Posts Tagged 'Backup'



How to use files on a computer that is turned off.

Active Backup is a bit of an oxymoron as you really can’t used information in a backup unless you restore it first. Right? Wrong! Soonr gives you the ability to work with datafiles in a backup. It doesn’t matter if your computer is offline or turned off since your information is securely available to you anytime.

The new Dashboard (introduced in version 31.) has a section called “Backups”.

Your most active computers and their status are available at a glance.

 Listed are the computers associated with your account, with the most active 3 computers visible in the pane. Now at first glance it may not seem like you can do a whole lot with this view, but that would be incorrect. Pass your mouse over any of the computers and you’ll notice a menu appear across the bottom.

Search for file – is the key item here. If you remember the name of the file or any phrase that was in the file, you can locate it in the backup set. Even if the computer is turned off, you can display the file and then choose to comment, print, fax, or create a link to the file to share with others.
Edit with Cloud Drive – you can even make changes a file from another computer and have Soonr automatically sync the file to the original computer. The next time the original computer logs in, Soonr will update the folder with newest changes that you made.
This means that you can use a remote computer to edit that Word document or update the Excel spreadsheet. When you return back to the office or home and login, the file will automatically be pushed from Soonr to your computer. All the changes will be kept intact with full version control.

So that’s how Soonr allows you to use files on a computer that is turned off.

Oh, I should mention the other options on the “Backups” pane. Restore files provides the ability to recover files to another computer. Lost Computer is the first place to visit if you discover that your computer/laptop is lost or stolen. It will remove the stored access rights to your account that is in the lost computer so that unauthorized persons cannot login.

Little Change, Big Impact!

Many of you have probably noticed that there was an update to the Soonr Desktop agent the other day. There were many updates to this agent, including the ability to handle large and constantly changing files. Data files like Outlook PST are very difficult to backup because they are always open and often locked. These files are skipped in many backup applications, but not in Soonr!

In addition to these “behind the scenes” improvements, there are little things that have a big impact on how quickly you can accomplish a task. For example, you may notice that when you bring up the Manage Backups dialog in the agent there are sometimes green boxes by some of your folder names. What does this mean?

The green box indicates that there is content inside the folder selected for backup

We have made it easier to identify folder which contain folders marked for backup. Instead of clicking through each folder to figure out which of the nested folders are being backed up, you can see a clear visual indication (aka the green box). If you expand folders with a greenbox, you’ll see a check mark next to folders marked for backup. If the folders are deeper in the folder structure, you’ll continue to see the green boxes until you reach the backup selection.

If you just backup everything in your “My Documents” folder, this may have little impact. But if you have explicitly chosen your folders to back up, this small update makes it easy navigte the folder tree and spot exactly where your backed files are located. It’s like having sign posts guiding the way as you navigate your folder tree.

You can also just click on the green box to select that entire folder and its subfolders for backup.

Soonr Cloud Drive is Seamless Integration and Effortless Collaboration

Cloud Drive provides effortless collaboration.
Soonr’s Cloud Drive feature removes the mystery of the “cloud” and online storage folders. You can easy interact with the online folders as if they were local.

Collaboration becomes effortless as you and your team will just use the programs you already know in the same way as before. *Please note that some of the features described here only come with a paid Soonr account, but there’s a 30 day free trial for all paid accounts!

What does Soonr Cloud Drive provide?

  • Easily manage your online storage folders just like you would a local harddrive. All the same tools work so there’s nothing new to learn.
  • Directly edit files from the cloud using the powerful client programs you are used to, but from any computer where you have the client programs installed! If editing from a remote computer, all changes will be automatically pushed to the original location.
  • Collaboration effortlessly. All the edits made with Cloud Drive in a Project folder inherits the added web services of Soonr. Notifications to the team, view, share, print, fax, search, it’s all included.

Soonr Cloud Drive is an immensely powerful feature. It turns your online project workspaces into a great collaboration tool with nothing new to learn!

Managing Online Storage Folders:
Actually, You already know how to do this since it’s integrated with the operating system. In the example below, you can see that cloud drive T: is set up on the computer named “VAIOZ-SERIES”. The File Explorer is on the left, and you can see how it directly maps to the Soonr account in the Web Browser. All your computers and projects will appear in File Explorer as if they were local.

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Editing with Cloud Drive:
When you are looking at the files in a folder, you can use the action menu and select “Edit with Cloud Drive“. This will automatically launch the application on your computer and open the file from the online folder. You can edit using the native application and when you save, it’ll automatically save back into the online folder and push the changed file to its original location. Also in the background, the version control will make a snapshot of the older file. All this and you don’t have change anything you do today. You can edit from a remote computer and still maintain all changes on the original computer.

