One of the things that I cannot stress enough is backing up your files.

We store our work documents, pictures, music, videos, precious family photos and more on our computers, and with one hard drive glitch all our important files can be gone forever. Luckily, there are plenty of easy ways to prevent data loss by backing up your system.

Essentially, backing up produces copies of all your hard drive contents and exports them to one file, typically stored on a remote drive. In the old days this was done with tape drives and CD-R discs, but now this can often be done with external hard drives or flash memory.

Finding the right backup program can be quite tricky, but I recently came across Roxio BackOnTrack 3, and it seems to make backing up my PC easier than ever.

My experience with BackOnTrack has been excellent. The installation process went exceptionally well. Once the program was fully installed, I was taken to a preference window to customize my backup options.

Once that was out of the way, I was brought to a beautiful, simple, well-designed interface where all the options were just a click away. The software makes a statement with its easy to use interface of big buttons and easy to follow prompts.

I started out backing up a 100MB video file, and soon it was in a folder on my drive ready to be restored. I then deleted the file off my internal disk and restored it with BackOnTrack, and again within a few minutes a notification window came up telling me that my restore was completed successfully.

Finally I decided to backup my whole system and see how the product performed. All you have to do is click the “backup drive” button in the frequent tasks pane, select the drive you wish to backup, select the destination drive and click the large orange “go” button. Restoring files is just as easy.

In my tests, Roxio BackOnTrack exceeded expectations, mainly because of its ease of use, large buttons, great interface and overall great functionality. I would definitely recommend the software to anyone who wants an easy backup solution and piece of mind knowing that their files are safe.

It does have a few downsides, like when you try to back up individual files. The program only gives you the option to select email messages, financial data, photos, productivity documents videos and music. I would prefer if you could use the windows explorer and select the files to be backed up, rather then using its choice interface.

With its great features, functionality, ease of use, $49.99 price tag and it’s great user interface, Roxio BackOnTrack is a must have for any PC user.

Quck Hits:

Publisher: Roxio
Developer: Roxio
Platform: Windows XP or Vista
Genre: Backup Utility

Overall: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Anyone who has ever gone to a professional sporting event for the sole purpose of seeking autographs can tell you that the Staedtler marker is the best. It will just about write on glass without smudging, and that’s why it’s often used for today’s super-high gloss and chromium trading cards. It’s simply one of the best markets in the world.

Looking for the right market to label burned CD’s, Roxio blogger Becky Waring clearly knows quality when she sees it.

Here’s Roxio’s take:

If you’re like me, you probably label most CDs by reaching for the nearest felt-tip pen or magic marker. For special ones you’ll spend the time to create a nice color label, but most just get a quick few strokes of the pen.

When it comes to CD labeling, however, not all magic markers are created equal. Using the wrong marker can literally destroy your disc and make it unreadable. According to a librarians’ organization, the only safe CD markers are water- or alcohol-based. If you can smell your marker, it is probably solvent-based, and can cause the thin lacquer coating protecting the top of the disc to dissolve. A ball point, even a rollerball, is also a nono, since it can literally scratch through the coating. DVDs are a little less vulnerable, since they have polycarbonate coatings on both sides of the disc, but we prefer to simply be on the safe side for all optical discs. If your backup photo disc is unreadable five years down the road, you’re not going to remember what marker you used, only that you’ve lost your precious photos.

So where can you find CD-safe markers? Wanting to find the best way to label our discs, we went on an online search for the perfect CD pen. We were amazed to find a large selection of markers specially designed for CD and DVD labeling from Sharpie, Staedtler, Dixon, eFilm, TDK and more, none of which we’d ever seen in stores. So we ordered up samples and put them to the test. Two clear favorites emerged: the Sharpie CD/DVD Permanent Marker and the Staedtler Lumocolor CD/DVD Marker.

Both come in red, blue, green and black so you can indulge your color whims. The Sharpies are double-ended, with one ultra-fine tip and one fine tip that is also good for marking jewel cases. We really liked having a choice of thicknesses. They are also non-toxic, for use around small children. The Lumocolors have a fine tip for precise writing, plus the advantage of being dry-safe, which means you can leave them uncapped for days without drying up, and they are always ready to start writing. Both sets of markers dried quickly and were reasonably smudgeproof and waterproof.

For more great information on safe labeling and storage of CDs and DVDs, including how they react to light, moisture and x-rays, check out the Council on Library and Information Resources’ guide to the “Care and Handing of CDs and DVDs.”

Okay listen up. I got five commercial copies of Roxio Crunch video conversion software for Mac/PC ($39.99) and two copies of Popcap Arcade Volume 1 for Xbox 360 (also $39.99).

I have explicit instructions to give them away to my readers, but I’m going to make you work for them.

This will be an easy one. Take any tech item — software, hardware, video card, new laptop, mp3 player, video game, gadget — and review it.

The best review as determined by our editors will get both Crunch and Popcap. Second place gets his or her choice and the next five get what’s left.

Free stuff. Write a review.

Submit entries to freebies@blastmagazine.com

Roxio Popcorn is an all-in-one multimedia ripping tool.

Of course, they don’t like to use the word ripping — Roxio prefer’s “popping.” Hence the name.

But Popcorn is a versatile conversion tool that works for non-encrypted DVD’s, disc images and VIDEO_TS file folders. As long as your DVD’s aren’t protected (so forget about most Hollywood films) you can backup and import a wide variety of movies.

The new version is compatible with TivoToGo to work with your favorite recorded television shows. You can also preview your selectons in real-time and free up space on your MAC by exporting EyeTV videos to DVD discs.

Popcorn has a useful feature called Fit-to-DVD, which squeezes a video down to size so that it will fit on one disc — up to four hours of DVD-quality video.

Finally, Popcorn 3 is Dolby Digital and Apple TV friendly and can convert for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PSP and BlackBerry and Treo devices.

It’s a good, solid utility, again it can not rip copy protected DVD’s, but if you’re looking to do some real video manipulation, pop away.

Publisher: Roxio
Developer: Roxio
Platform: Mac
Genre: Utility
MSRP: $49.99

System Requirements

• Macintosh computer with PowerPC G4, G5, or Intel® processor
• Mac OS X v10.4.10 or higher
• 300 MB of free disk space to install
• Up to 15 GB of temporary free disk space during usage
• QuickTime 7.1.6 or higher

Optional:

• DVD burner and recording media
• Apple TVâ„¢, Video iPod®, or iPhoneâ„¢
• BlackBerry® device with MPEG-4 video support
• Palm® Treoâ„¢ 680, 700p, or 755p with video support
• Xbox 360â„¢, PlayStation® 3, or PSPâ„¢
• EyeTV video recorder or Turbo.264 video encoder hardware

* TiVoToGo requires a TiVo® Series2â„¢ or other TiVoToGo compatible DVR connected directly to your Mac or to your home network. This will not work with DIRECTV with TiVo DVRs. See www.tivo.com for more information.

Supported Formats

Input formats:

• DVD Disc, disc image file, or VIDEO_TS Folder
• All QuickTime video formats, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, AVI, DivX, VOB, EyeTV Recordings, and TiVoToGo transfers

Output formats:

• DVD disc or disc image file
• MPEG-4, H.264, or DivX files

DVD formats:

• Single and multiple movies and extras
• Multi-channel Dolby® Digital audio
• Multi-language audio
• NTSC and PAL video
• 16:9 widescreen and 4:3 fullscreen aspect ratios