Incremental Backup using BATCH commands

There is an easy and geek way to make incremental backups in Windows using just the bloc notes and the command-line. There are just a few steps, easy to follow:


Copy this string into a new text file with bloc note or your favourite text editor:

@echo off

xcopy “C:\Folder 1” “D:\Backup Folder 1” /E /H /R /Y /I /D

xcopy “C:\Folder 2” “D:\Backup Folder 2” /E /H /R /Y /I /D

xcopy “C:\Folder 3” “D:\Backup Folder 3” /E /H /R /Y /I /D

pause

Save it with the .bat extension (it can be done in the bloc notes selecting "All Files" as extension and naming the file such as backup.bat).

It's done!


If you run the file just created, a command-line will open and it will make an incremental backup of Folder 1,2 and 3 (the source folders) into Backup Folder 1,2 and 3 respectively (the destination folders).
You can remove or add more folders to make simultaneous backups.

New files in the source folder will be written in the destination folder, existing files will be kept, updated files will be overwritten, deleted files wont be deleted in the destination folder (from this the name "incremental").

Firefox and Thunderbird Backup folders (Windows and Linux)

Making backups periodically is a very good habit.

Personally I've lost a lot of data thanks to thunderstorms, super-heated HDDs or just random broken hardware, enough to make backup of every single bit of data on my notebook.
Sometimes it's like a curse: if you don't make backups, some thunder will burn your hard-disk... and it happens... regularly.

I find very useful to save settings, especially those on my web and mail browser, that is full of themes, add-ons, feeds, bookmarks and other preferences that I wouldn't really like to lose.
I use Firefox and Thunderbird as internet browser and mail platform and I find them the most customizable and fluent software in that field.

So I'd just like to remind you to make a backup of your settings (yes, don't be lazy, make it now!). The profile folders (that contain almost everything) are located in:


Firefox

Windows XP: %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\ (note: %APPDATA% is equivalent to C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data)
Linux: ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default/


Thunderbird

Windows XP: %APPDATA%\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\
Linux: ~/.thunderbird/xxxxxxxx.default/


A very good tool to make automatic and scheduled backups in Firefox is the FEBE add-on.

From Windows to Linux?

I haven't been writing for a while here, since I've been busy particularly with installing, using (and enjoying) Linux.

I decided to install the Fedora distribution (a free Red-Hat product) in a dual boot with the intention of using Linux sometimes and keeping Windows as the main OS. I also decided to try Windows 7 RC, so I built 3 partitions and installed each operative systems:

The reaction to Windows 7 was not so exciting as I thought. The user interface is very similar (if not the same) to Vista. Yes, it was much better than Vista under a lot of aspects, so I was almost convinced to swap to Windows Seven, even if it did not really bring many improvements from XP.

What really shocked me was the compatibility with hardware and software. A lot of programs were not working under Seven, and this is quite acceptable since it is still a RC. But what made me upset were the ATI drivers for Seven, made only for the newest graphic cards (and not for my ancient but still working Radeon X600).
Without the drivers, the "powerful" Windows 7 didn't even recognize the resolution of my display (1440x900) so I was constrained to use a crappy 800x600.
I immediately removed Seven.

Then I installed Fedora 11! In less than 20 minutes the OS was on the hard drive ready to be used, with all the components installed automatically (and the right display resolution).
There are no accurate words to describe it: flexible, light, fast, user-friendly.
I'm not planning to use Windows again from that day.
Maybe one of the few drawbacks is the lack of programs (untrue! I could never be more wrong, repositories are full with programs and much cooler ones than Windows) so I decided to keep Windows for that, but often there are good, if not better, alternatives and there are a lot of more interesting applications.
I can't list the benefits of using Linux here, it is seriously difficult to list them all!

Anyway, I'm not using Windows any more, so I'll write quickly some post about some Windows programs that I planned to write and then I think I'll begin to write IT posts exclusively about the Linux world.