By The time is nearly here! EverWeb version 4.5 is almost upon us! So there’s no better time to issue a familiar reminder about backing up your EverWeb project files!
Storing Data or Backing Up?
Everything that you create on your computer is held as digital media. Much of what we create we don’t need to keep in the long term. A lot of what we do keep on our hard drives, SSD drives, and in the Cloud we’ll never actually use again. Some estimates say that 90% of the data we store away we never look at again. That’s a lot, but there’s a caveat to this though. We do sometimes need to keep data for accounting, or legal purposes for example, even if it’s never reviewed. And don’t forget that data storage has been relatively cheap too. This encourages us to throw everything in to the storage vault without ever taking the time to decide whether we need to keep the data or not before doing so..,
Backing up your data is different to storing your data. You’ll be backing up the data that you actively use and change, or update, on a regular basis. There may be times where you want to back up data that you create once and will likely never change in the future. Again, that’s the legal and accounting digital paperwork. Your EverWeb website, documents, spreadsheets, and images might be subject to more frequent changes and so backing them up on a regular basis is a good safety option. If problems arise, you’ll be able to rollback to a previously saved file. You may have to recreate what’s not in the recovered backup file, but it’s going to be better than having to recreate the whole lost file in most cases.
Storing Data in The Cloud
The first, and perhaps easiest, backup option is storing your data in the Cloud. Everything you put in to the Cloud gets backed up regularly and Cloud services usually include a restore feature for this eventuality. There are a couple of issues though that should be noted. Th first is that you have to be connected to the Internet. If you’re not you’re not going to get at your Cloud data let alone any backup that it may have. The second thing is connection speeds. Quite often Cloud services can lag in the time it takes to retrieve your data or backup, especially when using more than one device to access the same Cloud storage area. The third concern is privacy. What happens to your data and who has access to it. That’s a big question you should research if you care about it.
For EverWeb users, you can put your project files in to the Cloud and access them from there. This is a good idea when you’re working across multiple devices. You might usually use a desktop pc but sometimes a laptop so having your project file in the Cloud is a good solution here. Just make sure that you only access the project file from one computer at a time. Remember that EverWeb is not a network product, so you can’t share the app itself, and you shouldn’t have one project file open on two different computers at the same time, as one may overwrite the other if you’re not careful.
But generally putting project files in to the Cloud is a useful, practical step for working with project files and having them regularly backed up by your Cloud storage partner.
The Local Backup Route
The next level of backup is at the local level, on your computer. We have probably said this before, but we will say it again – back up important files from your computer on a regular basis. This means backing up your data to a different device such as an SSD card that’s dedicated to backups. macOS uses a program called Time Machine, whilst Windows uses either Windows Backup (which syncs to OneDrive in the Cloud) or File History which is more like Time Machine in that you can back up to an external drive or network storage.
If your computer crashes you have a source to recover your files from. Think about what you regularly need to back up from your computer so that you capture what’s important e.g. the directory that contains your EverWeb project file. You can find this easily from the EverWeb Projects Window. Click on the icon to the right of your project file name then choose the ‘Show on Disk’ option. This will take you to the directory where your project file is stored. Note the directory name and include it in your computer’s back up software’s routine.
When setting up a back up routine for your computer, also think about back up frequency. Often back up programs can take snapshots of your disk (for example) every hour in order to capture the latest changes your have made. If you work with your computer throughout the day this may be the perfect back up partnership. If you only work occasionally on your computer then you may just need to back up daily, or every few days.
Routine Back Ups in EverWeb
The third back up solution is dedicated to EverWeb project files only. This is an extra insurance that you should use together with your computer back up. In EverWeb, you can easily set up a regular back up process. Start by clicking on the EverWeb-> Settings menu option in EverWeb for macOS. If you’re suing an older version of EverWeb Settings may be called Preferences instead. For Windows users, use the Edit-> Options menu option.
Next click on the Backup button at the top of the window. We recommend ticking the Auto Save and Enable Automatic Backups functions. This will make sure that EverWeb will save the project file your every few minutes when you are editing it, as well as backing up the project file to the location of your choice regularly on a schedule that you determine.
Use the Backup screen to set up your EverWeb backup schedule as required.
Instant EverWeb Backups
The last option backs up your project file immediately but is a manual process that you do from the Projects Window. Use this option when you want an on-the-fly back up of a project file. Click on the icon to the right of the project file that you want to back up. From the menu, choose the ‘Make Back Up…’ option. Follow the prompts that EverWeb gives you to create the back up you need. If you need to recover the back up later on, agin click on the icon to the right of the project file name in the Projects Window and choose Restore from Backup.
Typically this option is the one that you will least use. We strongly recommend using EverWeb’s regular backup feature as the norm.
Backing up your project file is important to do and is also a quick and easy thing to do in EverWeb!
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