Resco Backup - v2.22

Product history

Version 2.22 | Apr 30, 2009

• Scheduler fix (better resolution of the phone conflicts)
• Updated RBackup log version (Part of the zip installer; log is accessible from the menu)
  Log version traces scheduler problems; it does not help with the manual backup.
  Check the About dialog to find out which version is installed.

Version 2.21 | Apr 01, 2008

Centro: Prevention of the conflicts between scheduled backup and a phone call.

Improved treatment for the card swapping and password change.

Version 2.20 | Oct 24, 2007

Version 2.20.3

Change in the registration for the compatibility reasons with Resco Suite

Version 2.20.1

Bug fix: Occasional crashes in pinning backup sets

(The version numbering was synchronized with Resco Backup Pro.)

Main screen

• Status icon (ok/error) for the last backup set. (Tap the icon to get the status report.)
• Unintended button presses eliminated. Could happen e.g. with multiple taps on the progress Abort button. (They could actually mean abort + press of the underlying New Backup button.)

Backup Sets dialog

• Modified design (less used features are under the combo box Actions)
• Possibility to assign icons and notes
• First line of the notes - when nonempty - is displayed in place of the date
• Backup set error state is marked by red color
• A backup set can be pinned. This means the backup set is taken out from the scheduler update mechanism (scheduler performs cyclic update of a given number of backup sets), i.e. such backup set can be updated only manually.

Restore

• Partial restore starts with all files unselected
• Restore preserves original DB dates
• Improved DB recognition in 'Select Applications'

Diff dialog

• Possible delete of the RAM databases that are not present in the backup set.
  Handy feature when you want to clean newly installed app(s).
• Delete of RAM-only databases implies also delete of the preferences belonging to the deleted applications.

Other news

• Scheduler: Disallow if battery is weak (set the threshold in the scheduler options)
  Battery level is not checked if the device is plugged in.
• Allowed backup to NVFS drives - with appropriate warning because of loosing backup sets on hard reset. Allows e.g. backups while using WiFi card.
• Encrypt known files in Project Setup dialog: Public data (e.g. downloadable applications) need not be encrypted. It is faster so and even safer - prevents plain text attacks.

Version 2.01.2 | Apr 20, 2007

GUI restructuring:

• Basic mode introduced: As the name suggests, it hides rarely used technical features.
• Most setup dialogs hide advanced options behind Advanced button.

Project templates:

• When creating a new project, the user can make use of predefined projects (RAM Images, Contacts, Prefs and Phone Data).
• New users will find some of these projects pre-installed

Restore procedure reorganized:

• Possibility to select full or partial restore.
• Partial restore can start from the DB selection (old way) or from the application selection.
  Notice that application groups take into account known hidden creatorID's or relation to the ROM applications. The result - simpler and more understandable application tree.
• Verify launched from the Restore screen gives the possibility to restore just missing/different files.

Scheduler:

• Added Power-off backup. (Initiated by manual press of the power button.)
• Backup "every xxx hours" includes now start/end time.
• Possibility to hide progress bar for individual projects. (Handy for small projects.)
• Possibility to hide backup countdown for app-exit-triggered backup.

"User-friendly" Verify:

• Files that modify very frequently (such as preferences) are marked as "nearly ok" (black "!=" string) and positioned past all red items.
• Added [??] button that explain the compare result for selected item.

Other news:

• New filter in the Select Files dialog: 'Select PIM Data'.
• Online help rewritten to better address most frequent user problems.
• Card auto-start: RscBackup can be copied to the card folder /Palm. The result - RscBackup is launched when the card is inserted.
  Condition: You must not use another application that processes card events. (Launchers use to do so.)

(Advanced) Treatment of backup errors:

• Additional error checking.
• User alert in case a corrupted DB is encountered during scheduled backup.
• Failure of the 'Prevent DbCache Fragmentation' during scheduled backup is logged.

(Advanced) Improvements in the backup procedure:

• Large DBs are stored first.
• Automatic flushing of the DbCache in case of specific NVFS errors.
  Example when these measures helped: Occasional failures of the VoiceDial backup on T650.
• PmTraceDatabase and Shim Logs databases excluded from backup. (Purely technical stuff)

Version 1.40.7 | Sep 18, 2006

Basically a maintenance release:

• Better notification testing -> More risky apps discovered.
• Fix: Preserving of the column changes
• Fix: Removed some DIA problems related to the progress indicator (collapsing HIRES in certain scenarios)
• an a few technical measures increasing the robustness

Version 1.40.6 | July 20, 2006

We had to change the short application name to RscBackup because of conflict with another desktop utility. This change has no impact on the functionality or upgrade procedure or whatsoever.

