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| Configuring Your Backups |
| Table of Contents | Back to Version 5 |
You are now ready to begin configuring your backup set. A backup set is simply a collection of files and/or folders you want to back up collectively. You can add as many items as you like to a backup set.
ACTION: Click on the Back Up button from BackJack's Main window.
Configuring your Backups
- Adding Items to Back Up - Removing Items - Item Count
- Configuring Filters
- Scheduling an Automated Backup
- Selecting a Finish Action
- Saving Your Backup Set
- Executing a Backup Session (Manual or Automated)
By default, your backup set is configured to backup your Home folder.
There are 2 ways to add items:
a) ACTION: Click 
to the right of the 'Items to Back Up' field
Navigate to the location on your hard drive where the item exists. Remember, you can press CANCEL at any time if you do not wish to proceed. Once you have located the item (select it so that it is highlighted), click the ADD button. BackJack will place that item in the Items field along with its location (it will show you the complete path leading up to the chosen item).
TIP - multiple items (both files and folders) can be added to the 'Items to Back Up' field at the same time via the navigation window - for continuous adding (ie. selecting all items from top through to bottom), hold down the shift key to select all all items - for discontinuous adding (ie. selecting items not together in a row), hold down the command (apple) key - once selected, click on the ADD button and they will be included in your items list
TIP - holding down the 'option' key lets you look inside bundles.
OR, you can:
b) Drag and drop items from your hard drive directly into this field.
TIP - The 'Items to Back Up' list shows the icon for each item in your list. If a file/folder can no longer be found on the hard drive, it displays a red colored question mark alerting the user to reconfigure the item.
ACTION: After editing your backup set, click SAVE and your settings will be saved. The BACKUP NOW button will become visible. If you don't want to save any of this information, simply click CANCEL.
Removing Items From the Backup Set, Global Filters or Item Filters
Select the item you wish to remove by clicking on it once (to highlight the item in your list). ACTION: Click 
to remove the item from the list.
IMPORTANT: Deleting an item from a Backup Set will delete the data from our remote servers (if a previous backup of the item was performed). Deleting a filter may actually increase the amount of data stored on the remote servers.
You will be asked to provide your BackJack user password in order to remove items from your backup set, item filters, or global filters.
This prevents stolen computers (especially laptops) from having their backups removed from BackJack's remote storage servers.
Enter the password and click "OK" to continue.
ACTION: After editing your backup set, item filters, and/or global filters, click SAVE and your settings will be saved. The BACKUP NOW button will become visible. If you don't want to save any of this information, simply click CANCEL.
To the right of the 'Items to Back Up', 'Item Filters' and 'Global Filters' titles, there is an item count. This is a quick, convenient way to see the number of items contained within a backup set as well as the number of global or item filters configured.
Tip - You can collapse or expand the 'Items to Back Up', 'Item Filters' and 'Global Filters' fields by clicking on the arrows to the left of each of these titles.
Filters are an important feature since they allow you to configure what you don't want to back up as part of a backup set. The Filters section has 4 default filters (most commonly filtered items). You do not need to use the default filters we have supplied. You can delete them simply by highlighting each one and clicking . Note that filters are not case sensitive.
There are two types of Filters: Global Filters and Item Filters
Global Filters apply to all items in your backup set.
Item Filters apply to individual items in your backup set. Item filters apply to folders only. If an item filter is applied to a file, it is ignored by BackJack.
Adding Filters - there are 3 ways to add filters:
a) ACTION: To ADD a new filter, select
The pulldown menu allows you to filter information based on: file name, folder name, full path, date file modified, date file created, date folder modified, date folder created, file size, extension, visibility, type, creator. Select your choices from the pulldown menu and place information into the blank value field. If you need to navigate in order to verify the information to be put into the value field, select the Get Info button. Once you do this, you can navigate to the item on your hard drive and press Select. It will display that information in the value field of the Configure Filter window.
OR, you can:
b) Drag and Drop on the list of Filters in the Backups window. All items will be added with a default filter of 'full path is'
OR, you can:
c) Drag and Drop into the Configure filter window (instead of clicking on the Get Info button, just drop a file on the window)
TIP - The comments field can be blank or you can enter a description to keep track of what the filter is and why you configured it.
