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Areca... The App that will pull this all together

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March 14, 2008 - 3:48pm
#1
Ronil
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Areca... The App that will pull this all together

How many people here have spent hours if not days setting up their portable application usb key to just be perfect? I have been following this site for years and I have my Flash Drive loaded will all of my software, much of it from this site. I have taken a lot of the things here to the next level, for example I am using XYplorer as my Explorer tool through Geek Menu. This is great as now I can set associations so when I open a ".doc" file open office on the key opens etc..

I was a huge fan but being so dependant on this key I was lost a year ago when my key was stolen. This really opened my eyes as so much was on this key and now i have lost all the data. Many people here are asking why didn't he back up the key. Well the truth is that I do a lot of traveling and often I don't have the option of backing up to my home/work pc. I have got the key working so well sometimes I leave my laptop when going on certain trips and just use my PDA and USB key. I am sure that there are others like me that wish they could back up the key automatically.

The solution would be a good backup tool that did incremental backups so that I wouldn't need to backup a 4-16GB every day, and something that maybe did the backup over the web (How many people don't have internet at home that can't host a simple FTP(s) Server).

I now present the solution: Areca, Areca is open source and allows incremental backups to an FTP site or to a local drive. This means that you can backup from anywhere (not just on your home pc).

Personally I would like this to take over the Portable Apps Backup as it is FAST and efficient, since you are just backing up the differences.

Today the software is running from my key but is leaving information behind on the host machine. Obviously this doesn't work well for the corporate machines I use. I recommend that everyone try out this software and hopefully someone will develop a portable version.

http://areca.sourceforge.net/

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March 15, 2008 - 5:14am
Ryan McCue
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Toucan

Have you tried Toucan, available from this site and specifically built to be a portable app?

"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."

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March 15, 2008 - 9:44am
Shawn Faucher
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Areca

It looks like a nice piece of software. I may take a crack at portablizing it. Realistically though since it is a Java app it could not be "the" backup app for PortableApps.com even if Toucan didn't exist since Java cannot currently be packaged in PAF format due to licensing and not all machines have Java installed. There is a Java portablizer however, so it is useful for those with the know-how to take that added step.

formerly rayven01

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March 15, 2008 - 10:38am
Aciago
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Question

to both Ronil, Ryan and Shawn...

And is a serious question, not a joke... Sad

If I keep a backup of my Thumb Drive on my own PC, because I'll not do it on a public PC, and I should not have it on my Office PC...

Why there are so many requests for portable backup utilities... I mean, I need a backup utility on my own PC not in my Thumb Drive.

I can understand why Areca (to backup even on travel trough FTP) but not the rest.

BTW, with 8Gb to backup and the time and cost of a rented connection... I'll not backup on travel... Wink

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
and the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
and the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
then the socket packet pocket has an error to report Biggrin

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March 15, 2008 - 2:26pm
(Reply to #4)
rab040ma
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The backup application that

The backup application that comes with PAM, and Toucan, should be plenty to backup one's USB drive.

If you backup just the user data and not all the apps, it should be a whole lot less than 8GB.

Toucan and Areca and things like it are configured so they know to only backup files that have changed since the last backup. So if you are using Areca with FTP and only backing up changed files, your FTP upload should be very manageable. Plus the entire backup will be available to you while you are away from home, so you can restore something that got accidentally deleted or that sort of thing.

MC

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March 15, 2008 - 7:46pm
(Reply to #5)
Aciago
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i can understand that

but why a portable backup solution since we only backup in our own computers not in our office or public ones...???

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
and the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
and the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
then the socket packet pocket has an error to report Biggrin

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March 15, 2008 - 11:21pm
(Reply to #6)
Ryan McCue
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Travelling

If you're travelling and doing work, you'd want to be able to back up, without going home to do it.

"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."

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March 17, 2008 - 4:51am
(Reply to #7)
Aciago
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.

Understood

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
and the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
and the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
then the socket packet pocket has an error to report Biggrin

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March 16, 2008 - 3:51pm
(Reply to #8)
haustin
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Answer:

You're assuming the point of view that the USB drive is the source of data to be backed up. Sometimes it's the backup device.

