I noticed Microsoft have updated their free Outlook Backup add-in. This works with Outlook 2007, 2003 and 2002.

You can download this from the link below.

What this does is make it really easy for you to backup your Outlook PST (Personal Folders).

Installation

1) Download Link: Outlook Personal Folder Backup

Note: You will have to run an Office Validation tool to ensure your version of Office is legal.

2) Download the File then install it.

Tip: What it does is install an extra option on the Outlook File menu called Backup. See Below

When you go into File > Backup you will see the box below.

Options: This lets you set where the backup file is to go and how often you want to backup.

Save Backup: This tells Outlook to run the backup on your next exit (of Outlook).

Open Backup: This allows you to browse to the location of previous backups.

Lets have a look in Options

You can set a reminder

If you have more than one Personal Folder you can select/de-select

File Location: You can browse to a location where you want your outlook to backup to.

Tip: Make the location either a server location or USB external media, something other that on your own location computer.

Running the backup

When you click Save Backup the next time you exit Outlook the backup will take place. What it does is copy your outlook pst data file to the location you told it in Options. It cannot do this while outlook is running. You will see the box below.

Finally

They don’t give you a nice “Backup Complete” Dialogue box but if you go check the location you told it to use you will find your outlook backup file.

I came across this handy utility that can recover content from word documents that are corrupt.

The company behind it Get Data offer a range of recovery products but offer the Repair My Word tool for free.

It supports Word: 6.0, 95, 97, 200, XP and 2003. In Word 2007 the file formats changed to XML so I can understand why that’s unsupported in this release.

So if you have a problem opening a problem word document check out Repair My Word on the link below.

Link: http://www.repairmyword.com/

A common problem you have when your PC’s hard disk is filling up is trying to locate where all the large files are on the computers file system.

For the last few years I have used a free simple utility called TreeSize from Jam Software.

What TreeSize V2.1 does is show you visually where the large files and folders are located.

When you run TreeSize it can take a few moments to figure it all out, especially on large hard disks.

Tip: If you are planning on doing some file management remember to backup important files first.

Check out TreeSize on the link below.

Link: http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

Last week I wrote a post that skirted over the issue of backing up your digital memories on-line.

I cant say enough how important it is that you consider a solution for keeping these precious memories safe.

Now Google’s Picasa is a great way to manage your pictures. You  can catalogue, tag and upload your photo albums online. You can even choose from a dozen photo effects. Picasa is great and its free.

Now if you have a Google account (also free) they give you 1gb of storage on Picasa Web Albums.

1gb for free is generous and as you need more Google will offer you additional storage at fixed price points.

I chose the 10gig plan at $20 a year. 

I really get two things for my money.

1) Off site backup.

2) The ability to share web albums online. The system will give you links that contain authentication codes that are unique to you and would not be easy to guess. From an ease of use perspective this is fantastic.

In terms of backup I still recommend you keep two copies locally. One on a PC and one on an external hard disk.

You don’t want to be the digital curator having to explain why you lost the irreplaceable.

The Picasa uploader seems very robust, I pointed it at a local folder with 866 photo’s and left it going and it uploaded all of them successfully.

Tip: In Picasa Web Albums you can have up to 1000 photo’s in each album, this is great for uploading but when looking at albums online this can be a problem. So a smaller number like 200 might be better.

When I looked at who offered online backup for photo’s I trusted Google’s Picasa more than Microsoft’s SkyDrive or the Yahoo owned Flickr. If you don’t like Picasa then I would say Flickr would be your next best bet.

Link: Picasa

If you need to purchase some royalty free images for use on your website or other activities like printed brochures a great site to checkout is http://www.istockphoto.com

They have in excess of 2 million images organised into categories.

For a brief time they have a offer of 20% off your first order.

You need to visit the via this link: http://www.istockphoto.com/twitstock

I heard about this offer on this podcast: http://www.twit.tv/128