throw out your backup!

There’s a new way to back up all the files, documents and pictures on your personal computer, up to FIVE GIGABYTES.  And it’s free!  You can throw away all those backup drives, disks and tapes (if you still have them), forget burning backups on CDs, and stop paying for online storage. 

It’s called “Live Mesh” and is offered by Microsoft at www.mesh.com.  So if you have an aversion to Microsoft because they dominate the PC industry (or for any other reason), this service isn’t for you; it gets you MORE involved with Microsoft, not less.  I have been using it for a while now, and it’s been great. 

SYNCH and BACKUP

How does it work?  In a nutshell, you create folders on your PC “desktop” and move your vital documents, spreadsheets, presentations, pictures, music, video, and anything else into those folders.  If you have an Internet connection, Live Mesh automatically duplicates all those files onto your private area of Microsoft’s storage servers (called your Live Desktop).  If you make any changes, additions or deletions to the folders, they will automatically be synchronized to your Live Desktop as long as you have an Internet connection.  (If you make changes when NOT connected, then all the synchronization happens later when you ARE connected.  Moreover, Live Mesh also allows you to add multiple PCs and devices to the party, including your work computer, your home laptop, your Mac, and to a certain degree even your mobile phone.   So if you add a document to a “Mesh” folder on your home PC, it is automatically replicated to the Microsoft server and then to your office PC.  All in all, this is file SYNCH and file BACKUP in one easy step.

I installed Live Mesh on my sister-in-law’s older PC recently as she was having some signs of imminent drive failure…  In her case, we just created one Mesh folder and moved all her document and picture folders into that as sub-folders.  Sure enough, her hard drive crashed weeks later (pretty much as expected) and she simply purchased a new computer…  Once the new computer was up and running, it took a half minute to install Live Mesh and another minute to synch up her new PC with all her content stored at Microsoft on her Live Desktop.  Magic!

Did I mention the limit is 5 gigabytes and this is free?  No, there isn’t any advertising inserted in your files or on your screen.  The service is an offshoot of Microsoft’s Azure Developer Platform which facilitiates web-based commercial applications.  By using Live Mesh, you are actually helping Microsoft prove, refine and enhance the commercial platform.  They get to say to ther commercial customers, “See, this cloud computing technology works; we proved it with all these people using Live Mesh!”

You can learn more about the underlying technology on Wikipedia…  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Mesh

SHARE

One more feature of Live Mesh…  You can allow other Mesh “members” to add any of YOUR folders to their own Mesh…  So if I want to share some important file with my tax accountant, I can create a “tax” folder, put all my relevant documents there and invite him to share it.  The Mesh keeps track of who has updated what and when, helps you resolve any conflicts,  etc.  This tracking is especially helpful if lots of people share one folder.

ACCESS

Live Mesh also allows you to access your Live Desktop from any Internet-connected computer.  Just link to mesh.com and log on to your account.  This allows you to access an important document from a public computer or a friend’s PC.

A recent featured added to Live Mesh is the ability to work remotely at another computer in your mesh… just like PC Anywhere or other remote desktop applications.  Live Mesh Remote Desktop can open a window into your remote computer and give you access to even those folders you haven’t synchronized. You can also use any programs on your remote computer, even if you don’t have them installed on your local computer.  You can copy and paste files between your remote computer and your local computer, and even connect from almost any web browser.  There are times I am in the office and need to look up some personal expense on my Quicken at home; this would allow that!  I gave it a try, connecting from my office PC to my home PC…  The connection is much slower than our company’s Virtual Private Network Connection from my home to the office, but it does work well otherwise!

ALTERNATIVES

A popular alternative to Live Mesh is Dropbox (www.dropbox.com), but the storage limit is only 2 gigabytes and there is no remote desktop feature.  Otherwise, it is very similar.  It does allow you to store more than 2 gigabytes for a fee; that’s how Dropbox makes their money.