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Mozy 2.0 for Mac is faster, more Mac-like
Mozy, the cloud-based backup service for both PC's and Macs has just released version 2.0 of its Mozy for Mac software. Lifehacker reports that while most users won't notice anything other than the shiny new Mac-native appearance, Mozy also added a new query builder to make creating advanced backup rules easier, improved performance and stability, increased backup speed, and added an easy on/off switch for setting up automatic backups. In other words, they have attempted to make it even simpler to use than it already was. Mozy 2.0 for Mac is available for download now and just as before the first 2GB of online storage is free while monthly prices vary for larger home or corporate accounts. It's interesting to see how far they have come since the first version of Mozy for Mac came on the scene. I saw firsthand the value of having an offsite backup system in place when a buddy of mine lost both the internal drive on his iMac AND his external backup drive at home on the same day. He was a Mozy user and had them send him his complete backup on DVDs which he then used to import his data onto his new computer. Regularly backing up your machine (both local and in the cloud) is one of the most important things you can do as a computer user, and I myself have been a longtime user of backup service from BackBlaze. For $50/year, the expense of paying for an online backup is totally worth the safety net it provides. [via Lifehacker and Online Backups Review]
Need a few petabytes of Mac storage? Build your own BackBlaze Storage Pod
One of the largest personal iTunes libraries I've ever seen belongs to a client of mine. This client, who was a DJ in the 50's and 60's, has a huge collection of vinyl albums and singles that he painstakingly digitized, cleaned up, and catalogued in iTunes. Needless to say, opening iTunes on his Mac Pro is an exercise in patience. Thinking about his music storage needs, and the huge amount of digital photos and video that my wife are accumulating, got me musing about other ways to do mass storage inexpensively. At this point, I'm probably OK with a DroboPro, but what if I needed petabytes (1 petabyte = 1,024 terabytes = 1,048,576 gigabytes) of storage? Most solutions at this point in time are quite expensive. As of 6 AM PDT this morning, off-site backup vendor BackBlaze has put their solution to mass storage needs, the BackBlaze Storage Pod, out to the world as an open source project. Their solution is a relatively inexpensive box (US$7,867 for 67 TB of storage) made up of off-the-shelf components that can be reproduced and/or improved upon by others who also need huge amounts of cheap storage. See those red boxes in the picture to the right? Each one of those contains 67 TB of RAID 6 storage in a 4U box. For a petabyte of storage, you're going to need to spend about $117,000 on about fifteen of the boxes.
9 things I learned from almost losing my MacBook Air
I swear, getting old is not a lot of fun.Last night, I taught a class in data security for home and small business users at our local community college. There were a lot of good questions from the community education program students, so the class ended quite late and I was still answering questions as I walked out the door.This morning, I went to grab my MacBook Air out of my laptop bag and literally grabbed air instead. In my haste to get out of the classroom and head home, I had packed everything but the laptop. Fortunately, the classroom was locked and few classes are scheduled for early morning, so I called the campus police and had them rescue the MBA for me. Problem solved!After actually losing an iPhone 3G a few months ago, I wrote a post about what to do to prevent data loss and identity theft when lose your iPhone, and included a few tips on how to hopefully keep yourself from losing the phone in the first place. In this post, I'll talk about the things that I do (or can do) to keep my MacBook Air and my data safe, even when my mind conspires against me to try to lose the computer.
Backblaze for Mac officially launches
Back in December, online backup company Backblaze launched a private beta of its service for Mac users. Like its Windows counterpart, the Backblaze subscription service is $5 US a month (or $50 US a year) for unlimited backup space. Today, the company is officially launching its service for Mac users, along with an updated client, better support for external drives and enhanced recovery options. Configuration and setup Just like in the beta, Backblaze remains extremely easy to set-up and use. You just install the program (by default it will run in the background, though you can change this), enter in your e-mail address and password, and it will start backing up your files. The default setting has Backblaze running any time it finds an available internet connection. The backup process is constant and Backblaze stores multiple versions of a file for 30 days (so if you are frequently changing a document or spreadsheet, 30 days worth of revisions are saved to Backblaze). If you want to remove Backblaze, the company has made the uninstall process easier and more intuitive. There is now an uninstaller built into the install DMG image, just double-click on Uninstall (right next to the install option) and you can take Backblaze off your system. If you trash the DMG, just download it again off the Backblaze web site for easy removal. Backblaze won't backup your Applications (thought it WILL backup stuff in your User/Library folder, so many of your application settings will remain backed up), but it will backup your photos, movies, audio files as well as things like your iPhoto or Aperture database, various documents, and more. By default, .ISO, *.exe and *.DMG files are excluded from the backup file type list, but you can remove most of those extensions (*.ISO cannot be removed) if you want to backup that information. The maximum single file size is still 4 GB, but keep in mind this doesn't mean your iPhoto or Aperture databases won't be safe. Those databases are actually just folders with lots of smaller individual files, that's fine. If you have individual files over 4 GB in size, those won't be backed up with Backblaze. You'll need to split the files into smaller segments or make alternate arrangements.
Backblaze beta launches for Mac: We have invites!
Update 4:Backblaze worked out the registration server issues and is now taking more users for the beta! If you already downloaded the program and had problems logging in, try again. If you want to try it out, visit http://www.backblaze.com/tuaw_mac to sign up!/updateBackup your data. It's the one piece of tech advice that just can't be given enough. Backup your data. At this point, I think most computer users know that it is important to backup. Mac users running Leopard have it even easier, thanks to Time Machine and devices like the Time Capsule. Still, for whatever reason, there are plenty of people, smart people (though we hear Scott is finally backing up properly now) -- who don't have an adequate backup solution. If the geeks can't do it, how can we expect our parents to? This is why online backup systems are so intriguing. With internet access being pretty much ubiquitous and getting faster and faster and data storage getting so cheap, it makes sense to consider backing up to the cloud. Not only does it free you from having to be connected to a hard drive, in the event of a true data disaster, the data is someplace else. As someone who backs up her backup drives, this is an enticing possibility. Today, Backblaze, who has already had a subscription backup service available for Windows users (see Download Squad's take) is launching a private beta for its Mac backup service. For $5 a month (or $50 a year), you get unlimited backup space. And unlimited is really unlimited. I asked Gleb Budman, the co-founder and CEO of Backblaze, and he assured me that there are no arbitrary data limits. Although the service is in private beta, Backblaze was nice enough to give TUAW readers 300 invites so that you can try out the service for yourself. Just go to http://www.backblaze.com/tuaw_mac and you can try the service for free for two weeks. If you decide you like it, it's $5 a month (or $50 a year). Read on for more details about the service and my take on it as a backup strategy...
