One of my readers pointed this out to me last week. (Thanks Steve!)
Backupify, which uses Amazon “cloud” as the backup medium, so everything is done online, and quickly!
What makes this service unique, as compared to services like iBackup, is that Backupify only backs up your online life.
As of this blog entry, Backupify supports the following services:
- Flickr
- Twitter
- Delicious
- Zoho
- Google Docs
- Photobucket
- WordPress
and is in Beta for:
- Basecamp
- Gmail
- Facebook
- FriendFeed
- Blogger
- Hotmail
with the following “soon to come“:
- Youtube
- Xmarks
- RssFeed
- Tumblr
Now until February 15th, Backupify is offering a “Free Account Giveaway”.
Setup
Sign up is quick, and does not require much more then a Name, eMail address and a Password, and your in, but you will need to Verify your email address.
From there, you are presented with a “Dashboard” of services to configure.
Setting up a Flickr was a simple as using the wizard to connect, basically UserName and Password (going through your Yahoo account). Done.
With WordPress, I had to download a zipped (.zip) plug-in, and up-zipped it.
There is no “Read Me” file, or simple what to do next.
I opened the enclosed “wp-backupify.php” file, and in reading, it appears at first glance that this type of backup is if you host your own WordPress environment.
It would have been nice if Backupify had said something along these lines. (Will investigate later… maybe…)
Gmail is another enter UserName and Password, with a “Please read this before setting up your Gmail account”, that when followed, only states that “Gmail Backup Temporarily Disabled” which was posted December 23, 2009. (Merry Christmas!)
When I checked my email later, I did get notification that: “Gmail backup has been throttled back to once every 3 days until we finish implementing new changes to support the high volume of Gmail backups“
Facebook is the standard “Connect to your Facebook account”, asks for permissions, and then allows you to choose what you want to backup: Photos, Friends, Statuses, Links, Notes and Events. You also have the ability to add another Facebook account.
Since I do not have any other accounts offered, I went down to “Backup Settings”, which is very primitive.
You only get a frequency: Weekly vs. Daily, and a Notification email settings: Every time, Daily, Weekly or Do Not, then you click “Save”. My settings are the Default: Daily & Daily.
From the main Dashboard, you can select the “Archive” tab and which service to look at.
I found that my Flickr images have already been backed up!
When I check Facebook, it only appears that my images have been backed up, even though, I had selected the Default settings of everything (see above), upon further review, there are other files, namely XML files.
The Dashboard “History” tab says everything was successful.
Restore
On the surface, it looks like that information is available, but trying to Restore your online life is going to take some time.
Images are readily available from Flickr and Facebook backups, but your content from Facebook is saved as a XML file (.xml), but as of this writing, I am not sure how one would integrate this back into a Facebook account.
Conclusion
The Backupify does do what it says. It backs up your files. Period.
The question that I have, and you should also, how does one do a Restore?
The Testimonials only talk about Backing up, but that is only half of the issue.
Having been a Enterprise Backup Administrator for several years, I would like to see some more controls, and some more documentation.
To be fair, I have not spent allot of time trying to find this info at the Backupify site, but at the same time, the info is not right in front of you, and trust me, when you are facing potential data lose, you do NOT want to be running around trying to figure out what to do.
Another thing that is not easily apparent, is the cost of the Service.
I did find one link that suggested I could find Costs, but it made me sign up, and I still can not easily find an answer.
In searching the FAQ, the word “Cost” only appears once, and if you carefully read the FAQ, it does hint at some of my concerns with a Restoration.
To me, there is also a feeling of scare tactics, but this might be the way that I personally handle my data.
My Facebook data is disposable. I have a backup of my images in my local environment, and if there is something important, I deal with it locally.
In regards to the backup from Images services (Flickr, etc.), at least in my work-flow, I have everything Local, then I post, so I already have a backup so to speak.
I maybe missing something here, but at this point, I am not sure how long I will keep my Free Backupify account.
Please let me know your thoughts.
– Andrew
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