Just tried this free drive backup tool and was very impressed.  I normally use Acronis but that's becoming a very bloated expensive tool.  This paragon tool did a very good job, was easy to use, and has a nice bootable rescue cd builder in the program.  Was fast too.

If you don't yet have a drive imaging tool, or especially if you have family members with desktop/laptop/netbook computers, and want a legal free good drive imaging tool to install on their computer, i highly recommend this 

http://www.paragon-s...com/home/db-express/

Stumbled onto this yesterday on TIGSource, realized it could be interesting today

So, Unity Technologies released a free, limited version of its Unity Game Engine, a game development tool similar to Torque Game Builder. Targeted at independent developers, it lacks a bunch of the advanced features the paid version has, but still looks interesting enough for those interested in game creation.

http://unity3d.com/unity/

For those interested in what you can achieve with it, Off-Road Velociraptor Safari

Everyone knows that I (and DC in general) love the tower defense game genre, where you place defensive towers on a map to defend against wave after wave of attacking forces.  It's just the right level of interactivity and attention for my tastes.

And now comes the 4th in a series of 3 increasingly well done tower defense games based on the "Bloons" series, which is notable for it's high production values and excellent cartoony graphics.

You can read about the first three releases here on DC, or jump to the review of Bloons Tower Defense 4 on JayIsGames.com:

Graphics have improved tremendously, especially with the new monkey ace and monkey buccaneer towers. The new upgrades are fabulous, especially the fifth level upgrades. A wonderful addition is the use of military stripes to indicate how much a tower has been upgraded, eliminating the need to click on every tower to see what level it is at. Old favorites are still along for the ride, such as the super monkey's plasma vision and the ever popular flying monkey blitz attack. A lot of effort has gone into making this a fun, fantastic experience.

http://www.ninjakiwi...Tower-Defense-4.html

The latest edition of Ehtyar's Tech News Weekly is out!
Table of Contents:

• 1. Mozilla Disables Vulnerable Microsoft Plugin for Firefox
• 2. Prepare for Disconnection! French "3 Strikes" Law Now Legal
• 3. PSA: Voyeurs, Encrypt Your Spy Videos!
• 4. Gaping Security Hole Turned 64,000 Time Warner Cable Modems Into Hacker Prey
• 5. Metasploit Project Sold To Rapid7
• 6. Random Users Google Voice Mail is Searchable by Anyone?
• 7. U.S. Spies Buy Stake in Firm That Monitors Blogs, Tweets
• 8. There Goes the TV...
• 9. Peter Russell Clarke - Swearing Aussie Chef [NSFW]

Last year, Microsoft's Channel 9 interviewed Windows expert Mark Russinovich to discuss many of the refinements and new features introduced in Windows 7 to ensure it would run and scale better with newer hardware that previous versions of Windows. To celebrate Windows 7 release, Channel 9 has interviewed Mark again to talk about the rest of the new technologies and changes that, due to time constraints, were not discussed in the first interview.

http://channel9.msdn...ide-Windows-7-Redux/

It's a pretty long video, but if it's like the first one (which I advise you to watch prior this one), it's worth the time. Specially interesting is the demo showing Windows 7 running on a machine with an astounding 256 processors. User machines won't be hitting that ceiling anytime soon.

Are you sure that the backup procedure you use will save you when (not if) the time comes that you need it?
I thought I would start a thread about how to test it and make sure it will.

First let's set the ground rules:

• This thread is about whole-system (entire hard drive) backup and restore, not about backing up only your personal documents.
• As I described in my old backup guide, I firmly believe that the best approach involves both periodic whole-system backup combined with more frequent and incremental (preserving multiple versions) personal document backup, but this thread is about testing your full-system recovery procedure.
• This discussion is about *testing* your backup procedure -- not about actually using the software and hardware to do a backup in the first place.

---

Ok, so let's get started: