinobi: An extremely thin external hard drive

Portable external hard drives are my laptop's best friends. Although my personal notebook has a (once-more-than-adequate) 160-GB drive, often times I've found myself running out of digital storage space—especially for the huge high-definition video files I need to transfer from my HD camcorder to my computer for editing.

I already have several "pocket-sized" external hard drives to help manage critical back-ups as well as off-load some of the larger, completely-edited video files from my notebook. And it's a hassle to remember to tote those drives on long, weekend video shoots. But at a recent press event, I saw perhaps one of the smallest USB-powered drives that would be simple to carry—and doesn't skimp on digital storage space.

Buffalo Tech's "Shinobi" (a Japanese term closely tied to "ninjas" and "one skilled in the art of stealth," according to Wikipedia) is a scant 5-mm (0.2-inches) thick and weighs a mere two ounces.

The official press release pictures (Click on them for closer looks.) don't convey how truly "stealthy" the Shinobi is—especially when compared to more conventional USB external drives. But it's about the size and heft of a small stack of business cards, which is a form factor usually associated with external memory devices that use flash memory.

The Shinobi uses a 1.8-inch disk drive, similar to the hard drive found in the super-slim MacBook Air, said a Buffalo spokesperson at the press event. And drive makers (such as Toshiba) are ramping up capacities of both tiny 1.8-inch hard drives as well as solid-state flash memory devices to 250-GB or more, rivaling the storage space found in traditional PCs.

What do to if your gadgets get grabbed

I was recently in Brussels attending some meetings with members of International Consumer Research & Testing, a consortium of consumer organizations of which Consumers Union is a member. I planned to spend two days on my own after the meetings, in the medieval town of Bruges, an hour's train trip from Brussels. While on a train platform in north Brussels, I was victimized by a team of robbers who skillfully distracted me and snatched my laptop bag. Among other items, it contained my laptop, cell phone, iPod Touch MP3 player, noise-canceling headphones, and a few USB thumb drives. All gone.

While such an incident could well ruin more than just a trip, some personal practices and quick actions prevented that from happening in my case. Here's what I recommend you do if your personal electronics  items are stolen on the road, with notes on what I did:

Change passwords. Fortunately, I had not put my financial files or account data on any of the stolen storage devices. I have no need to carry that info when traveling, so it resides only at home.

MacBook Air: Some closer looks

A Consumer Reports colleague (Joyce Ward) and I met privately with Apple reps Tuesday afternoon for a personalized demonstration of the MacBook Air and other products. It was fun to take a closer look at these new offerings, even if just for a short time.

They say the MacBook weighs three pounds, but it honestly didn't feel even that heavy when I held it in my hand—it seemed lighter somehow. The screen was bright, the keyboard a joy to touch, and the trackpad "touch" software had specific settings for one-, two-, and three-finger operation. One finger can click, drag, or double-click. Two fingers flip, rotate, magnify, or minimize images or web pages by using a "pinching" motion. Three fingers let you "slide" from page to page, image to image. This software utility is currently fully compatible only with the Leopard Finder, Safari Web browser (seen on a Windows XP machine at left), and most of Apple's "iApps." Expect third-party support in the future.

Of course, one of the first things that came to mind when seeing the MacBook Air was, "How's this battery deal gonna work?" In case you hadn't heard, the battery in the MacBook Air is not user-replaceable. As a long-time traveling laptop user, that worries me. I always found having the occasional spare battery to be a good thing, especially on those extra-long excursions.

Apple insists its batteries are absolute state of the art, hold a charge very well, and have a very long life. (The 17-inch MacBook Pro's battery lasted 5.25 hours in our latest tests.) Nevertheless, Apple will try to ease your worries with a Battery Replacement Program: Bring your MacBook Air to the nearest Apple store, and the techs will replace the battery (while disposing of the old one in an environmentally responsible manner). Total cost: $129, the same as a new battery you would replace yourself in other models. In addition, more and more airlines today offer laptop power ports on their planes, and both Apple and third parties sell adapters. So as time goes on, the need for having all that extra battery power handy is becoming less necessary. (It was unclear whether this Apple store program was a "while you wait" service, or a "drop it off and pick it back up tomorrow" sort of thing. Time will tell.)

Apple's goal with the MacBook Air was to design a sleek laptop without most of the tradeoffs associated with ultra-portables. The full 13.3-inch backlit LED screen with 1280 x 800 widescreen resolution bears this out, as does the standard MacBook keyboard and an oversize trackpad that supports the one-, two-, and three-finger multi-touch technology used on the iPod Touch and iPhone. Nevertheless, for power users, there are some tradeoffs: There's only one USB port, no Firewire, no DVD, and the custom battery.

Which led to my next question for the Apple folks:  What if you're on the road, your Time Capsule (seen at right) is at home, and your system has a meltdown? Low odds, mind you, but there it is, coming from a geek who can't be too paranoid. They recommended two solutions. The first, of course, is to carry that $99 external DVD drive and your install disk with you. Another possibility is to install, from that disk, a copy of the Remote Disk application on someone else's Mac (or PC!) with a wireless card. Then you can piggy-back on their CD drive and run the installer to restore your hard disk. Clever, but all you're doing is imposing on a friend's good will—sooner or later you'll have to connect to some physical media to restore your system.

Next up in our interview session was the "Time Capsule" wireless backup solution. Security was my main worry with this product, so I asked our Apple reps: Should I be concerned with potential man-in-the-middle attacks when wirelessly backing up your hard drive? Not necessarily. Time Capsule is essentially a full Airport Extreme base station (a fancy term for "wireless router") combined with a server-class hard drive. It supports all the wireless security protocols found in any other wireless router, including WPA and WPA2. That was the answer I was looking for, but it was still unclear how simple that would be to set up for the uninitiated. It's not normally much fun for those who do it for a living. All that wireless security is well and good, but sometimes to an old school guy like myself, there's nothing more secure than a good honest wire, and fortunately for me, Time Capsule has three gigabit-Ethernet ports included. (See image at left.) But of course, that does me no good with the MacBook Air, which has not a single Ethernet port built-in.

—Thomas A. Olson