BackUp Buddy 2.0 Released

I've used BackupBuddy since it first came out, an dit is worth every penny. I've restored my Palm with it after unxepectedly running batteries dead, exchanging broken ones, and replacing earlier ones with newer models. Just restoring several hundred contacts after once accidently letting a blank decktop overwrite my Palm was worth the purchase price.

Its never let me down, and I recommend it as the first piece of software a new Palm owner purchases.

Sounds pretty good, but is about double what I would pay for a backup utility.

I can't believe how cheap Palm users are. They expect perfect apps for $5 - $10 and of course these apps must provide free updates forever...

So you're not willing to spend $30 to ensure the safety of your data? This after spending $200 - $500 on a PDA? How much do you spend of software for your PC? On movies? On beer?????

Palm users have been spoiled with free/nearly free software for too long. No wonder there are so few big companies willing to develop fot the platform.

I love this app, because it's saved my butt lots of times.
BackupBuddy:VFS has done it on the road, which is even better if you ask me!

A must have.

Can anyone explain why evey news topic has to be dragged to a stop while these guys bicker with each other?

OK Facey, since your comment was directed at me...

I have no problem spending a great deal of money on Palm software, and I have invested several hundred dollars over the years in new purchases and upgrades.

What I am talking about here is value. I am asking why I should shell out $30 for this app. when my $12 version of CardBackup would seem to be at least as suitable for scheduled and incremental backups.

If you have nothing more to offer than your normal drivel, then perhaps you should keep quiet. (yea, right)

It looks like the only new thing are rollbacks to specified dates, individual files etc...

This can all be done with BackupMan for alot less money. You can keep as many backup sets as you wish and restore any individual file from any backup set.

I don't think there is any need for a desktop backup system anymore since most Palms have SD card slots. The desktop backup is a legacy from the cave man days when the early Palm Pilots had no card slots: this can be seen in many cave drawings and other archeological sites. The SD backup can be more current if you have been out of town for a while and away from your desktop. Also, it slows down the already tedious hot sync process. Using the new software called "key Link" in which you access your palm directly from your desktop and backupman for backups, there is no need for hot synching anymore other than installing programs.

I think this is the natural evolution of the platform in which the PDA is slowly being weaned from it's desktop mother to full independence and self sufficiency and able to survive on it's own.

I can't believe how cheap Palm users are. They expect perfect apps for $5 - $10 and of course these apps must provide free updates forever...

Actually, "these apps" should not be necessary. I shouldn't have to pay anything in order to back up the data that's on my handheld, organize files, get decent handwriting recognition, view images, connect it to my phone, select which applications I want to search through, etc. Yet, each of these is a separate paid-for add-on to PalmOS.

The problem here isn't that these applications cost $5-$10, the problem is that PalmOS is full of deficiencies, limitations, missing functionality, and bugs, and that people are nickled and dimed to death trying to find workarounds for those. And it's not the $100-$200 that it costs above the cost of an already pricey handheld, just the time alone it takes to track down and install that software is a nuisance.

Unless the quality and functionality of PalmOS increases dramatically with the next release, this is my last Palm. I can only hope Sony picks a decent alternative operating system for their next generation handhelds (they already have a lot of experience with both Symbian and Linux).

I think this is one reason why PalmOne might be in trouble. For $450CAD, I can get a PalmOne Zire 72, and then pay an extra $60USD on a decent video player (MMPlayer), audio player (Pocket Tunes), which in my mind should've already been included with the Zire 72. For that price I can get a Dell x30 with all these included, plus bluetooth and WiFi! Although I do have to pay $50USD for a decent Word compatible word processor, which comes standard on PalmOne mid-high range models but not on a single PPC oddly enough. Although the PPC is reported by some users to crash quite frequently, PalmOS isn't clear out of the blue either! Although work does get saved and PalmOS doesn't slow down after xx days since rebooting the system. Hmmm but PPC does have Microsoft's extra goodies on hand, but PalmOS is a much better OS overall....

This software is worth the money, yes, but it would've been included with both PalmOS and PPC to begin with.

Ah us handheld users are screwed eitherway, we gotta make compromises...

I'll stick with PalmOS.

