Encrypted backups

A friend recently asked, "I want to copy my files for backup but encrypt them so if I happen to lose a CD, DVD, or USB key that contains personal info, I won't have to worry about it. How can I do this?"

I've found it kind of depends on how you’re doing the backup and the media type you’re storing the backup image to.

• If you want to back up just a few hundred folders and files, then Winzip works OK, and the most recent version includes AES encryption. The cost is $30.
• If you’re storing to a USB flash drive, Winzip will also work, or you can use the flash drive supplier’s vault software (if any). I’ve used the EncryptX software for securely storing a few data file and doc backups OK.
• For large partition image backups, the backup software (for example, Dantz Retrospect or Acronis True Image Home) often includes built-in support for password protection or encryption.

I haven’t used free PGP, full-featured commercial PGP, or Gnu PG for encrypting backup images, but I suppose they will work, too. It's probably worth checking out freshmeat.net for open source options, too.

Remember that encryption has the potential to throw a wrench in the works when attempting to access the file later. I’ve had issues with Windows Vista, and it’s possible on other platforms, too. So make sure you have a secure backup of the root encryption key or certificate for this reason. Most encryption software supports exporting the encryption key or certificate in some fashion. If you are using file and folder encryption on Windows, check out Microsoft's Best Practices article for useful tips.

Advanced Home Networking

I reconnected with a past engineering friend on LinkedIn this week, and found out that he received the 2007 "Best Overall Home Networking" award from Cisco Systems. Congratulations, Andrew!

Check out his Blog at http://westcoastsmarthome.com/blog/

Scrum

Scrum refers to an Agile product development methodology that was new to me, so I looked it up on Wikipedia and found a good background description there.

We were sort of doing Scrum at my last job intuitively, without knowing it, except the part for "standing up at Scrum meetings" to intentionally keep them short!

Biting off just what you can chew makes a lot of sense. And fixed, incremental cycles of chewing is one way to finish a meal gracefully or, in the case of Scrum, to keep product software moving forward without losing momentum.

Disk drive backup and management

What's your favorite way to manage and backup a Windows or Linux hard drive? Especially if you maintain a dual-boot system?

I've had generally good experience with Acronis True Image because it's flexible. I've also had some issues with it, like when I tried to restore a Linux backup on a dual boot system, and the boot path lost all notions of the Windows OS. In that case, I had to do some creative dancing, just to get the boot path into shape again. But it eventually worked, and all was happy again :)

BTW, I've seen mention that Acronis doesn't work well with the new solid state drives. So heads up there; your mileage may vary.