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This free backup program lets you create and schedule backups using WinRAR. We were unable to get its promised drag-and-drop functionality to work, but it still proved to be a worthy backup program.

BackUp for WinRAR's main user interface is pretty self-explanatory, although we had to hover our mouse over a few of the toolbar commands buttons to learn their function. The program already includes a preset for backing up your registry. But creating a new preset task was not as intuitive as the rest of the program and required a visit to the Help menu. All of our … Read more

With its professionally designed and visually appealing interface, ACDSee Pro makes a good first impression. While novice users might be overwhelmed initially, the tools to organize and view images proved easy to use.

This program's sleek interface looks sharp and well-designed. Four main areas dominate the screen. The middle section, and largest, is for thumbnails of your photographs and allows you to view an entire folder's worth of shots at once. The lower left side gives a larger preview of any thumbnail you click on, as well as a small graph of its color composition. Above this box … Read more

The corporate soap opera between Data Domain and potential suitors NetApp and EMC has a new episode.

Two law firms have launched class action suits against the board of Data Domain, alleging that the process used to accept NetApp's offer may not have been fair and open.

Attorneys at Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann filed suit in Delaware on June 12 on behalf of the Police and Fire Retirement System of the city of Detroit and "similarly situated shareholders of Data Domain," according to the firm's press release.

The suit contends that Data Domain's board … Read more

It's pricey. The "Neil Young Archives, Vol. 1: 1963-1972" Blu ray box goes for $349; the DVD is $250; and the CD set a mere $100. The Blu-ray box contains a sprawling 11-disc collection. Young's been working on this set for what feels like decades; was it worth the wait?

There's a beautifully bound, embossed-"leather," covered book with tons of cool pictures. Hard-core fans will love it, everyone else will look through it once and be done with it.

There's only one unreleased live disc, "Live at the Riverboat 1969." The Blu ray box also includes "Live at Canterbury House" (not a Blu-ray, just a DVD and CD), "Live at the Fillmore East 1970," and "Live at Massey Hall 1971," which have been individually released over the past couple of years. I already bought them, as I'm sure many fans have. What a rip off to make us buy them again.

Most discs have music running times of under 60 minutes, so why oh why didn't Neil fill up more of the discs' capacity, or did he just need to justify an exorbitant MSRP? $350 for 11 discs? Strange, Hollywood movies that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make retail for under 20 bucks a pop, so why does Neil charge $31 for a disc for music he made nearly 40 years ago? Rip off.

The Blu-ray features ultrahigh resolution 24-bit /192 kHz stereo sound, which you can play over some newer AV receivers, but I'm not so sure that any high-end electronics can access the superduper-sounding PCM tracks. Surround sound? Only one disc has surround. Blu-ray sound quality is about the same as the previously released 24 bit/96 kHz sound on the DVDs that came out years ago. Don't buy the Blu-ray box for the sound; the DVDs are fine.

I had a rough time navigating the Blu-rays' stupidly designed menus and accessing some of the "bonus" material and "hidden" tracks. Hey, I paid my money, why do I have to go round and round to find the music I paid for?

As for video "content," I don't know about you, but watching an LP playing on a turntable or reel-to-reel tapes spinning gets old really fast. Reading pages of text off my TV is also less than entertaining. The photo galleries are nice.… Read more

This was originally posted on ZDNet's Between the Lines.

EMC swooped in Monday with a $1.8 billion, or $30 a share, offer for Data Domain.

The rub: rival NetApp already had a plan to buy the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company for $1.5 billion, or $25 a share.

EMC said its all-cash offer is a 20 percent premium over NetApp's stock-and-cash offer on May 20.

Simply put, EMC wants to acquire Data Domain in order to thwart NetApp's offer--or at the very least make the acquisition more expensive. Joe Tucci, EMC's chief executive, said … Read more

Nero's BackItUp and Burn makes the whole process of regular data backups easier for everyone. Using an intuitive tabbed interface and simple controls, just about anyone can pick up BackItUp and Burn and start a regular schedule for backups in only a few clicks. The software even offers the option of sending you an e-mail notification when automated backups are complete.

In addition to regular backups, BackItUp and Burn also includes full burning capabilities (as the name suggests) letting you burn your music, videos, data, and pictures to CD, DVD, or Blue-ray disks. Nero offers a free Gigabyte of … Read more

Though we would have liked more encryption options, this program sports a very basic, easy-to-use interface that is perfect for novice users.

Secura Archiver features an intuitive menu toolbar. The corresponding command buttons are colorful and to the point. Getting started was very easy; as all we had to do was click the New button to create a new database. We were able to add new files very quickly by browsing for, and checking off on, the files we wanted to archive in our newly created database. Likewise, deleting selected files from the archive involved the simple click of the … Read more

The U.S. National Archives on Wednesday said it is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of a missing hard drive that contains personal information of former Clinton administration staff and visitors.

The small portable hard drive was being kept as a backup, the National Archives explained in a question-and-answer document (PDF) on its Web site. It held copies of about 113 four-millimeter tape cartridges of "snapshots" of hard-drive contents of employees who left the Executive Office of the President.

Because the staff maintained White House entry information and electronic address books, the … Read more

KLS Backup 2008 Standard doesn't have the most intuitive user interface for backing up important files and folders, but thankfully, it employs wizards to streamline the process. Once we put it to the test, it successfully backed up designated files, folders, and even our Registry keys.

The user interface has commands at the top of the window, and four panels that display created profiles, profile tests, archives, and archive content. Not sure where to go first, we used the backup wizard to get started. Using the wizard, we added the files, selected the compression level, and applied encryption and … Read more