- Very slow

- Data errors are common

- Specialized backup/restore software required.

- Attempting to restore on different tape drives or on different machines is likely to fail or to be extremely difficult. Tapes do not support random access, so restoring single files is a long and painful process.

Writeable CDs - I have found that writeable CDs are by far best option to use for backups. When you purchase media, you have choice of buying write-once disks (very cheap) or read-write disks (much more expensive). I like to mix and match - sometimes write-once is good (when I want to create a permanent archive of my data) and sometimes read-write is what I need.

I recommend writeable CD drives for following reasons:

- The media comes in two formats. Both formats are relatively cheap, especially when purchased in bulk.

- The error rate is low.

- The media will last a long time.

- You can store over 600 megabytes on each disk.

- The disks are easy to store. In fact, you can use same jewel cases and storage racks that you use for your audio CDs.

- If you write in compatible format, you can read CDs on any system with a CDROM drive.

- You can use same hardware and software to create audio CDs.

On other hand, some of disadvantages are:

- Writing is rather slow.

- The drives do require specialized drivers and cabling to be installed on your system.

Disk-To-Disk - Disk drives are becoming extraordinarily cheap. You can easily purchase 50 gigabyte drives for under $500 (and I've seen them much lower). One possible backup solution is to purchase a drive to match each of your other disk drives. For example, if you have a C and D drive, you could purchase two more disk drives and install them, making them E and F (or whatever).

The advantages of this scheme are:

- Disk-to-disk backup is very fast

- Data written from disk to disk tends to be very reliable.

- The data is easy to recover.

Disadvantages include:

- The data is still accessible from your system, which means viruses, hackers ad environmental disasters (such as a flood) can destroy your data.

One alternative to look at if you have a small network in your house is to get a network disk drive. These are available at $500 to $1,000 range and sit on network. You can backup and restore files from them easily and quickly.

Conclusions - So what do I recommend? Purchase a writeable CD drive and install it on your system (make sure it is compatible before you make your purchase). If you've got money, purchase a networked disk drive which is same size as all of your local disks put together. Why? The writeable CD unit allows you to create backups at will of many of your files. You can store these backups off-site, transfer files between, machines, and have a high expectation that data will still be good in five to ten years. The networked disk drive allows you to create full backups of your system quickly and easily while you are sleeping. This gives you complete recovery in event of a disaster.

Desktop themes

Beginning with "Plus" pack that was an optional add-on to Windows 95, Microsoft introduced concept of desktop themes. These are very cool in that they allow you to change your wallpaper, sounds, icons, cursors and a host of other things using a simple text file.

Themes are very easy to create, and they have become extremely popular. There are hundreds of sites totally dedicated to them, and there are tends of thousand of individual themes available on every conceivable subject.

Normally, themes are stored in following location:

C:Program FilesPlus!Themes

Note that location is stored in system registry file (if you don't know what that is, then you probably don't need to worry about it). This allows you to modify, if you are very daring, disk and directory where theme files are stashed.

Each theme consists of a single text file with a file type of ".theme", and a number of associated icon, graphic, cursor and sound files.

ICQ Skins

The most popular instant messaging platform is called ICQ (I-Seek-You). Someone very creative decided ICQ interface was very boring and created ICQ-plus. This add on allows you to change look and feel of ICQ interface. Virtually everything can change - buttons, colors, graphics, fonts and text. These changes are called skins.

ICQ skins are stashed here:

C:Program FilesICQPlusSkins

Each skin is self-contained in a zip file (which can be unpacked using Winzip if you so desire)