January 31, 2006

Save Yourself

Regret. So painful. Why oh why did I install that new program!! Everything worked just fine before I did -or as fine as a computer can be said to work.

Have you ever said that? Or let someone else use your computer, to come back to some totally fracked up mess that won't even boot without a million mysterious error messages?

What can you do when that happens? You can call your geek friend, or take the poor thing to the nearest computer destruction repair place, or maybe you were extra paranoid like myself, and backed up your entire hard drive right before you clicked on that tempting little OK button.

Or maybe not. Here's a new kind of solution. Instead of trying to use the wayback machine to return to a time when your computer worked, use a sort of Virtual PC to test software changes, or to let your evil nephew visit whatever websites he wants while your back is turned.

From the manufacturer's website:

ShadowUser Pro insulates your PC from all manner of day-to-day problems. It runs an exact duplicate of your system as a virtual machine, known as ShadowMode. If a software installation goes wrong or a virus hits, you can completely discard the virtual machine. Conversely, if you've successfully installed software or made other important changes, you can write all or part of the virtual machine back to the actual, physical PC's storage.

It's not exactly cheap-I scored a copy for $69, but it looks like that special ends today. But......

It sure beats standing at that repair counter while some bored tech guy tries to explain to you that installing that software actually fried your motherboard and wiped your hard drive and reported you to the IRS.

Posted by Trigger Tech at January 31, 2006 8:47 PM Permalink

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