“The Shadow knows!”  I couldn’t resist that cliché from that very popular old radio program.  It’s not really out of place because I’m talking about backing up your computer and there’s a program by NTI (New Tech Infosystems) called Shadow. 

Now most of us know that we should back up our computers on a regular basis.  Truth is we seldom do.  It’s like the burglar alarm syndrome.  Right after you’re robbed you call the alarm guy.  The same is true with the computer.  If you have a crash or the darn thing gets so screwed up that you have to start all over again, you tend to wish you had heeded the advice.  One of the reasons that people aren’t backing up regularly is that it’s confusing.  “What program do I use”?  “What should I back up to?” “How often is enough?”

Well NTI’s Shadow 4 may be the program you’ve been waiting for.  I started working with this program just before the holidays.  That was not a good time to start.  While trying to spend as much as I could to do my part to help stabilize the economy and with a death in the family, I put off working with the program for a while.  Now I’m back.  

I could go through all the features that this program has to offer but I couldn’t begin to show and tell those items as well as their website does.  I suggest that you visit www.ntius.com/shadow.asp.  To take a line from their page…Shadow 4 enables automatic, continuous sharing and backup of photo, music, data, and video files to virtually any attached storage device and computers on your network with a drive letter.  When you go to the site view the demo—it tells the whole story.

So far I have backed up some of those things mentioned above to an external USB drive. I created a new folder on my C:\ drive.  Placed some items in it, backed it up to the external drive, deleted the items in the folder and restored them from the USB drive.  What more can you ask?  

So what does all this leading edge technology cost?  Well you can get a 30 Day trial FREE.  That’s my favorite four letter word.  If you like what you see you can download it for $39.95.  If you want a CD copy add $3.

Is this the answer to all your backup problems?  Perhaps—but in case you like the more conventional type backup programs, NTI has them too.  It’s worth taking a look because as you’ve been told, “it’s not IF it’s WHEN” your hard drive crashes.  With today’s Bots, Viruses, Trojan Horses and Webroots, you’re more apt to be on the receiving end of some bad news.  Let 2009 be your time to act.  Remember, “The Shadow knows!”