This is the tale of what happened to me. Don't be caught without a backup.
Last month I started automatic backups of my dx4win log files to two other drives on other computers of my little home network. Prior to that I did backups "once in a while". Not recommended! Last night the shack computer (n2la) crashed. The drive. Except for the dx4win data there was no data on the shack computer that is unique. Normal work is done on another computer (wanda). Luckily my dx4win data is intact on the other drives from the automatic backups. I can buy another drive, install Windows and dx4win, then reload my dx4win data. Don't lose your vital log data! Back it up. There are several ways to do it. I strongly suggest that the method be automatic - it would be awful to lose your data because you forgot to back it up for a few months! My method is to run a batch file in the wee hours every day using Windows 98 Task Scheduler. It's a little icon on the bottom task bar in the group of running programs to the left of the time display. Task Scheduler can be set to run any program (batch file in my case) at any time with any frequency (daily, weekly etc). The command would be something like: command /c backlog.bat Tip: Make sure the properties of command.com are "close program on exit". The backlog.bat batch file first zips up the files in the dx4win\save subdirectory that I have modified. All the others will come back on a new install. The batch file line that creates the zip file is: zip -u n2la n2la.dxl dx4win.cty dx4win.tcp dx4win.lab dx4win.ini dx4win.cfg where the first n2la is the file name n2la.zip and the other are files to include in the zip file. The -u specifies only those files that have changed are added to the zip file. The batch file continues with lines that rename it uniquely and then copies it over the network with a command like: copy n2la.zip \\wanda\c\hamdata\ where wanda is my normal working computer and hamdata is where you wish to keep the backups. Hope this helps someone save their data. 73, Larry Alkoff N2LA Larry Alkoff N2LA - Austin TX
