It looks like the Palm Profile has been having issues with corrupted backups, leaving users trying to restore from a backup without their data. It's not everyone who's had this problem, just more people than can be called a fluke.

Here's Palm's statement on the matter:

We are seeing a small number of customers who have experienced issues transferring their Palm Profile information to another Palm webOS device. Palm and Sprint are working closely together to support these customers to successfully transfer their information to the new device.

Good to know, clumsy Pre owners. [PreCentral]

Clickfree has also released the DVD Transformer ($40), which plugs in like a standard USB drive, but automatically scans your computer for personal files and other important data then backs it up on CD or DVD. [Clickfree via CNET and Slashgear]

In an interview by David Pogue, Dag Spicer, curator of the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley, noted that there's no great solution to saving your data other than resaving it again and again. His best advice:

...every five or ten years, you should move it onto a different format, like from VHS tape to DVD. And that's fine, but then DVD is already obsolete, there's Blu-ray, and so what's going to happen in another 10 years?

Making lots of backups is good advice, and on different formats, different places; consider paper as an archival medium...Keeping it on the Web is also not a really great strategy. A very large photo site just went out of business, and they gave people, I think, a month's notice to say, "We've run out of money, get your photos off the site and put them somewhere." Web sites are fine for sharing, but in terms of preserving your data, I wouldn't recommend it.

There's a lot more to the interview, and whether you're a data geek or just a guy who doesn't want to lose his home movies, it's definitely worth a read. [Pogue's Posts and Image by PJP]

Cucku calls it "social backup", but it's just a program that transfers your data onto your friend's computer for safe keeping, and vice versa. Peer to peer backup would be as appropriate. Your backup is encrypted, so your partner can't go poking around your stuff, but still offers the reliability and safety of offsite storage.

We can see a few problems with this setup. Their estimate is that 500MB takes 4 hours to back up on a normal ADSL connection. This is fine if you only have 500MB, but if you want to image your entire drive—500GB or so—that'll take 4000 hours. That's 166 DAYS, or about five and a half MONTHS. This is why online backup solutions need an initial sneakernet transfer of hard drives loaded up with your data (which Cucku does not offer in its current implementation). Everything is fine when you're just doing incremental backups after the fact. Also, you're limited to how much storage space your friend has, so you'll probably need to buy him a new hard drive as well.

Is it a good idea? Sure, but only for your most valuable files, and only if they're not more than a few gigabytes in size. [Cucku]

But even those with more honest intentions will find the EZ Dupe impressive for its slimline build and CD duplication options including advanced playlist support and mobile playback. It'll run you between $350 and $450, depending on who you're willing to buy from on the internet (but given your intentions with this little machine, you have the morals to judge no one, my friend). [product via bgr]

Whether this means Wii games or retro games, or possibly both, is still uncertain. But if hackers create game emulators, such as NES, SNES or MAME, there'd be no reason for gamers to pay $5 each for virtual console games when they can just download a ROM and play the game in its original glory. [Computer and Video Games via T3]

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Why would you use this? Well, besides archiving your movies on your home theater PC (HTPC), you can use this as a first step in encoding DVDs onto various portable media players. Also, backing up DVDs that you've actually purchased is a good way to make sure your $15 doesn't go to waste the next time some movers decide to bounce your boxes off the side of a Ford Focus. – Jason Chen

Hack Attack: One-click DVD rips [Lifehacker]

If you can get over the name, you might actually get some really good use out of this little gadget. The USB Phonebook Flasher plugs one end into your mobile phone and another into a USB port for one-touch backups for your address book. It's probably the most valuable tool ever for someone who uses Verizon or a service without the ease of a SIM card. No more having to spend hours reloading your new phone with your numbers off your old phone when you've got this. Backs up over 10,000 phonebook entries off both the phone and/or SIM card. Only $21.00 to spare you hours of aggrevation and sore fingers.

USB Phonebook Flasher [Red Ferret]