NO easy data backup/restore solution for us poor poor poor Touch-PC users
 

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but...

There is absolutely no way to backup and restore my data as a PC-Touch-OF user, unless I choose to install a web server on my machine and implement WebDAV, or use a free WebDAV service on the web somewhere. I am unhappy with this.

Along with Calendar and Contacts, OmniFocus is the most important program on my Touch, and I'm feeling more and more pressure to come up with a disaster plan, if my Touch dies or is stolen. Losing this data would be devastating. I'm going to go ahead and install the WebDAV web server on my machine, but it frankly feels like using a themonuclear blast to kill a mosquito.

Please consider something simple (well...simple to us users!) to backup and restore OF data directly to/from your PC. I'm thinking of something like...

...[A] a stub application to install onto the PC that is simply a conduit to wifi your backups and restore-s back and forth between the PC and Touch. This is what the password program, mSecure, does when you don't have their desktop software...it's a free download PC app called mBackup. See
[url]http://www.msevensoftware.com/mbackup.html[/url]

...or [B] a solution like Instapaper or QuickOffice uses, where you email an attachment to their company, then it is recognized from within their application. To backup OF, I would email the OF data to myself (it'd be a zipped attachment). And to restore, I'd email that attachment to [email]ofrestore@omnigroup.com[/email], and then reference it via the OF preferences dialog on the Touch.

I don't care how it's done. Anything is better than the current solution.

Anyway, thank you for considering. I wouldn't even bother with this if OF wasn't such an incredible application.

There is an option for debugging which will mail your database off to Omni, but it gives you an opportunity to change the destination before it is sent.

[url]http://people.omnigroup.com/kc/DebugOmniFocus/EmailDatabase.html[/url]

You might need a bit of assistance from Omni to get the data back onto the phone, however. Or you could set up the WebDAV server at that point and do it yourself.

Do you have a complaint with the backups provided by iTunes when you sync your contacts and so on? It sounds like you have 3 independent backup routes at the moment...iTunes backup, WebDAV, and mailing the database.

In any case, to make a feature request, use Send Feedback or email [email]omnifocus-iphone@omnigroup.com[/email], as forum posts don't get tracked in the development database.

Maybe it's my misunderstanding, but it seems that iTunes backup is just one massive backup for my entire Touch. For the programs most important to me (OmniFocus, calendar, contacts), I want to sync, backup or restore any of these programs, individually, at anytime I want, WITHOUT having to affect/overwrite any other program on my Touch.

If there is a way to do this with iTunes' default backup process, please educate me. Otherwise my requests remain the same.

I will write the ninjas directly, I was just hoping to get other people's opinion feedback on it.

(I wasn't clear in my original post. I know how to backup the data as part of the overall iTunes backup. What I want is to backup and restore OmniFocus data by itself, without affecting any other program on the Touch)

(I also realize that synchronization means nothing in my case, because I'm only using OmniFocus on Touch.)