Deleting Filters
ACTION: Highlight the filter you wish to delete by selecting it and clicking
Editing Filters
ACTION: Highlight the filter you wish to edit by selecting it and clicking 
ACTION: After editing your filters, click SAVE and your settings will be saved. The BACKUP NOW button will become visible. If you don't want to save any of this information, simply click CANCEL.
The schedule that you set applies to all of the items in your backup set. You can only set one daily time schedule for your backup set but you can choose the days on which the scheduled backup occurs.
By default, your backup set is configured to automatically backup your Home folder at the same time (the time was randomly generated between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.) on weekdays.
ACTION: Check the box to automatically activate backups on the scheduled days at the specified time.
Note: Keep in mind that there is no charge for how often you back up to our servers. Then, specify the exact time in hours, minutes and AM/PM.
Go ahead and enter the date and time. OK the window. If you want to set another schedule for the same backup set, you simply repeat the process above.
ACTION: Select the one time of day and any or all of the days of the week you wish for your automated backups to run.
Tip - You can put an automated schedule on hold by unchecking the box and saving your backup set.
ACTION: After editing your schedule, click SAVE and your settings will be saved. The BACKUP NOW button will become visible. If you don't want to save any of this information, simply click CANCEL.
Once your backup session is complete, you can tell BackJack to send a confirmation email and to perform one of 5 different actions. You select the finish action via the pulldown menu to the right of each of your backup sets.
- None - this means that once your backup session is done, your computer will remain on, all programs will remain active including BackJack (Backups window is displayed) - the Next Execution date will be set for next scheduled date/time
- Quit BackJack - the BackJack application will quit automatically once session is complete - you'll note how this is the default setting
- Sleep - your Mac's hard drive will be put to sleep
- Restart Computer - your Mac will restart itself once the session is complete
- Shutdown Computer - you can tell BackJack to completely shutdown your Mac once the session is complete
- Log Out - will log out the current user
Note: For each of these finish actions (with the exception of 'None'), BackJack will provide the user with a 15-second countdown window - this gives the user the option of performing the finish action immediately or canceling the configured finish action.
ACTION: After editing your finishing actions, click SAVE and your settings will be saved. The BACKUP NOW button will become visible. If you don't want to save any of this information, simply click CANCEL. Once you save the window, the Next Execution date is set (if you configured an automated backup). If this is your first backup session, there will be no date/time showing beside the Last Execution section.
Prior to any changes being made to the Backups window, the default buttons with be Preview and Execute Now. Once you add items, configure a schedule, add filters, etc. then these buttons will automatically change to Cancel and Save.
ACTION: Click SAVE and your settings will be saved. The BACKUP NOW button will once again become visible. If you don't want to save any of this information, simply click CANCEL. Once you save the window, the Next Execution date is set (if you configured an automated backup). If this is your first backup session, there will be no date/time showing beside the Last Execution section.
If you make changes and attempt to exit without saving, then you will receive a warning message. You have the option of saving, canceling or not saving any changes you have made. Note that the red circle in the top left-hand corner of the Backups window will have a black dot inside if changes have been made to the window (ie. changes that need to be saved prior to exiting).
ACTION: Click on the Backup Now button to manually commence the backup process. If you have a backup scheduled to take place at a later date/time, it will still run as configured.
The Backup Progress window is important for monitoring the status of your backup session. It relays the following information to you:
- start time (date and time the backup session started)
- elapsed time (how much time so far has elapsed in the backup process)
- time remaining for the backup session to complete
- finish action selected by user
- total number of files to be backed up
- number of files already completed
- number of files remaining
- original file size
Tip - You can either STOP or PAUSE the backup process from this window - if you pause the session, that button will change to a 'continue' button - if you stop the session completely, you will be automatically taken back to the Backups window.
Automated Backup Sessions
For automated backups to occur, the following requirements must be met:
- Your Mac needs to be on at the time of the scheduled backup. You can use System Preferences --> Energy Saver --> Schedule to start your computer just before a scheduled backup is to occur and select the Finish Action in BackJack to 'Shutdown' when the backup is complete.
- the mac's hard drive cannot be sleeping (screensaver is fine)
- the user must be logged in
The backup execution will take place according to the preferences you have set. A connection will be established with your computer, the information you have selected for backup will be compressed, encrypted and transferred securley via the Internet to our secure servers.