More info about the changes at the forum... or in the updated manual (both pdf and txt versions.)

"Live" filter in the backup set definition

Select Files dialog / Actions / Select by Filter has a new flag: "Use at run-time".
With this flag you can e.g. define the backup set as "All DBs with the creatorID REAd", i.e. all e-books. RscBackup will evaluate the DB list at run-time and store also eventual new eBooks. Notice, that if the user modifies the selection (via pen tap or menu), the live filter is replaced by a static DB enumeration.

Backup sets comparison:

To compare 2 backup sets open Backup Sets dialog, set on Multiselect, select 2 sets and press [Diff]. (Does not work for "All Backup Sets" dialog.)

Improved Verify:

While the older versions just verified files in the backup set, v1.40 performs full comparison of the backup set against the current project selection.
The list of reported status codes:

• OK ... Both sides equal
• DbMissing ... File in the backup set has no RAM counterpart
• NotInBackup ... DB missing in the backup set
• NotInProject ... DB is in the backup set, but is not selected for backup
• != ... A difference found
• error ... Any other error status

Scheduler:

• New user notifications (via attention manager) about the scheduler failures were added.
  Examples: full medium, no memory, no write permission.
• New scheduler option: Reset after Backup
• Hotsync-based backup can happen max. once in 10 min.
  (For the case of repeated Hotsync due to a failure.)

NVFS-related support

• New options for both scheduled and manual backup:
  • Clear DbCache after Backup
  • Disable notifications
  • Prevent DbCache Fragmentation
• Lock dialog includes also preference panels
• RAM Info dialog shows more data and includes the option Flush DbCache

Other news:

• Verifying of RscBackup installation on the card is suppressed if RscBackup is launched from the card.
• Date-based update detects and updates incompletes databases, that might appear after a backup crash. Previous versions noticed the problem only when Update by content method was used.
• Possibility to rename projects

Version 1.35.4 | Apr 03, 2006

Bug fixes:

• Export to memo used to freeze in case of larger lists.
• Fix in reset processing: Solves rare situation when too long reset processing triggered automatic backup despite it was not scheduled.

Other news:

• Card Info report - better formatting
• Select by Filter remembers last filter used. (Within one application run only.)
• Backup log: Clear command asks for confirmation.

Version 1.35.3 | Mar 27, 2006

Improved reset processing - cures the problem, when the backup scheduling was lost after a reset. This problem could happen on the devices with long reset initialization.

Version 1.35.2 | Mar 23, 2006

Improved handling of the card swapping. For the details see Help.txt in the zip installer or the user forum.

Version 1.35.1 | Feb 14, 2006

Added user alert in case that scheduled backup fails with NoMemory error.

Version 1.35 | Feb 10, 2006

Stability (DB locking)

• Works also for Palm TX
• Count of the locked records reduced, as only the code records are locked; forms, bitmaps etc. are ignored. Advantage is the speed and the possibility to lock roughly 2x more apps than before.
• Lock dialog suggests apps for locking. (Actions > Set defaults) Candidates are those apps that receive system notifications commonly used in background processing.

Automatic locking increases backup stability.

Crash logging and other fatal problems

• Crash in manual Backup/Verify is automatically reported in the next run. (Incl. details)
• If a crash happens in a scheduled backup, then the crash reason is logged.
• Crashes or other fatal problems (card full etc.) are additionally reported via Attention Manager Alerts.

Increased robustness: Problems are detected and the user is notified.

Backup Sets

• Multiple delete through the "Multiselect" checkbox. (Multiselection works only for Delete.)
• New dialog "All Backup Sets" is accessible from application menu.
• Similar functionality for Restore is available via menu > Restore - All Sets.

Other news

• Move in the list by typing first character of a DB name (most lists work this way)
• Scheduler Settings/Min. time between backups was removed as it really could cause more harm than use.
• Restore > Diff starts on natural selection (i.e. all different files)
• Several problems in scheduling resolved
• RAM scanning
  was optimized in these cases: scan before backup, Select Files and Diff dialogs. These routines do not test the "L" (locked) attribute anymore. "L" attribute is still visible in the Exclude List dialog.
• Reset loop caused by scheduler crash
  We observed a T650 reset moving the system time by (randomly) 0-8 min back.
  As this situation in combination with scheduled backup may cause a reset loop. v1.35 uses a safety time span of 10 min after a scheduler crash, when no other backup is scheduled. Therefore, if you use multiple projects, do not schedule them to the same time.