Don

Wow, you guys are a tough crowd. Normally I would just stand on the side-lines and watch, but I felt compelled to write. Hope you don't mind if I jump in with a few words. ;-)

From reading the postings above, it seems to me that there is a lot of misunderstanding about what BackupBuddy 2 really is, and comparing it to BackupMan, IMHO, is like comparing apples to oranges.

BackupBuddy is a *desktop* based backup system. BackupMan is not. It is a *mobile* backup system (like BackupBuddyVFS, the lite version of which is included with BB2, BTW). For all intents & purposes, your desktop PC has unlimited storage - why not use it to your advantage? BB2 keeps a history, forever, of *anything* that ever comes on or goes off of your handheld. If you're using BB2, you cannot loose data. Ever. It may help, if you're familiar with Symantec's GoBack or the Windows System Restore to think of BB2 as one of those (products).

Mobile backup solutions are great, and they are important, it's true (that's why we offer one, BackupBuddyVFS, which was the first VFS backup solution, BTW). But they aren't, IMHO, a really complete solution. If you loose your card, or your device+card, well, you're in trouble, unless you have a second card or regularly copy your card contents to your PC - but why go through all that hassle when BB2 can do it automagically everytime you sync?

Here's a scenario in which BB2 saved me just the other day: I regularly sync to a Mac & PC. iSync somehow hosed my contacts list. I didn't realize this until a few syncs later or my PC. Yikes. No problem though. With BB2, I was able to roll my contacts list back to where it was before I sync'd on my Mac.

Could I have done the above with a mobile backup solution? I suppose, but that would depend on exactly when I had done the last backup, etc, etc. But there are no "it depends" with BB2. My life is in my Treo 600. I don't *ever* want to worry about loosing one single byte of data - and I don't.

Lastly, BB2 can also backup your memory card, and sync your Palm clock to your desktop clock. All in one conduit. I think that's pretty handy. But, obviously, I'm biased. ;-)

p.s. On pricing...is $29.95 a lot for total data security? I personally don't think so, but...we invested a ton of time & effort into BB2. It may *look* easy, but it is most definitely *not* easy, and is *significantly* harder to do backups & restores reliably from a desktop PC. Software is *hard*. My opinion is if you want quality products, then you have to be willing to pay for them - there's no such thing as a free lunch (despite what, perhaps, the open-source people may inadvertently lead you to believe). It is also written to be cross-platform; so if/when we do the Mac port (we're waiting on the new MarkSpace tools), we will probably not charge our customers for using it on two PC's (it actually annoys me when companies do this, though I understand why). Additionally, we also make an effort to offer top-notch support. Sometimes we don't meet a customer's expectations, but it's not because we don't try or care. Just my 2 cents. ;-)

Thanks for listening,

--Alexis

Alexis,
Your points are interesting, Alexis.

Nonetheless, $30 for a piece of software (or $15 for an upgrade), when new, low end Palms can be had for less than $100, does seem a tad pricey. Add to this some people's concerns that with Sony's withdrawal from the PDA market Palm's heyday may have come and gone. Paying big bucks for a software product that won't be portable to the PocketPC system may not be money well spent.

Hopefully you'll reconsider your pricing system in light of the market realities and the representative comments in this forum.

Sorry - ignorant question from an Opera user. Does Firefox block ads as well as popups? The load time while a banner ad comes down from adclick or qksrv annoys the crap out of me.

~ "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed." - DV ~

Firefox has the built-in ability to block images from certain sites. It also has plug-ins for more advanced image blocking (using wildcards, blocking images of a certain size, etc.).

I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and assume your servers are slow at the moment.

How very generous of you.

But if I have to sit and watch another banner ad take its time loading before the rest of the page comes up I'm giving up on Palm Infocenter entirely.

You will be missed. Your contributions here have been memorable. By the way, when was the last time you donated money to keep Palminfocenter up and running? What's that? I didn't hear you.

You are definitely named appropriately.

Now, I won't play innocent here, as I've had my share of "vigorous disagreements" with people here before, but it seems to be getting out of hand.

Why don't we do away with the personal attacks (those doing them know who you are) and stick to the topic at hand, in this case BackupBuddy. I think we'll find that if we respect each other, then we are shown respect in return.

Just my $0.02. =)

_________________
Sean

Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.