Ask Leo! #536 – Lots of Feedback, Breaking NAS, Angle Brackets, “From” Spoofing, and more…

Yeah, complexity -- sadly, the bane of all things computer-related -- is the antidote to good computer hygiene like backing up. There's no question in my mind that if computers were simpler to use in general (as well as backup software in particular), more people would be backing up their data regularly. Very often an application's "main page" is very poorly designed -- sometimes with critical icons not even visible! (Again, this complaint applies to much software in general, not just backup software. But when people have a bad experience with any kind of software, it makes them gun-shy to try other software, like backup applications.)

In the same vein, DOCUMENTATION -- user manuals, help files, etc. -- is often bad or even nonexistent. Again, this is "poison" to good computer hygiene. I know many people are too lazy to "RTFM". But what about when there IS no effin' manual??? Bad experiences with computers -- especially when it's the result of undue complexity (and/or cryptic error messages) coupled with lack of a proper instruction manual (or a poorly designed one) -- leaves people with a negative or fearful attitude toward computers and software and is undoubtedly a main cause behind people's failure to backup their data. If people are afraid that something is "too hard to do", they will throw up their hands and say "to hell with it."

(That being said, I have to admit that the instruction manual that came with my Western Digital "My Passport Ultra" is pretty good. It's an example if what such guides SHOULD look like. It's kinda long, but that's only because it clearly explains almost everything, and that's what I WANT in a user manual. And the included WD backup software itself seems pretty simple and straightforward, too. So that's what I use to backup my data. And I do back it up regularly, ever since a disastrous and unexpected total hard drive failure last October, which caused me to lose four years' worth of data and is what turned me from a guy who almost never backed up his data into a backin' up fanatic! It was a painful lesson, but at least I learned it [albeit the hard way].)

(To answer Leo's original question, the reason *I* almost never backed up my data previously was mostly an "I'll get around to it one day" attitude combined with an "it won't happen to me" attitude. Big mistake.)

Last, Leo sez: "I have seen some programs try to provide one-button solutions and fail miserably." Can you elaborate on that for us, Leo?

Without naming names several years ago now I did see one version of backup software specifically update to what they felt was a simpler, easier to use nearly one-button interface. It was simpler, but it was definitely not easier to use - it was really unclear what that one button DID, for example. Coupled with a severe lack of customer support that particular product lost my confidence to this day.

I backup my home computer regularly to a removable external hard drive, and I'm planning to start backing up the most critical files also to somewhere off-site, either the cloud or extra space on my web site host. I'm in the same situation with respect to a small community-owned business that I advise: we're backing up to a hard disk stored between backups in the office safe but not yet to anywhere off-site. In both locations, I'm able to write AHK scripts to automate most of the Macrium Reflect process, so executing the backup is not a technical problem for whoever needs to do it.

In the small business context, however, I'm anticipating a problem not with backing up but with writing and testing appropriate instructions for recovery. Users don't need to make any important choices during the backup process, but there are many more potential choices during a recovery process, depending on just what went wrong. I can document the fact that we're using standard tools such as Macrium Reflect, we can make sure that the document describing the backup process and files exists in multiple places, and I can simply hope that if I'm not around in an emergency someone will be able to find a local expert familiar with using the software. I'm hoping that this approach is at worst inefficient and not disastrous, and I wish I had the time for a more rigorous approach.

Given that context, I hope that your new book deals with the issues involved in recovery, especially the issues in helping non-technical people to recover critical files if not whole operating systems, as well as the issues involved in backup.

I agree totally with your comments on the complexities of recovery. So much so that this book will probably not focus on that - as you said there are simply too many variations of what to do based on exactly what went wrong. My existing books (the "Saved!" series) details the standard "recover from a backup image" approach that is the basis for I'll say 50% of recovery, "recover files from within a backup image" which is probably another 40%. In this book I want to focus on getting people backed up in the first place, so that WHEN the time comes that something goes wrong they have options instead of lost data. They may need to seek out help for those options and recovering that data, but they'll be able to. And they'll have the specific scenario to work with and not pages and pages of "if it's this type of failure then do that kind of thing, maybe".