Is it possible to store or back-up my files on the Internet? -Tom in Co Kilkenny
Many people seek to back up their most precious files - a college student's term work, dissertation or thesis, for example - in several different forms in case a file becomes corrupt or information gets lost. So much educational activity, particularly at third level, now relies on computers, so it can be difficult for some people to understand how information was stored before the technology existed.
While it would be difficult to lose, say, all 20 printed pages of a term paper, mislaying a floppy disk containing the same information is all too easy. For the more paranoid among us, it is not even enough to have copies of valued files saved on a network and on disk, they also seek other methods of protecting their work.
Luckily, help is at hand on the web. FreeDrive (www.freedrive.com) is a free, password-protected 50 megabyte (equivalent to 34 floppy disks) Internet hard drive that anyone can use to store, retrieve, distribute, and back-up their data of any file type. It takes only a few minutes to signup, and there is software to download. The site has a high-minded idea that it is "similar to a virtual briefcase" in that it helps users "end the juggling act between hard drives, floppy disks, external drives, and CDROM drives". But if it delivers the goods, then it doesn't matter how it describes itself. When files are uploaded into your personal FreeDrive account, they store your data on a server that can be accessed worldwide from any computer with Internet access.
If all of this sounds too complicated, you could just set up a free e-mail account, from ireland.com for instance, for the express purpose of backing up your vital files. Every time you write a new paper, or update a previous one, you can then just e-mail it to your account and retrieve it from there whenever you ever need it.
Contact: Send your WebWorld queries to webworld@ irish-times.com or by post to Padraig Collins, The Irish Times, D'Olier Street, Dublin 2.