Version 1.31.2 | Dec 14, 2005

Null record were finally excluded from the Restore as we found that they might cause problems in the NVFS layer - a crash when the DB was purged from the DBCache. To the user it appeared as a random crash long after the DB was restored.

Bug fix:
Scheduler bug in the Before Hotsync mode, that caused the countdown dialog to open also after Hotsync.

Version 1.31.1 | Oct 22, 2005

Scheduler: Countdown dialog after hotsync re-enabled. (User request)

Version 1.31 | Oct 20, 2005

• Added Restore button to the main screen. (Result of a user voting.)
• Fixed date problem with databases dated before 1980, when Update was permanently updating these files despite they were up-to-date. (However illogical the date issue seems to be, as a matter of fact such databases do exist.)

Version 1.30.3 | Oct 15, 2005

GUI

• Icons in the restore dialog. (Only for apps that happen to be installed in RAM when the restore starts.)
• Progress dialogs contain more information. (Project name etc.)
• Diff dialog: Added icons for disabled states.

Other news

• Treo: Scheduled backup is postponed during the phone call.
• Better customization of the Backup behavior at the end - possibility to set any combination of beep, report, error report, exit, turn off. (Exit option is ignored if a report is required.)
• Backup triggered by AppExit can be canceled.

Bug fix, security

• Resource databases with the last record larger than 64K were not properly restored.
  (Very exceptional case. The only known example: VoiceDial application.)
• Added checks for DB moving on NVFS systems during the backup phase.
• Warning if PALM_DM folder is selected for backup in the drive-based project.
  (It is used by Palm OS as RAM mirror.)

Version 1.30 | Sep 30, 2005

Scheduler

• You can select applications that will trigger backup after they exit.
• Scheduler can perform full backup or incremental update.
• New Scheduler options dialog accommodates options common to all projects - among them the possibility to hide the countdown dialog or the abort button in the progress dialog. (For those who are afraid of unwanted abort while carrying the PDA in their pocket.)
• Extra options added that customize scheduler behavior
• Scheduler respects the project setting 'Max. # of Backup Sets' - a feature required by many users. If this number is non-zero, then the scheduler preserves n most recent backup sets.

Incremental update

You can specify content-based update. It is slower, but catches those rare situations when some database is modified while keeping old date.

Backup of the internal drive

In the creation phase the project can be set as drive-based.

These projects can be set to backup any VFS folders. However, the most logical choice are the folders of the Internal drive on the NVFS systems.

Use the File Select dialog to select folders, that will be backed up.

Restore

Restore procedure was simplified: Pressing the [Next] button opens a dialog, where you can select files for restore.
Diff dialog was preserved, but it is intended for more advanced use.

Deleted archives

The location of the archives has changed - it is now the subfolder 'Deleted' of the project directory. This way the history is not deleted with the backup set. On the other hand - if you use this feature - you should occasionally check the space used for the archives.

Except different location the archives use the same format as the backup sets. RscBackup offers the archive management dialog under the menu option Archive. The dialog uses the same tools as the Backup sets dialog, i.e. you can browse the archive sets, compare them or even restore selected files.

Other improvements

• When RscBackup is upgraded, it automatically takes over old alarms, i.e. no rescheduling is needed.
• RscBackup detects the time change (whether done by the user or taken over from the network) and performs automatic rescheduling.
• Problematic interaction with the keyguard solved. (Treo)
• 'Install To Card' menu command lets you explicitly update RscBackup on the card(s) used for update.

Version 1.21.8 | Sep 05, 2005

Bug fix: User names (HotsyncID's) containing chars not allowed in the file names caused "Invalid filename" error. These chars are now replaced by an underscore. Example: HotsyncID "User|E2" results in backup sets starting with "User_E2".

Version 1.21.7 | Aug 30, 2005

News:

• "Exclude old PIM Dbs" switch enabled for Tungsten E and Zire 21
• Screen background properly restored after scheduled backup.
• Scheduled backup log improved.