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Effortless Collaboration:
Imagine being able to edit your files on your desktop just as you do today, except that when you save them, they are automatically saved online, made viewable by over 817 mobile devices, and available even when your computer is offline! Your team members will automatically be notified when you make changes and if they leave comments on the file, you will be notified by email and even SMS if you prefer.

Finally, any and all changes are automatically version controlled. You get all these benefits working on files just like you do today on your local machine.

Let’s take a look at how to set up Soonr Cloud Drive.

Set up Soonr Cloud Drive:
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Your Soonr desktop software has a tab called Cloud Drive. On this tab you can define what drive letter you want to assign to the drive, the default is “T:”. You can can also control whether it’s automatically activated when connected to your Soonr service. There’s a button where you can launch Cloud Drive directly from the agent.

For those more technically curious, refer to this FAQ: Map a Drive Letter

You can have all this by getting yourself a premium Soonr account! If you already have one, add some users to your team and extend all the benefits of Soonr to them. If you don’t, why not try the 30 day free trial for the premium accounts. Get more Soonr!

More than Backup – Centralized Team Security

Did you know that 70% of small businesses and users don’t back up? OK, so everyone knows that they should backup, but why don’t they? Who doesn’t know a person who has lost data due to a bad hard drive? This problem is compounded when you are responsible for a group of people who may be dispersed in different geographical locations with some carrying laptops. Sure you could buy them usb hard drives or accounts on some online backup service, but how do you know if they are really securing their data? Until now, there wasn’t an easy an cost effective solution.

Soonr 3.0 introduced the concept of Centralized Team Security. With the Admin Interface, you can quickly see all the members of your team and tell at a glance the last time they backed up. You can see see the detail for each machine that the team member uses. When was the last time they logged in? How much was backup up? It’s never been easier to secure your valuable data.

Powerful Administrative UI for Backup status at a glance.

No, you can’t see their data unless they share it with you, but you can be sure that they are regularly securing their digital assets. With Soonr’s continuous backup and version control, it’s really easy to stay protected. The process runs in the background with no user intervention. You can roll up as many machines per user as your application requires.

More than Backup
If that’s all we did it would be worth the effort, but there’s a lot more. George Crump of Storage Switzerland recently wrote about us in his blog entitled “Soonr doing more with the Cloud“. Soonr combines three of the things that businesses need most today to be productive as they work with co-workers, contractors, or dispersed teams. Backup, Remote Access, and Collaboration – these are the ABC’s of Soonr. Try version 3.0 today and see what all the fuss is about.

If you have questions after all that, please leave a comment and we’ll be on it!

2009 – When the Cloud, your PC and the iPhone converge

Today we launched the world’s first backup based cloud computing service linked to the iPhone! It hit a few hours ago and already there are posts on Venturebeat, MacWorld, and Rudy De Waele’s MTrends.

What’s all the fuss about? Well first let’s understand the different kinds of cloud computing services. There are three of them that are out there today.

1) Storage based
2) Sync based
3) Backup based

Storage based - these services provide space up in the cloud so that you can store things and access them when you are mobile. You probably have several services that you subscribe to that offers storage space but you, like many others, don’t use it much. It’s too much trouble to manually put up all the files you may need!

Sync based – here we have an program on the computer that lets you define files and folders that you would like to have available in the cloud. You may also have the ability to have a folder in the cloud that is automatically pushed back to your computer. This is a step in the right direction, but once again you have to define all the things you think you may need before hand. Not only that, you probably have too much stuff on your PC or Mac to sync it to a mobile phone or a netbook.

Backup based - Backup is nothing new. It moves all your important stuff into an archive for safekeeping. In case anything goes wrong, you can get it back. But what if you could also access and use all your backed up information without having to copy it back first? What if there was continuous backup with version control and even the ability to integrate multiple computers (Mac and PC) into a single environment?

As you may have guessed, Soonr has created the first backup based cloud computing solution. It combines all of the goodness of storage and sync, but also adds the protection and reliability of continuous backup with version control. Not only does this make your cloud much more powerful (since all the things you need are already there without you having to think about it), but it also allows you to work the way you always have on your PC or Mac while providing the option of also working from the cloud. It’s the best of all worlds.

Not only that, but with the iPhone version we’ve put a while new twist into the game. I could go on and on telling you about how cool it is, but I think it’s easier just to show it to you. Take a look at this short video.
YouTube: Soonr for the iPhone

Check it out today! It’s free and you won’t believe what you can do on your phone. Oh yeah, although we have a native iPhone version that rocks, Soonr also works on any phone with a web browser and internet connection. We are very excited to finally show this to the world. We want to hear your response! Please post a comment if you have a question!

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