Auto-backup of ThinkPad files

Everyone knows that it's a "good idea" to back up your files regularly, but few people do so because it's such a pain. No more! Using ricardo you can schedule regular backups of files on your ThinkPad, with only a small initial investment of time. You have to do two things:

Sharing your backup directory

First, think about what you want to back up. It's probably a good idea to make sure that all your personal files go into c:\userdata or one of its subdirectories, and then to back up the whole of userdata. We'll be assuming your files are in userdata.

On the desktop, double-click "My Computer", double click the C drive, and right-click (use the right mouse button) ONCE on the userdata folder. In the menu that pops up, select "Sharing..."

A window will pop up. Click on circle next to "Shared As". Leave the defaults as is. Then click on the "Add..." button on the bottom.

Another window will pop up. Type your username in the area in the upper left hand corner (if you just start typing right after the window pops up, you should be fine). Click on the button marked "Read Only" -- your username should appear on the right.

Click on "OK" to get out of that window, and "OK" again to get out of the other one. If it asks you a question about "inside folders", just hit "OK" a third time.

Establishing an auto-backup schedule

Log on to your ricardo account (e.g. by typing "telnet ricardo.ecn" into the Start, Run... box under Windows). Once you're on, type "backup" (without the quotes) and press the Enter key. You'll face a little menu. You should carry out steps 1, 2 and 3 on the menu. Step 4 may be useful for keeping your ricardo password in step with your network password (these are not automatically in sync). Let me emphasize that under step 2 in the menu, the password that should be used is your network one (if this differs from your password for logging onto ricardo).

Allin Cottrell, 5/31/99.