Product Reviews

We've seen a number of backup utilities recently, aimed at those who would normally shy away from such a task. The latest is ShadowBack from the delightfully named Warm and Fuzzy Logic. With a friendly and funky interface, it has been designed for people who need to back up key data with minimal effort.

During installation an impressive array of commonly used applications, including most Microsoft products and others including Quicken and Adobe Photoshop Elements, are detected and monitored automatically. It knows where they store their settings and backs them up in the background

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while ignoring any files that can be restored easily from the original media.

ShadowBack automatically backs up your files while you work and can even back up locked files while they're in use. So, for example, Outlook emails and contacts can be backed up without first having to close down the application; a feat that even some more advanced backup utilities can't match.

By default the automatic backup facility will copy files to a CD or DVD burner, but local hard disks or removable media such as flash drives can be specified, too. It will also back up to mapped network drives, which is extremely handy for those who have the luxury of a home server.

A proprietary file format is used, which also offers compression and encryption if needed. This means it's not possible to view the files within a backup archive directly, but the backup will be completed and transferred more quickly; this is essential if space is at a premium.

The all-important restore feature is just as easy to use and overall we were very impressed with ShadowBack's capabilities. When backing up is as pain-free as this, there really is no excuse for not doing it.