First, thank you for such an amazing tool.

As someone who works from three different computers all the time (home, office, laptop) I am concerned about backup-synch issues.

I have read the documentation about installing zotero on a portable drive, datastick, etc., and it seems a good solution, but what if the little thing gets lost, damaged, stolen, etc.? One would want to have a back up to restore things from (or even more than one, just in case).

Sinchronising: if you copy the entire profile folder from one computer to another (so you can retrieve the latest version of your database) you are likely to get bug 278860, or "firefox is already running, but is not responding".

There is probably an easier way of making a back up copy (and bringing it back "to life") that I, with my limited computer knowledge, cannot see? Thanks.

Thank you for your response. I encountered the problem and did follow the link as you indicated. I did my homework, read all the documentation in there and tried several methods, unsuccessfully so far. I also tried to export my library to Zotero RDF, as suggested in another thread, but was only able to restore it partially (and yes, I did click on both notes and files).

All in all it took me several hours (of wasted time so far). I am afraid I am finding everything too complicated and frustrating. You see, I'm a historian, not a computer expert.

This might sound strange to you but not all of us know what RDF, RIS, SSH, are nor are willing to find and edit profiles.ini files (nor want to have to be bothered finding out where they are).

As an end-of- the-line user, a simple scholar with a phd in history, I would like Zotero to be a tool for the rest of us, not to become one of those "cult" software that only computer geeks can understand and use. Sorry if I sound cranky, I'm probably getting old...