From the AEGIS e-Journal, Volume 9 Number 8, August 2006
IBackup http://www.ibackup.com/ The other day we got a call from a colleague whose hard drive had died. He lost a lot of information, largely because he had not backed up his machine. Equally embarrassing, some time ago we spoke with someone who had suffered a fire in his office, and both his computer and his backup disks were destroyed. While sophisticated corporations know they need to have offsite data storage, many small businesses and individuals simply don’t think about this. We ourselves are big believers in offsite data storage, and an easy way to handle this is through the Internet. Our current favorite for on-line backup is IBackup. IBackup gives a number of browser based and downloadable application solutions for Windows, Linux/Unix, and Mac platforms. • IDrive ASP is a specialized network drive for working with database like files directly on the servers. IDrive ASP supports QuickBooks, Act!, Access and others! • There is a browser-based solution that allows you to upload and download files. • IDrive Multimedia supports concurrent operations on a single file for many windows applications. It streaming ability for music and video, and is also recommended for databases. • IDrive maps the on-line data so that it looks like an accessible local drive. • You can use your FTP program. • IBackup for Windows allows both drag-and-drop between the desktop to the server, and automates backups. For this article, our interest is IBackup for Windows. Once the IBackup software is downloaded and installed, backup is a three stage process. First, you decide what you want to back-up. You can decide which specific directories and files should be backed-up. You can also choose categories, which include Outlook, Outlook Address Book, Outlook Express, Express Address Book. Desktop Items, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, My Received Files, My Videos, My Favorites, MSN Messenger, Internet Explorer, Yahoo Messenger, Mozilla Firefox, Acrobat Reader, Adobe ÆGIS, August 2006 10 Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Intuit Quicken, Intuit QuickBooks, Intuit Furbo Tax, Money, Access, Excel, Word, Powerpoint, OneNote, Autocad, Corel Draw, and WordPerfect. There is also a facility for backup and restore of SQL Server, Exchanger Server, and the system state. The second step is to manually initiate a backup of these files, which will take some time, depending on how many files will be uploaded and the speed of your connection. The final step is to schedule automatic backups. These are smart backups, and only transfer over new or changed files. There is also the ability to synchronize the backed-up files with your computer, which will automatically get rid of on-line files that have previously been removed from your machine. There are other features available, but this gives a good overview of the system. How much does this cost? Well, if you are an individual user, and need only five Gig or less it will cost you $9.95 a month or $99.50 a year. Ten GB is $19.95/199.50, and fifty Gig is $49.95/$499.50. Frankly, the combination of secure off-site storage, and the ability to access the files from anywhere we have Internet access makes this a good deal in our opinion. 7. Subscription/Unsubscription/Copyright Information •• ÆGIS is supported and maintained by voluntary efforts. This publication is owned, published, and copyright © 2006 by The LUBRINCO Group Ltd, Inc. and Financial Examinations and Evaluations, Inc. It is edited jointly by Richard Isaacs (RBIsaacs@lubrinco.com) and L. Burke Files (LBFiles@feeinc.com). LUBRINCO provides services in three high-threat areas, too specialized to be dealt-with in-house, that can adversely affect domestic and international bottom lines. • Corporate counterintelligence. 1. American businesses lose $300 billion annually to competitive intelligence, economic espionage, and information theft. 2. Sarbanes-Oxley requires internal controls tracking the costs, and impact on valuation, of competitive intelligence, economic espionage, and information theft. o LUBRINCO provides private sector access to OPSEC, the government-standard process for identification, valuation, and ÆGIS, August 2006 11 protection of intellectual property and critical information from competitive intelligence, economic espionage, and information theft. • International asset location and due diligence. o Location of concealed assets in fraud, theft, and divorce. o Due diligence to prevent fraud and loss in China, Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the offshore financial centers, Latin America, and the Caribbean. o Financial fraud and anti-money laundering program development and training for compliance with the US International Money Laundering Abatement and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act of 2001 and the EU Revised Money Laundering Directive of 2001. • Protection of management, staff, and families. o In the high-threat environments of Latin America, Africa, the Mid- East, and Southeast Asia. o When traveling and living overseas. o When transporting items of substantial value. LUBRINCO identifies and quantifies threats and vulnerabilities, and their associated risk, then manages the vulnerabilities so you can transfer or live with the residual risk. We prevent disastrous financial loss to your company, and physical harm to you, your family, and your staff. For information on LUBRINCO and its services, or for the archive of all past issues of ÆGIS in PDF format, please go to http://www.lubrinco.com/. Subscription to ÆGIS is available for $15 per year in North America and $20 per year outside of North America. To sign up for a complimentary subscription to ÆGIS or the ÆGIS PDF notification list, go to http://lb.bcentral.com/ex/manage/subscriberprefs?customerid=7768 or send an email to aegis@lubrinco.com. To subscribe to our AvantGo channel, go to http://avantgo.com/channels/_add_channel.pl?cha_id=1773 To be removed from the subscription list, follow the instructions on the mailing you received, or send an e-mail to aegis@lubrinco.com. If you know of anyone else who should be receiving ÆGIS, please send their e-mail address to aegis@lubrinco.com. ÆGIS, August 2006 12 If there is a topic that you would like to know more about, send it to aegis@lubrinco.com and the editors will consider it as the topic for an article in an upcoming issue. If you would like to submit an article for publication in ÆGIS, send it as an attachment to an e-mail to aegis@lubrinco.com. Submission of an article certifies that (a) all information in the article is in the public record, or (b) that you are authorized to release any personal or corporate proprietary information contained in the article, and (c) that none of the article has previously been copyrighted. The submission of materials for publication in ÆGIS constitutes a license to LUBRINCO, and/or Financial Examinations and Evaluations, Inc, their assigns, associates, or affiliates, to abridge and/or edit said submission, and to copyright and publish/republish any submitted materials in whatever written and/or electronic form they may choose. If you would like to go beyond normal fair-use in reproducing articles from this issue of ÆGIS, you may do so freely as long as appropriate source, copyright, accreditation, and link to the LUBRINCO Web site is included. This should be in the form
Article Title, from the August 2006 ÆGIS (© 2006 LUBRINCO & FEE), to be found at http://www.lubrinco.com/. ÆGIS is a forum for the exchange of information, ideas, operating styles, theories, and related topics for corporate managers who make decisions about threats typically outside the expertise available in-house, yet which have the potential to affect their company’s domestic and international bottom lines. Nothing appearing in ÆGIS should be construed as legal advice. The information provided is “general information,” not “specific advice.” The solution to any problem is highly dependent upon the precise facts involved. Thus, before making any reliance upon anything said here, you should consult with an appropriately skilled professional. Opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily endorsed by the publisher, and may be presented to encourage a dialogue among subscribers. The publisher and any re-publisher cannot be held responsible for any loss incurred as a result of the application of any information published in ÆGIS. Please be safe, and be smart.