Version 1.21.6 | Aug 25, 2005

News:

• Treatment of databases with null records is changed: Null records are now saved and restored. (They were ignored in the past versions.) This type of databases is very rare.
• Diff/Date view does not compare file size anymore. This implementation reflects the Update behavior.
• PIMsSupportStatus-pdmE moved to large files so that it gets its own cluster. (Faster Update.)

Version 1.21.4 | Aug 17, 2005

Bug fixes:

• Restore of DBs with extremaly large records (e.g. NetFront, JVM)
• T5: menu trigger in the titlebar did not work

Version 1.21.3 | July 26, 2005

News

Mainly improvements in the one-handed navigation plus some small GUI bugs corrected.

We tested dozens of applications on several handhelds, but did not get any non-standard behavior.

Despite that users occasionally report problems. However, so far the really serious seems to be always caused by external factors. (Those easy ones were corrected.)

Compatibility

Coding of non-ascii characters (e.g. French ç) has changed as part of the bug fixing. If you use databases with names containing foreign characters, then create please new backup sets.
An easy test if everything is all-right is the Verify dialog as it will mark the concerned databases as "DbMissing".

We apologize for inconvenience.

Version 1.21 | July 21, 2005

News

• Lock List Dialog (to be used on NVFS systems only): Use to lock dangerous hacks in memory. Can avoid crashes caused by these applications.
• Added option to schedule backup before Hotsync.
• Improved tips and help dialogs

Bug corrections

• Diff dialog, Compare by content: files missing in RAM were marked as different
• Landscape mode (320x480): Redrawing effects for the project selection combobox
• Removed crash after performing selective restore.
• Solved conflict related to the databases with names differing in case only
• Turning off after scheduled backup works also in the craddle

Version 1.20.1 | July 09, 2005

News

(Based on user requests)

• Diff dialog loads faster as only the date comparison is carried out. Slow data comparison is done on demand.
• Scheduler generalized: Added hourly backups.

Version 1.20 | July 06, 2005

News

• Recyclable databases are excluded from backup. (They would be deleted on next reset anyway.)
• Added warning if known dangerous hacks are encountered. (NVFS systems)
• Files in the backup set use the extension .pdb. This gives the possibility to manipulate with them manually from the Resco Explorer. Should be backwards compatible, but as a matter of safety we suggest to delete the old backup sets.
• Dif dialog: Possibility to delete selected files from the backup set.

Bug corrections

• New NVFS-specific problems are handled during the restore.
• Scheduled backup: Some potential conflicts with simultaneously running apps were solved.
• Solved scheduling problem: Re-scheduling after a crash might have caused switching off scheduler alarm. (I.e. the next scheduled backup was not launched.) This happened when RscBackup was notified about the reset prior the card drives were mounted.

Version 1.15 Beta | July 02, 2005

Bug corrections

• Crash in Verify when the RAM equivalent did not exist and the ROM database was found instead.
• Scheduled backup works even if started when RscBackup is active. (Except when RscBackup itself perfoms backup.)
• Restore into a full installation:
  Removed conflicts when trying to restore existing opened or protected databases.

Version 1.14 Beta | June 29, 2005

News

• Scheduled backup works disregarding which application is currently launched.
• Scheduler log added (available from the main menu).
  If everythings goes well, the log contains just a brief announcement. Otherwise detailed errors are listed.
• Records marked for archiving are included into the backup.
• psyslaunchDB can be selected for backup. (Enables categories restore.)
• Zero size records allowed. (Happened e.g. with the file 'SMS messages' on Treo.)
• Exclude list allows for the exclusion of the readonly databases.
  This is the default option for LifeDrive as the readonly flag has special meaning for that handheld: Databases marked this way are restored automatically after hard reset.
  Warning: Do not use the readonly flag for other purposes.

Version 1.13 Beta | June 16, 2005

Bug corrections

• Treo 650 device not correctly recognized

Version 1.12 Beta | June 15, 2005

Bug corrections

• Backup after Hotsync, Backup started only after switching to launcher

News:

• Update Backup, Always backed up all small databases.

Version 1.11 Beta | June 10, 2005

Bug corrections

• Archive Deleted Files
• Zero size zips (unable to open zip files in windows)

Version 1.10 Beta | June 09, 2005

News:

• Switching cards while Resco Backup is running.

Bug corrections

• Old PIM database were backuped. (Crashed while backup, todos not restored.) Now they are not backuped by default. This can be changed (strongly discouraging) in Exclusion List.
• Scheduled backup not working. (Progress showed for a moment but no backup (or empty size) created.)
• Zlauncher categories not backuped.