Backup, sync and secure folders with Toucan

Toucan is a small freeware that allows us to synchronize, backup and secure your data. The GUI is so simple and divided into seven tabs, allowing us to easily find the function that we need.

 There are four synchronization mode for Toucan: copy, update, mirror (copy/update) and equalize.



As for the backup function, Toucan supports complete, update and differential type. The backup file can be in the format of zip or the smaller size 7-zip.



The third feature of Toucan, secure data, use AES-256 encryption via ccrypt. AES is one of the most popular algorithm used in symmetric key cryptography. AES is fast and also require less memory.



As a conclusion, Toucan is not only a good and simple tool for backup and synchronization tasks, but can also encrypt important files and folders.

If you have any other suggestions, please don't hesitate to leave a comment.

Links:

1. Toucan: http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/toucan
2. AES: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard
3. ccrypt: http://ccrypt.sourceforge.net/
4. 7-zip: http://www.7-zip.org/

Portable defrag tool 2

In the previous article, I had shown you a portable defrag tool, called Defraggler. This article will show another portable defrag tool called JKDefrag.

JKDefrag a freeware by kessels, is a portable disk defragmenter and optimizer for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista/2008/X64. It means that you can put it inside floppies, USB disks, memory sticks, and anything else that looks like a disk to Windows.

The backup process is automatic, and JKDefrag is very easy to use, fast, low overhead, with several optimization strategies.

There is also an advance GUI made available by codestuff. It enables users to easily use JkDefrags powerful defragmentation operations, schedule defrags, perform system file defrag operations on startup, as well as set a wide spectrum of defrag options.



Links:

JKDefrag: http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/index.html

JKDefrag GUI: http://www.download.com/JkDefrag-GUI/3000-2401_4-10768896.html?cdlPid=10847787

Backup folders with 7-zip command line

The 7-zip command line can be used to do a multiple folders backup. The good thing with 7-zip is that it support many compression method such as bzip2, gzip, zip and of course 7z.

Here are steps for doing a backup on multiple folders on Windows:

1. Download the 7-zip Command Line Version from http://www.7-zip.org/download.html.


2. Extract the content of the zip file to a temporary folder.


3. Copy 7za.exe to your system folder (for example C:\Windows\System32 for Windows XP).
   


4. Create a folder for your backup, for example C:\backup.


5. Create a text file in the C:\backup folder and name it backup.txt.


6. List the full path of the folders that will be backup, each on a new line.


7. Create a batch file in C:\backup folder and name it backup.bat.


8. In the backup.bat file, type
   7za u backup -up1q3r2x1y2z1w2 @backup.txt

To back up, just double click the backup.bat file. A command prompt will be opened and closed automatically when the backup process end.

As a result, you will get a backup file named backup.7z. The u command will instruct 7-zip to update the content of the backup.7z file or create a new one if backup.7z does not exist.

If you don't like the 7z compression method and would like to use the zip compression method instead, just add -tzip switch after the u command.

7za u -tzip backup @backup.txt

Now, the backup file that will be created is backup.zip.

To automatically run a backup at a specific time, please use the Scheduled Tasks feature for Windows XP.