AJC Active Backup ---- at Bits du Jour

[Armando]

Liquidmantis wrote that a while ago :

[...] one I bought some time ago, is AJC Soft's Active Backup.  It monitors specified locations for specified file types and versions them automatically at save time.

Bits du Jour offers AJC Active Backup at $17.40 (instead of $29.00 -- you save 40%...).

[attach]

[rjbull]

In case anyone's interested, the offer is being repeated at Bits du Jour - AJC Software today, $17.40 instead of $29.

AJC Active Backup
A Great Safety Net
AJC Active Backup monitors all the files that you change on your PC and then automatically (and silently) backs them up into a compact archive.

Offer expires in 15 hours from time of writing.

[tomos]

wonder how it compares to FileHamster - it does seem to be more aimed at text files or 'office' documents
looking at their site -
_______________________________

(Possible) Pros

• Partial file backup (or whatever you call it) a pro as long as it works naturally!

  Archives are very compact because they are compressed and the whole file is only stored once with all other revisions only storing the changes to the file.

  http://www.ajcsoft.com/AJCRvArcFeatures.php

______________________________

(Possible) Cons

• "Auto purge system prevents the archives from growing too large." (do I get to control that 'purging'?)
• Hasnt been updated since 2007

______________________________

3 minute video intro http://www.ajcsoft.com/AJCActBkDemoIntro.php

[mwb1100]

(Possible) Cons

• "Auto purge system prevents the archives from growing too large." (do I get to control that 'purging'?)
• Hasnt been updated since 2007

I've used the demo a bit, and the auto purge can be controlled pretty well - from disabling it completely to adjusting the various parameters on what doesn't get purged (by age, # of revisions, etc).

As a few people have mentioned in the BDJ comments, if it's working and isn't lacking needed features, the rate of updates isn't too much of a concern.  Those current users indicate that the developer is pretty responsive. Hopefully that's true.

What I want to know is if it works on x64 systems, since I think I'll be moving on to one.  Does anyone here have experience with that?

[mwb1100]

Also, I'd like to point out that there's some software - History Explorer - with similar functionality to AJC Active Backup, that's on sale for cheap ($4) right now:

 - http://www.exendo.se/history-explorer-simple-version-control.html

However, I can't actually recommend it - my brief testing showed some 'crashiness'.  I also don't know what its Win7 or x64 compatibility story is.  But others might have better luck and it is very, very inexpensive, so I thought I'd point it out.

[mwb1100]

And a free (but less functional) alternative is to use AJC Soft's "Revision Archive":

 - http://www.ajcsoft.com/AJCRvArc.php

This is the application that AJC Active Backup uses to store file revisions.  If you're willing to manually manage your revisions, you can use Revision Archive without the "Active Backup" application.  At this point it's no longer an automated backup solution, so it won't be too much help against accidents unless you're really dilligent. But just being able to keep and manage old revisions of file can be valuable. Software developers and others use revision control systems like CVS, Subversion or Perforce (which aren't automatic) for exactly this reason.  AJC Revision Archive doesn't have all the capabilities of those full-featured revision control software pacakges (so it probably wouldn't work for software developement), but it's much simpler and should work well for someone who just wants to keep old revisions of documents around and accessible, but out of the way.

A lot of people manage older revisions of documents using a folder or file name convetion that includes dates or revision numbers.  The free Revision Archive would you let you do away with that hassle.

[sajman99]

Play it again, Sam. AJC Active Backup is scheduled at BDJ on 10-25-10.

http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/ajc-active-backup/

[tomos]

anyone using it?
Pros, cons?

[Armando]

Hi Tom,
Don't you already use FileHamster ?

[Armando]

I've always been interested in trying it out. I read what others are saying here. Tranglos, George and a few others seem to be satisfied.

"Cons" :
- Proprietary format for compressions
- There's this thing about AJC being ported to .NET in a relatively near future... But I guess one could just keep using version 1.9 for the next year(s) if it's alreadycompatible with Win7.
- Feature list isn't as interesting as FileHamster's

Pros :
- Light on resources
- reliable (according to users, not according to me)
- Feature list might not be as interesting  as FileHamster's but still more sophisticated than alternatives like AutoVer (free though...)

I use AutoVer at the moment and it does a good jobs. Options are limited though (e.g. can't rename a version... So you need to keep some separate notes if a version has some special data that could eventually be useful), and backups are uncompressed (well, I do use NTFS compression... But that doesn't really count  ) and full.

Will think about it some more tomorrow. I've already spent 20 something dollars on oops the other week (gave it to my brother for his accountant files, as I won't be using it).

[tomos]

Hi Tom,
Don't you already use FileHamster ?

yes, but I like to keep tabs on the competition   (just in case, as well..)
just wanted a rough idea btw, thanks!

[tomos]

and again today:

In case anyone's interested, the offer is being repeated at Bits du Jour - AJC Software today, $17.40 instead of $29.

the only thing I've heard about it lately is that, according to MerleOne here, it's backup format is actually zip (but they use a differnet extension)

[MerleOne]

and again today:

In case anyone's interested, the offer is being repeated at Bits du Jour - AJC Software today, $17.40 instead of $29.

the only thing I've heard about it lately is that, according to MerleOne here, it's backup format is actually zip (but they use a differnet extension)

Actually, it's zip when there is a single file in the .aja archive, but when it's a set of different versions of the same file, unzipping the .aja is useless.

Despite the proprietary nature of the archives, it's still for me one of the best tool I know.  Very flexible, efficient, light on resources, never crashes, I just once had an issue with the itunes database archive, quiclky solved by AJC developer.  I definitely recommend it.

[tomos]

thanks for the clarification Merle.

Proprietary filetypes make me wary, but then I'm not looking at the moment for a versioning tool -
I recently started using Super Flexible File Synchronizer for monitoring+versioning (have been using it for backup a couple of years now) - it's working very well so far. If anyone is otherwise considering two apps for these needs, it might be worth checking out (you'll need the "pro" version).