There’s a lot of stuff that Fwd:Vault can do, and some of it simply won’t be obvious unless you know about it in advance. So if you really want to dig in deep on Fwd:Vault’s functionality, check out the new Documentation section. Links to the new manual have been added to the public sections of the site and your private login, so you’ll always be able to reach it.

This first version covers all the basics, and almost certainly includes features and hints you weren’t aware of. Take the email backup system, for example. Did you know that you can search your Vault from your email? Do you know how to recover any file or message with a code in the subject line?

We’ll continue adding articles as we add new features and functions. The brand new Attachment Filters feature has already gotten an entry.

I can hear you saying, “But you just had your big launch yesterday.” Phooey and p-shaw, we say! We don’t rest on our laurels. So after getting right on top of some minor display issues this morning, we’re moving onto new hotness.

This time we’re introducing a way to handle those recurring worthless attachments. You know the ones we’re talking about: embedded background images in HTML messages, or image-based signatures from those “make a fancy email signature” services.

Enter Fwd:Vault’s new Attachment Filters. When a junk backup happens like the ones we described above, you can create a filter to prevent that file from being saved again. All you have to do is check the box labeled “Don’t save this file again.”

A filter will be created automatically when the file is deleted.

Note that filters are ignored when backing up through the “Upload” page on the website.

You can review, edit, and delete any of your filters by going to the “My Account” page and clicking “Attachment filters” in the sidebar.

Freebie accounts can create a single filter, but that limit is removed for Pro Vault users.

Update: We’ve added more details on Attachment Filters to our new System Documentation.

Well the day has finally come! After 14 months in development, we have rolled out our first commercial-grade backup package, conveniently called the Pro Vault. With pretty much unlimited everything, we figured we’d start with the full monty, so to speak. If you’re looking for something more economical, you have nothing to worry about, we have more pricing plans in the works. In the meantime, you can sign up for a free account and try things out.

Beta users
If you were in our Beta, be sure to check your email. There’s some important notes about how your account will be handled moving forward, plus some really nice beta-only discounts.

Thanks for checking us out, and be sure to let us know if you have any problems or questions!

Every time you back up files or email by sending data to vault@fwdvault.com, we email you a receipt confirming that we got it and stored it. This message also contains the Recover Codes — a unique one is assigned to every message and file — which you can use to have Fwd:Vault automatically email your stuff back to you.

Before today, these receipts were sent on a 1:1 basis, i.e. every email sent to us resulted in a confirmation being sent back to you. Today we’re happy to announce that you can now receive these notices in batches. Less mail to filter, and more information packed into a single message. Win-win!

If you log into your Vault, and go to the My Account page, you’ll find a new option under “Personal Info,” where you may now choose to have this storage confirmation info sent to you on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Note that instant notifications are delivered to the address from which the message was sent, but the other options all go to your primary email address. “Instant” is still the default setting, so you’ll have to log in to change it.

Of course, we’d love to hear what you think, so drop a comment below or visit the contact page.

Advertising on the web is pretty ubiquitous, but in my opinion, sometimes site owners go a little overboard on the size and number of ads they present to a user on a page. I’m one of those people who almost never clicks ads (I’m really frugal), so having to look at them is simply distracting. Fortunately, the Firefox web browser has a simple, free plugin that will completely eliminate ads from most of your browsing experience automatically.

It’s called Adblock Plus, and it’s one of my most highly recommended Firefox addons. Getting set up is easy:

1. Download and install Firefox.
2. Open Firefox, and browse to the Adblock Plus addon page.
3. A popup window will confirm the installation. Click the “Install” button in the bottom right.
4. Restart Firefox.
5. After you restart, you should be presented with a screen to select a filter subscription. In the US the best selection is EasyList, listed first. Check the radio box next to the name, and hit “Subscribe” button at the bottom.
6. You’re done! Enjoy browsing without ads!

