OK, one at a time:
As far as backups, there are a million different ways. It sounds like you have a good plan. Two external hard drives should be fine. Just be sure to alternate, so you do a Monday backup on Drive 1, then Tuesday on Drive 2, Wednesday on Drive 1 and so on. This will mean the following Monday will be on Drive 2. This will ensure that if one drive goes bad, you will have a much better chance that you will have a newer backup. Remember, the weakest part of any system is the hard drive. I would recommend doing a manual backup and having some type of automated backup like Acronis or Backup Assist. You could manually do the folder, while doing a FULL backup of the computer.
Offsite backups are great. And, there is a big advantage of doing them. Never do them on the "server" computer. Always do them on a client. This will send a copy of the server's databases to the offsite story AND make an encrypted file of all six databases on the LOCAL client. So, now you even have more security. And, if you were to take those home, you have encryption.
Your plan would work, but it is much too difficult. First, you need to know AND I need to know if the "main" computer will be used in the office to run AC. If you can afford it, it would be good if it did not. If it does not, then do not download and install anything. Simply copy and paste the AC folder from your laptop to the "main" computer. Share it. Then all of the other computers can browse to it. As for your laptop, don't uninstall and reinstall. Just leave the AC folder there, and change your path. You can do this one of two ways. You can use AU to change your path. Or you can do what I prefer. You bring up AC on your laptop to the sign in window. You right click just below the name of your company. This will bring up a window allowing you to reset your path. You do. Then, you choose the radio button on the bottom part and browse to your shared folder on the "main" computer.
If you are planning on using the main computer as many people are forced to do given finances, etc. Then you will need to do as you say. Download AC, delete the folder, then copy and paste the folder from your laptop to that main computer. Then do as above resetting all the other comptuers and browsing to the main computer. Again, there is no need to delete the AC folder on the laptop or reinstall. Just use the AC program that is there. If you want to be extra careful, you can go to My Computer, C: drive, Program Files and Amazing Charts (assuming that is your path), go into the AC folder on the laptop and change the name of the AmazingCharts.mdb file to AmazingCharts.old. This will insure that it is impossible to connect to that by mistake.
To answer your last question, just go to:
http://www.amazingcharts.com/ub/ubbthreads.php/topics/9630/2I just use a batch file to copy AC everyday to the computer I have decided to use as a backup server. If you really want it to be ready, you go ahead and share the folder. If you REALLY want it to be accessible, you map that shared folder to each client. So, by running the batch file every night, you have essentially a completely up to date AC folder on a backup computer, which you can access in seconds. You don't have to use the batch folder, although I can write the code for you if you give me the two locations (main AC folder and where you want to copy it to).
A couple of other ideas to ponder:
Seagete makes a personal server for real time backups called a Mirra. I have two of them. You cannot physically move files to it. You simply install the software, and then choose what files and folders you want to backup/monitor. So, you can choose My Documents, Outlook, etc. Here you would monitor the AC folder. Now, you would have nine of the latest databases. It would not be a backup solution per se, but it would mean that if the server crashed at 2:10PM, you would have the 2:09PM database. Granted backing up a 60MB folder to a 500GB Mirra is a bit much, but you can back up anything to it as it is networkable. So, all PCs could backup their files to it. You can also access it from anywhere in the world.
Mirra:
http://tinyurl.com/596porYour idea of burning CDs each week is great. It will work perfectly for you. Just use CD-R and not CD-RW. Much safer. And, you can keep all of the CDs way back for a year. There are reasons for this. If you find you get tired of burning CDs and ultimately paying for them and marking them and buying plastic cases for them, you can think of the following which I do. You could buy an 80GB to 320GB Seagate Go or WD Passport. Below is an 80GB mobile hard drive which is a very good price. You could literally backup 1600 AC folders on it. It is larger than a thumb drive so you probably won't lose it. And, it is smaller than an external drive so it is portable. You can also get them encrypted.
Passport:
http://tinyurl.com/5fbsj4Finally, while Amazing Charts uses Access and is NOT truly a client server application as it will be with SQL, a real server as you alluded to with a client/server setup and domain/active directory is definitely the way to go. Certainly, a P2P is fine and this is argued on here all the time, but in my mind a server environment using real server software is best. Remember, a lot of debates on here are based on whether P2P or server/client is the best for AMAZING CHARTS, but users do not take into account the entire office environment. For me, I look at it as the entire network and how I want to network Medware and FAP and AC and everything else. I want redundancy and speed and easy backups. I want a very fast and very redundant and secure server that no one ever uses and/or touches. The advantages of a server (when I say server I mean a true server machine with Windows Server 2003 or my personal favorite, Windows SBS 2003 R2, are too many to list.
