Pocket PC Thoughts: Saving Your Bacon with Spb Backup 1.0

Introduction
I’ve always been an advocate for regular backups of my machines –- whether they be Pocket PCs, laptops or desktops. I’ve seen (and been part of) too many disasters where the lack of a recent backup meant hours or days of reconstruction. I’d worked my way through Activesync’s backup/restore function but gave up on it since it didn’t have the ability to selectively backup/restore particular files. I was pretty happy with Sprite Software’s Backup v3.3, but when I loaded WM5 on my Dell Axim X50v, suddenly I was without my most needed tool! Sprite has been working on a WM5 upgrade for their product, and I’ve been part of the beta test team, but it was still needing some work.

Then, about a week ago, Jason received an announcement that Spb Software House was preparing to release its own WM5-compatible backup and restore application. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance to try it. I am very familiar with Spb’s other applications and utilities, so I felt pretty confident they wouldn’t let me down.

Installation
As is usual these days, the install package comes as an executable for the desktop PC, which runs Activesync to install the application. At this time, there was no mention of a .CAB file being available for direct install on the Pocket PC. When you run the application on the desktop, it asks if you would like to install the trial version or if you have a key to install a registered version. I quite like this approach to direct installation of registered versions, since it eliminates an additional step of running the application on the Pocket PC to input the registration key. It is also possible to register an installed trial version via a Registration option on the Tools menu.

Installation proceeds normally through Activesync, with the usual options for where you would like to locate the application. My personal recommendation is that you not install Spb Backup onto an external card, unless you plan to have the card with you at all times. This is one application you really want to have on your Pocket PC wherever you are, just in case. During installation, my Dell Axim X50v stated it needed 966Kb of memory for the application, which is almost half of what Spb reports as the space on the device (1.9Mb) on their website. I’m not sure why there’s a discrepancy, but when I look at the Spb Backup folder under Program Files, the total is closer to the 966Kb.

As part of the installation, Spb Backup creates a Today screen plugin to notify you of when you last completed a backup and provide a quick launch point. As I was testing, I noticed that it can sometimes take a minute or so for the plugin to update the time of the last backup, so be patient.


Figure 1: Spb Backup’s Today Screen plugin (at the bottom).

On the candidate release I used in the review (Build 1606), I didn’t see an option to choose whether to install this plugin or not, but it would be an easy matter to remove it via the Today screen settings.