One caveat: Just like any security software, Adblock isn’t perfect. I have seen ads sneak through the filters, and I have seen it block images that weren’t actually ads. That second one is the real danger. If you visit a site and something just doesn’t seem right, you should disable blocking for that site and see if that doesn’t fix things. Adblock installs a button on the toolbar for just such occasions:

If you have problems, you should check out the FAQ and documentation for assistance, as most problems can be rectified there. If you don’t find any answer there, visit their forums and look a little more (chances are someone else had the same problem). Then, if all efforts are fruitless, post your question and get some help.

We don’t particularly like desktop software around here — sort of a company policy — and neither do most average users, based on our experience. Still, the desktop isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and we still have need for plenty of desktop software.

Software that needs to be install, configured, and updated routinely.

Ugh.

Fortunately I came across a wonderful tool the other day that will take the pain out of installing and updating for the most common applications. It’s called Ninite, and it’s a simple concept: visit their site, check boxes for each program you want to install/update, click the Get Installer button to download a single program that will install everything you selected.

With the applications provided, you can take a new or freshly reformatted system to full tilt in no time. Not sure what you need? Here’s my recommendations to get started.

• Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox
• Pidgin
• Skype
• iTunes
• Hulu
• Foxit Reader or Adobe Reader
• Microsoft Essentials or AVG
• Flash
• .NET
• Dropbox
• CCleaner
• 7-zip
• Defraggler

Visit Ninite now

Gmail offers a tremendous amount of storage space for your email and the confidence of the Google name, but the same data vulnerabilities exist. If anything happens to their systems, your data is toast. You should always ensure you have direct, personally accessible backups of all your data; blindly relying on the systems of other providers is a recipe for disaster.

Additionally, Gmail has specific privacy issues to contend with, as their indexers analyze your email in order to provide relevant ads when you’re reading your messages. So If you receive anything sensitive, you should carefully weigh the pros and cons of keeping it in your Gmail account.

Fwd:Vault can eliminate both issues by maintaining a separate backup copy of all your email, and provide a home for your sensitive messages away from prying eyes.

Using Gmail’s built-in filters, automatically backing up your Gmail account is a breeze. Below you will find steps to backup all incoming messages that have attachments. Once you understand the process, you can easily adjust the filter settings to automatically backup all your mail, both incoming and outgoing, to Fwd:Vault’s online backup repository.

Long into your Gmail account, then click the link that reads Create a filter:

(click to enlarge)

The next page will present a list of the email fields you can sort by. Using their awesome search logic, Google will match messages based on the text you enter. We are going to set this backup for all incoming messages with attachments, so you can ignore the text boxes and just but a checkmark in the box next to Has attachment.

(Pro tip: to select all your messages for filtering, just put a bunch of gobbledygook (e.g. “hjfk fyu845bn vio34gf2″) in the Doesn’t have box. Since no message will have that random crap, it will always match all your messages!)

(click to enlarge)

Once you check the box and click the Next Step button, you’ll be presented with the actions. Again, there are a lot of cool things you can do here, but we’re only concerned with sending a copy to your Fwd:Vault backup account, so check the box next to Forward it to and enter vault@fwdvault.com in the text field:

(click to enlarge)

Hit the Create Filter button and you should see a confirmation like the one below, along with a summary of your new email filter!

(click to enlarge)

To learn more about Gmail’s filtering system, Check out the introduction to filters in their help section, or search the web for more advanced Gmail filter techniques.

If you want to backup all your email online to your Fwd:Vault account, Outlook 2007 makes it fairly easily. Here’s an example of a basic rule that will automatically forward copies of all messages with an attachment to Fwd:Vault.

Open Outlook, then choose Tools > Rules and Alerts

In the new window, click New Rule in the top left

In the next Rules Wizard window, choose Check messages when they arrive, then click Next.
(Note: You can choose Check messages after sending and complete this process to automatically back up messages that you’re sending out to others.)

You’re now presented with a wide selection of filters to determine which messages should be selected. We’re going to keep this simple and just go for any message which has an attachment, however you can create rules to grab messages in all kinds of situations. Check the box and click Next.

Now we set what the rule will do with the messages it found. No matter what selectors you choose in the previous step, this one will always be the same for your Fwd:Vault online backups: choose forward it to people or distribution list as an attachment.

