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There have been a number of wonderful inventions during the 20th and 21st century. Some of these creations have been both massive and minute. Very few of mankinds modern creations have revolutionized working life so much as the USB flash drive though. Ok now that might seem a bit much for some people but the reality remains the same - USB flash drives have made the working lives of millions of office workers, teachers, students, IT and other professionals massively more simple. If you already one (or a few) USB flash drives then you’ll know just how incredibly useful they are. If you don’t already own at least one USB memory stick then hopefully this article will help convince you of their absolute usefulness in both your working and personal life.

So what’s so great about USB flash drives?

Small

Prior to the creation of USB flash drives all external storage devices for computers were either bulky or awkward (dozens of blank discs for example) or sometimes an annoying combination of being both bulky and awkward. USB flash drives are also called Thumb Drives because they’re about the size of your thumb (although some are much smaller now) and you can easily fit several gigabytes of data in your jeans or shirt pocket thus eliminating the bulky and awkward factor straight away.

Portable

USB flash drives are about the single most portable data backup device possible. They don’t require an external power source of any kind, nor do you need any cables or tools to set them up and last but not least they don’t require any additional software to be installed for them to work on any modern computer (Windows XP, 2000 and Vista and most Macs) so you can quite literally pick them up and use them anywhere you want.

Reliable

Once the data is stored on a USB flash drive you can rest assured that it’s going to stay there and be there when you next need it. This is totally unlike the world of floppy disks or rewriteable CD/DVD discs where they can just stop working for no apparent reason. Flash drives were built to provide consistent and reliable performance. Most of these drives come with built-in write protection to prevent you from overwriting your own important data - if you were silly enough to do so.

Tough

For years people fiddled with boxes of floppy disks and CDs/DVDs. These were bulky, easily lost and easily damaged. External hard drives also provided another method of transporting data between systems but the smallest jolt was and is enough to kill an external hard disk stone dead. USB flash drives are based on what’s called Solid State Memory - this simply means that it’s the same as standard computer memory in that it has no moving parts and is therefore almost impossible to damage (except for jumping up and down on it or maybe hitting it with a hammer for example. Please don’t test either of these theories at home!)
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Most small companies and home users don’t need to buy an expensive solution for data backup. They can simply copy important files to a CD or DVD, and if an information loss occurs, they can get it back easily.
If it is simply to copy documents, photos and other files, not the same is for emails, attachments, address book, stationery and other related information from your Outlook Express email client.
This article will explain how everybody can create a manual Outlook Express backup copy (because Outlook Express don’t offer a built in backup function) This email program is usually installed with the Windows operating system and is probably among the most commonly used email programs today.

1. Backup email messages
In Outlook Express, emails are stored in files with DBX extension. The easiest way to find these files is to open Outlook Express and from menu select Tools | Options | Maintenance and click the Store Folder button. Here you can find the path to the folder containing your emails.
This procedure works for all kind of email: SMTP / POP3, IMAP, MAPI, or even the Hotmail Account (some messages might be stored only at the Hotmail server).
To save all your emails and attachments you should copy all the DBX files from the folder.

2. Account settings:
Details about your mail and news accounts are stored in the registry. To find them, start RegEdit and select the “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Account Manager” key from the left panel. To save this data, from menu select: Registry | Export Registry File. Save the file to a name like “accounts.reg”.

3. Mail Rules
The Outlook Express mail rules are stored in the registry, in the “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities” key. To save this data, from menu select: Registry | Export Registry File. Save the file to a name like “rules.reg”.
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Data backup is rarely a part of a home computer user’s or business IT administrator’s plans, we all say it will never happen to me or my company, but in reality we are just mentally preparing for the time we lose our data. Its like trying to stop smoking, we all know we should do it but will find every excuse not to. So be honest with yourself and ask yourself the question, do you have a backup plan for your data, or more importantly, do you have a restore plan which will protect your business should something go wrong? All business leaders and owners will now tell you that computers are way past being a useful part of our lives, but now they are an absolute necessity. We acknowledge the data which resides on our computer infrastructure is the most important asset of any organization. I ask again, what would happen if you lost your data and what are you doing to protect it?

The reasons for data loss are endless, human intervention, hardware failure, software failure, natural disaster, loss, theft, we can go on, but we can be sure of one thing, as time goes by the list will get longer and longer.
Ever had anything stolen or lost anything before?

I have been in the IT industry for some 25 years now, and as you can imagine, I have heard some bizarre stories of how computers and servers have been stolen. Laptops stolen from back seats of cars (data lost), a colleague forgot he left his laptop on the roof of his car; problem is he realized when he was 160 miles down the road (lost data). My friend’s office was broken in twice in two nights, first time resulted in loss of desktop computers and totally trashed alarm system (some data loss), and second night was to take the servers along with the backup device and media! Apparently the heavy stuff was stolen the second night as the thief’s had more time due to the alarm not being repaired quickly enough (total data loss and company ceased trading within 8 months). Save yourself money; prevent data loss in the first place by implementing a data backup plan.

Hardware Failure
If you have managed to never lose your laptop or have you whole IT infrastructure stolen then well done, so now let’s prepare ourselves for hardware failure. There are mainly only three mechanical parts within a laptop, computer or server; 1) hard drive, 2) backup drive 3) CD or DVD. Hard drives do fail and if it has not happen yet it will. Don’t get me wrong, if you take a failed drive to an expert, they will probably get most of your data back (phew) but expect to pay in excess of £5000 for the pleasure (not phew). Save yourself money; prevent data loss in the first place by implementing a data backup plan.
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There is a calculated trend in all business corporations and firms: when the enterprise is getting bigger, its support of data increases its complexity, volume and value. The larger your enterprise is, the more significant your data files become. The traditional tape backup can no longer produce in-depth data information about all the important features of your business. That’s why many people get acknowledged to a more adequate file protection. A secure offsite backup system can be the possible solution. Business owners and offices managers have got it straight: if the business is to flourish, precise data information storage should be used.

Offsite backup systems offer something, which no other data store can do: they protect to the greatest extent all your files. But why should they do that, you may ask. Imagine you are a business owner. You have your own office computer, which is crammed up with all the valuable info. Well, what if the computer gets stolen, or a short-cut puts it out of practice? What will happen to your enterprise? If you are still not convinced enough to the rational extent, let’s consider the following statistic data. 1 in every 4 computer users suffers a critical data loss every year. Last years over 500,000 were stolen. Disk and other hardware failures are so numerous that major disk and computer manufacturers/resellers are reducing their warranties to 12 months. Over 25% of data loss is a result of computer program errors, software viruses and natural disasters (factors completely out of your control). 50% of businesses that lose their data never open their doors again. Of those businesses that do manage to stay open, 90% end up failing within two years. Data loss will cost business an estimated £12 Billion this year.
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