Some of the most popular questions I get over at AskTheAdmin involve being caught out without a backup. Normally when we talk about backups you immediately think about the PC or the laptop, but nowadays PDA's, especially Windows driven ones, are becoming more and more important in the workplace and in our everyday lives.

It's also inevitable, especially under any build of Windows, that you chance losing your data. Notwithstanding the inherent faults in Windows, having all your life's info in a device that can be dropped, stepped on, kicked, flung accidentally while speaking in an animated fashion (git her done), melted, forgotten and otherwise mistreated can be very precarious.

Yes, people use ActiveSync to "sync" their data up to a computer but what if you want to do it on the fly or you simply detest Microsoft ActiveSync? What if you are a Mac or Linux user?

The need for a backup solution for Windows Mobile has arrived. Along with it is the need for our beloved readers to have access to a totally FREE solution that will allow them to breathe a little easier next time something happens to their phone. Outlook is both costly and sucks up your memory and does not help our everyday users on the go.

Enter PPCPIMBackup. This tiny little program, with its itsy-bitsy little footprint, does everything you need in a PIM backup solution. Scheduling, an intuitive and simple interface, and the level of depth to name a few; it has all the options you could think of for a PIM backup and more. After all is said and done it will give you a single small file with your data in it.

As the picture shows, it handles appointments, call logs, contacts, messages, tasks, speed dial AND it also sports a nifty little custom field, which you can set to a filter for certain file types or you can choose a folder, or subset of files. This program really has everything one would need in a backup solution.

Best of all I can back up to my memory card while I am outside, keep a copy of my installable files with me and always be good to restore my information on the fly! This baby even does scheduling!

The backup took mere minutes, but the peace of mind involved in knowing my PIM data is safe is priceless. All the options, shown left, are pretty much self-explanatory.

PPCPIMBackup supports file compression, scheduling and best of all, it can be installed OTA (over the air, for you noobs out there) which means you don't have to run it through ActiveSync for it to work. In fact, the program has such a small footprint it ran right out of HTC Zip's temp memory. The process took less than 5 minutes and ran smoothly all the way through. Although I'm pretty sure if I ran the backup using compression, it would have been slower, but I have TONS of appointments and contacts and even uncompressed, the file was tiny at a mere 218k.

Though in all fairness, had I enabled attachments in the backup options, I'm sure that 218k would have been much more.

To use "PPCPIMBackup" simply extract the 'exe' file from the zip and launch it directly on your Windows mobile device. That's it. It couldn't be any easier now could it?

What do you use for Windows Mobile backups? Shout us out in the comments.

And a special thanks goes out to my buddy 'Commodore64' aka Mikey Meyer for putting me on to this wonderful app.