O and O Disk Image 4 Professional promotional good on until 24:00 UTC, Sunday,11 April,2010. The website offering this promotional is the download junkie website. http://www.v3.co.uk/downloads/
The following is my reason were for taking a close look at the O and O Disk Image 4 Professional program.
I am a big fan of backups using disk imaging. I have used several programs over a three-year period to this. Each of the programs give an option to make a full disk backup and then use either incremental or differential backups to amend full backup.
With each backup I always run a verification of my backup to make sure that the backup is complete and free data corruptions. I have had backups fail due to a number of factors. Looking at the program's log of tasks scheduled or manually initiated tells me that the backup failed and the reason for its failure. Really have high I had a backup go to completion and then have the verification fail. When the verification does fail significant amount of time has been wasted. Time put into the backup itself and in time need to run the verification can only be shortened a small amount. Options to give the backup program high priority and forgo any compression of the backup image speed the backup process only a little. The verification process takes as long to run as the backup process took.
O & O Software has found a way to significantly decrease the time needed for a full backup and verification. The company has done this by using checksums in lue of the longer verification process used by other disk imaging programs. Commercial imaging backup software may add other features that have little to do with an image backup. One program turns the RAM memory into a virtual sandbox. Infiltration of the computer by virus or another malware is avoided by simply deleting the virtual disk by shutting down that phase of the program, rebooting the computer, or turning the computer off for the night. I purchased a program that does all of these things at a time when virtual drives (also called sandbox) were uncommon. Now there is a flock of freeware designed to protect the computer through virtual drives. The safety aspect of using a virtual drive to conduct the business of the day is excepted by many and the process can be used without slowing computer response time by much. But, looking at the the backup aspects of the imaging programs they all do pretty much the same thing. If by using O & O Software with its checksum verification approach can save time then I think it has a leg up over the other programs in the field.
O & O Disk Image 4 Pro is being offered by the "Download Junkie" group athttp://www.v3.co.uk/downloads/ this weekend only. The promotion ends on Sunday, 11 April, 2010, at 2400 UTC (GMT).
Earlier today I saw on this forum a discussion concerning UTC and GMT in another thread. I find it quite interesting but it barely scratched the surface of the technical aspects of time keeping. I am trying to find an article that I wrote for the JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab/NASA) newsletter a few years back. If I can find it I will post it somewhere so that those interested in the subject can look at a copy. In the article all of the time conventions are covered in one place. It might be helpful because they are are not too many places where you can find all the time keeping conventions in one place. T
imekeeping is a very complex subject area and the devices used to determine the exact time in reference to a specific time keeping convention are fascinating. The "U.S. Naval Observatory" and the "National Institute of Standards and Technology" have the final word in the United States. When someone asked "what time is it?", You can refer them to these two authorities if they want to know the exact time. One means world of keeping precise and accurate time depends on a whole bank of atomic clocks located in a time center for each of the two organizations. The design and implementation of atomic clocks is a ever-changing field. Each new design of an is a reach for greater and greater accuracy.
For "Quantum theory" is the basis of an atomic clock. The cesium atomic clock provides the most accurate measurement of time known to man (at this time). At last count the US Naval Observatory had some seventy cesium atomic clocks. What is measured in a cesium atomic clock is not time per se but rather a frequency. Cesium was chosen as the basis for many of today's atomic clocks because of the stability of its electrons in the atom's lowest orbital energy state. In an accurate atomic clock, you do not want electrons bumping into each other.
The electrons of an atom are held in a certain orbitals. We have known for a long time the number of electrons held by each atom represented will in the periodic table of elements. Likewise the orbital state of the atom's electrons are also well known. When scientists go looking for an element to use as a basis for an atomic clock these two facts play a major role in choosing the element to use.
I am including a URL for the two laboratory reference centers i.e. the US Naval observatory and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. I have enjoyed my time studying this field for the past forty years. I have only talked about one time convention in these last couple of paragraphs. There are other time standards. Some of these time standards are easy to reference and understand. One easy to understand time convention is a geographical line located in Whiterabbit's country. I am referring to the geographical standard known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Many people, if not most, talk of these two time conventions as being the same. In conversations you might hear the two being interchanged. Interchanging UTC with GMT is incorrect. The time given as UTC is different from the time given as GMT. The two time standards are close in value but they are not the same. One of the time standards is based on geography and the other has its basis in the physical sciences.
http://tf.nist.gov/cesium/atomichistory.htm
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/clockdev/cesium.html
I am having a very difficult time trying to put together anything tonight. Neither of my hands are working correctly. My left hand never worked correctly. For the past several hours I have been able to unable to control most the fingers of my right hand. I apologize for the omissions and errors. The little critique of the disk imaging program was meant to go to several individuals - I have included here in case there is confusion of why this promotional disk imaging program warrants mention.
The following is my standard disclaimer:
Due to a disability, it is necessary for me to dictate most of the things that I write. Unfortunately it is common for the dictation program that I use to continue to edit a document after I have finished proofreading it. Plus, there are times when I do not catch some of the errors that the dictation program makes. A common mistake is for the program to insert the word "will" randomly throughout a document. In the past week, Dragon has selected another word that he seems to be fascinated with. Like the word "will" the word "that" has become a fetish for Dragon.
You may find these two words sprinkled in inappropriate places in any document that I have written. Having the use of one eye makes proofreading especially difficult.
Please allow me to apologize ahead of time for any mistakes.
