Softland is a private company, founded in 1999, who have produced a few handy tools over the years and Backup4all Professional Version 3 is one of them. Basically, Backup4all is a backup software program for Windows (including Vista), whose main aim is to help protect data from partial or total loss by allowing the automation of tasks, plus password protecton and compression to save storage space. And, best of all, it comes in the affordable $50.00 USD price range.

We all know that we should be backing up our data but how many of us actually do it? It's one of those tasks that gets put in the "to do" pile and usually doesn't happen. Saying that, people in my line of work have to seriously consider and plan backup procedures and stick to the routine so that data is protected. A good backup routine and secure storage of backup media are both positive steps on the road to a great disaster recovery strategy for IT businesses. But backup is important for everyone who uses a computer, especially in these days of digital photography when photographic memories can be lost forever with the bad luck of a HD crash. There are quite a few backup tools out there but I'd like to say don't let the price tag on Backup4All fool you into thinking it isn't up to the job for professionals and enthusiasts alike, it's a powerful and time-saving tool and one worth considering.

So, what features are on offer in the Professional version of this software? Well, let's take a look. There are 3 different versions of Backup4all ... there's this one, the Regular ($USD29.95) and the Lite ($USD19.95). Professional offers the added extras of burning to CD or DVD utilising the inbuilt burning software; Backup to FTP - using the FTP service (with SSL support, active/passive transfer modes, firewall support); run the backup at system shutdown and let Backup4all shut down for you after it finishes the job; and then there's email notification of your backup logs as well.

There are also a number of enhancements in this release, including:

• Allowing for the backup of locked or open files
• AES encryption (128, 192 and 256-bit)
• Improved application design (GUI)
• Deletion of sources after successful backup
• Deletion of empty directories

I've used a few backup programs over the years on Wintel machines and this one was an unexpected surprise. That is, an unexpected pleasant surprise, because it does exactly what it says it will do. It's easy to use for all levels of user because of it's logical GUI and offers a range of backup options, mirroring, incremental and the tool can be configured to run multiple backups of multiple types. It's nice to find value for money and I guess on that note, I'm raising both thumbs in the air for this little gem.