Backing Up a Directory

I apologize for sounding whiny, but I've been looking for half a year for a program to back up directories. The two beers probably doesn't help either. I should never ask buzzed questions. Still, does anyone know a Linux program that actually works to back up a directory or even, since I'm desperate, a Windows freeware program that works?

It's weird that Linux has produced all these wonderful program to burn CD, do word processing, do graphics and they work great, but not a working program that works to back up a directory! This has to be a 1000 time less complex a task. I just don't understand. My level of programming is just bad enough I wouldn't share a program with anyone else, but I'm beginning to feel the need to write a simple back-up program that actually works, though I would think it would be more useful for me to contribute to Linux in some other way than to write a program I'd be afraid to share, because of my inexperience.

See if this link is what you have in mind. Cron is the common way to automate and there is a discussion of that in this article.