Thanks TA-t3, I also wondered about the restore working. I hoped that perhaps it acquired the full path during backup and so would place it back in the correct place.

I think this would be a great exersise for me to dig a bit deeper and try the scripts you posted.

I have used chmod +x to create executables but what is a+x? will the +x suffice?

I have looked around for load-applet-run and it doesn't appear to be a native app or installable. Can you give a link to this?

Thanks for your excellent tutorials!