For example:
Let's say there's an Internetless server at an office that hosts several documents of interest. I may want to back them up occasionally to my USB drive to have portable access to recent changes. I may also create or modify some documents from home and want to sync those to the server. I may also want to keep a history of changed versions at home, without changing the way the documents are viewed or modified on the server. And, of course, I want to keep my entire USB drive backed up at home.

Toucan:
In this scenario, something like Toucan would allow me to sync these files between locations with a single portable config. (Although it sure would be handy if a single Toucan Sync "settings" would allow multiple folders, filenames and extensions to be included and specific filenames to be excluded. Hello, Steve. Smile )

Once replicated at home, you're correct, the mechanism to backup and version the synched documents wouldn't benefit from being portable, unless it was the same program and the config could be shared for that purpose. The mechanism to backup the whole USB drive doesn't need to be portable, either, but it isn't as useful when the drive's not mounted. Wink

Think, thank, thunk... my one cent. -hea

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March 16, 2008 - 4:01pm
(Reply to #9)
rab040ma
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If you are keeping track of

If you are keeping track of different versions of documents, what you need is version control software, like CVS or SVN. Some of them even handle Word documents and other binary formats somewhat efficiently. With a remote (always on) host handling a version server, you could connect to it and "update" to get any version of a document, including the latest, from anywhere in the world, assuming an Internet connection. If you make a change, connect and "commit" the change.

MC

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March 16, 2008 - 5:03pm
(Reply to #10)
haustin
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Yes

For the specific example I gave, version control would be the proper way to go.

However, given the constraints of "Internetless server" and "without changing the way the documents are viewed or modified on the server," the version control mechanism is relegated to the home system or a portable app on the USB drive. Admittedly, since modifications aren't "checked in" on the server, the version history is of syncs rather than edits. The second constraint is present because the regular readers and writers of the documents don't need versioning; it's merely a transparent precaution.

So, to answer Aciago's original question, if you ignore the versioning aspect (or have a suitably constrained implementation), a portable backup utility fits the bill.

-hea

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March 17, 2008 - 4:52am
(Reply to #11)
Aciago
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ok

you got a point... Biggrin

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
and the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
and the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
then the socket packet pocket has an error to report Biggrin

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March 16, 2008 - 10:35am
Ronil
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Backup a Necesity

Last year I was traveling at an event and my key was stolen. On the key I had some very important files (They were PDF's of our flyers at a trade show). Now had I been doing regular backups I could FTP into my server and download the files. I think you are thinking that I am backup up the guest machine..no, I am backup up the changes on my usb key.

Also incremental backup's are tiny. I have currently a 4GB key that I backup regulary through incremental and the delta (Difference) is usually less than 4MB. I think 4MB is manageable but you make the call.

Finally I took a look at Toucan but could not find a way to back up through FTP. I do however like it better than the other application in terms of look at feel (It certainly feels more like a portable app). Any way of adding FTP to the destination directory?

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March 16, 2008 - 10:47am
(Reply to #13)
digitxp
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Probably not

But you can have Toucan make incremental backups, then upload with FileZilla (Or PuTTY, maybe). It is possible to make a macro/batch file to do it for you, 'cuz Toucan and PuTTY have command-line interfaces.

Insert original signature here with Greasemonkey Script.

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March 16, 2008 - 10:49am
(Reply to #14)
Steve Lamerton
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There

isnt currently a way to use FTP in Toucan, however in version 2 scripting will be introducted, with this you would be able to couple it with WinSCP Portable to upload stuff for you.

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April 27, 2013 - 10:12am
gbivona
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File Batch - portable

@echo off
start ..\CommonFiles\Java\bin\javaw.exe -Xmx256m -cp lib\areca.jar;lib\org.eclipse.core.commands_3.2.0.I20060605-1400.jar;lib\org.eclipse.equinox.common_3.2.0.v20060603.jar;lib\org.eclipse.jface_3.2.0.I20060605-1400.jar;lib\commons-codec-1.4.jar;lib\commons-net-1.4.1.jar;lib\jakarta-oro-2.0.8.jar;lib\swt.jar;lib\jsch.jar;lib\activation.jar;lib\mail.jar;lib\local_policy.jar;.\config;.\translations com.application.areca.launcher.gui.Launcher -ws=. -cfg=.

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