Backup

I'm in the last stages of restoring my PC after it died (specifically, went into a 'reboot loop'.  I am sure that Microsoft does some amazing things, making them look easy, but 'system restores' don't appear to be in that category.)  I do regular backups, and yet I still find that there were things I did not have -- for example, a current set of email addresses for my friends.  Not to mention, emails I sent, emails I saved.  Totally gone.

Software guys like to stash stuff in obscure places.  Their favorite is the APPDATA folder (which is, by the way, a hidden system folder; you have to say SHOW before you can see it and its contents), but there are others.  The data file for a database I use to keep track of stray info (Personal Knowbase; its really quite good) likes to put its file in one place but then stick a 'fake' file somewhere else, so that when you go to copy it -- there's nothing there!  And Calendarscope, my PC calender (also highly recommended); you can tell it to back up routinely, and it will - at the end of the day. But suppose you make a change at 2PM and you crash at 3PM - is that change saved anywhere?  Don't be silly.

Argh.  I would ask that software designers include backup and restore functions (other than the simple ones that many do have), but that'd get into the well, where shall we hide it, what shall we call it, hmm, do we really want to users to be able to get to it discussion.

And don't get me started on Window's 10s System File function, which LOOKS awesome and WORKS .... almost not at all. 

So, for anyone who is interested, here is my current list of backup actions I have to take routinely.  You will notice that some are incomplete -- I know I have to do them; I just don't.  At least, I am not sure.  Its all confusing, and thinking about it hurts my head.


Any software with a key goes into KNOWBASE/Software Licence Keys
Any friends email address goes into OUR EXCEL FILES / ADDRDB spreadsheet
Firefox bookmarks go into BILLS FILES/FIREFOX BOOKMARKS
Firefox Passwords go into BILLS FILES/FIREFOX PASSWORDS
BILLS FILES gets copied as part of overall data grab 
Thunderbird emails, folders, email addresses, profiles, message classification  rules go to ??????????
Calendarscope ACTIVE file is in BILL FILES/CALENDARSCOPE DATA FILE
CALENDARSCOPE BACKUPS go to CALENDARSCOPE CLOUD
KNOWBASE DATA FILE GOES TO BILL FILES/KNOWBASE DATA FILES AND BACKUP
OUR EXCEL FILES  GOES TO...???????
EXCEL MACROS REPOSITORY GOES TO ???
WORD MACROS REPOSITORY GOES TO ????

Oh, and my Network Attached Storage device?  The My Cloud?  Its really quite nice, but every so often....Windows says NAS?  What NAS? NETWORK PATH NOT FOUND.  A few minutes later oh, there it is!