There are two very similar options here. The one with “as an attachment” on the end will allow Fwd:Vault to store the original message just as you received it. The other option will still work, but the sender address won’t match your original copy.

The new action now appears in the lower box. Click the blue link that reads people or distribution list in that box to set the delivery address, and you’ll see the following screen. Enter vault@fwdvault.com in the box at the very bottom.

Click OK and you’ll go back to the previous screen, and vault@fwdvault.com should now be highlighted in blue in the lower box.

You’re done! Click the Finish button and you’ll be taken back to the first Rules and Alerts window.
(Note: You can do more advanced message filtering by clicking Next at this point instead.)

Are you a member of the media, producing a piece that talks about tech, end users, or something in-between?

Blogger writing about backups?

High school paper looking to write about something other than the football team!?

All are welcome to contact us! Fwd:Vault’s experience may provide useful insight. Head on over to our press page to find contact info as well as a summary of our areas of expertise.

We can also (obviously) talk about Fwd:Vault and what we’re currently working on.

I learned long ago that every type of utility software — spyware/virus protection, disk defrag, firewalls, system optimizers, etc. — has a decent free version available somewhere on the web. Back in my tech support days, people were always pleasantly surprised when I told them I could install a needed utility and it wouldn’t cost them a cent to keep. Today I’m passing along the hidden gems I personally use for antivirus protection and virus removal.

AVG Free – http://free.avg.com/download?prd=afe
This is the one I recommend most often because it’s merely a lightweight alternative to their paid subscription version. This means that it behaves very much like the AV software from the likes of McAfee and Symantec, so most people are comfortable with it. The program updates once a day (the paid version allows updates as often as they are released), and has limited full-scanning ability. However I usually disable this option because the passive protection is always in place; so as long as the software is running you shouldn’t get an infection anyway.

Because this is a free version of a paid product, their navigation for getting to the free version is fraught with peril, set up for you to constantly choose the “pro” model. Trust me, you do not need it, so pay attention to where you click. Follow the link I provided above, and then scroll to the bottom, you want to click the small text that says “You can also download AVG Anti-Virus Free from AVG directly.” The other download button sends you to download.com, and their download speeds generally stink.

You may be prompted to install or upgrade to the pro version during installation. Again, just ready carefully and choose the “no thank you” option. However well they try to hide it, it’s always there.

ClamWin Free Antivirus – http://www.clamwin.com
Clamwin is an open source antivirus protection program, so the “free” in this case comes with no strings attached whatsoever. Lots of people have concerns that open source means not updated fast enough. If anything, the community that supports Clamwin is more in tune with new viruses, because it’s filled with “good hackers” who have the same knowledge and know-how as the bad guys.

However be aware that Clamwin does not have any active scanning ability, it can only detect viruses when you run a scan on a given file/directory/drive. It does include a scan optin in the context menu; just right click any file or folder and you can choose an option to perform an immediate scan on whatever you clicked.

For that reason I do not typically recommend it for my “tech-lite” customers. However if you do not download anything much beyond pictures from friends through email, Clamwin is very nice because it doesn’t take up a lot of system resources, which means your system runs faster.

McAfee Stinger – http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger
Stinger is a free utility released by McAfee that does one thing: scan your entire system for the most common and dangerous known viruses. The entire thing is automatic, just download the executable and run it. I use this all the time whenever I run into a system that’s likely been infected with viruses, it’s pretty good at removing common stuff.

So while this doesn’t provide any active protection, it’s a good first response when you think you’ve been infected. I also use Clamwin’s scanner in the same situation. Make sure you download the latest version before using it (they update pretty often), and it’s usually best to run this in safe mode.

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The latest antivirus software from McAfee and Symantec are much bigger than AVG or Clamwin. They use more memory and use more processor power than is really necessary for their basic operation. These extras are touted as features on their websites and software boxes, so it’s enticing to add more of them so as to sell more copies. In the tech world, we call this effect “bloat.” Simpler software means that it’s smaller, which means that it runs faster and uses less memory, all good things for you, the customer user.

So not only does free antivirus stuff save you money, it also takes a load off your computer (literally!).
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