The Busy Bee

I have tried a few online backup solutions, (Jungle Disk which was buggy and incredibly complicated; Carbonite which drained my Mac’s resources constantly) and finally ended up with Backblaze.  I have been using Backblaze for over a year to backup my Mac computer and have been very satisfied.  Their tagline is that it is easy and it is.  And it does not drain my hard drive of resources, and I have never run into any issues.  It just does its job and I don’t think about it.

So I am sharing about it here, recommending it.

Why?  Here are some stats to get you thinking:

• All hard drives will crash during their lifetime
• More than 1 in 10 laptops will be stolen in their lifetime
• A laptop is stolen every 53 seconds
• Every year 46% of computer users lose their music, photos, and documents
• 50% of all hard drives will crash within 5 years
• 89.1% of PC users don’t perform regular backups
• A recent study from Gartner, Inc., found that 90 percent of companies that experience data loss go out of business within two years.
• 70 percent of companies go out of business after a major data loss

What do I do?  I work on my computer regularly as a web professional, a web designer and developer.  So it is important that I have backups. I work on Macs exclusively.

I have a local backup on an Iomega external hard drive that backs up automatically using Time Machine.  This is the most convenient form as I sometimes need to go back and get a file that I overwrote or deleted and I can just go back in time and restore it – which is super easy and convenient.  Also, if my computer goes down, it is easy to restore to a new computer from a time machine backup – not the case with an off site backup.

I also use Backblaze as an off site backup.  I have this in case there is some event that affects all systems in my work studio, (i.e. a theft, a power surge that blows through my surge protectors, and any other type of local problem).  This is a secondary backup and has built in a service to track and locate my computer if it does get stolen.  The cost is a measly $50/yr. for such an important service and it was super easy and fast to setup runs without any effort on my part.  A no brainer for me, once I found a service that worked that well, (this was my third attempt as outlined at the beginning of this article).

I also use Dropbox, and you can read my review of dropbox here, as a very convenient means of having certain files automatically available on my iPod and laptop, (or really from any computer from just logging in).  But with Dropbox, those files are automatically synced and available on those devices of mine for use just like any other file in my finder – without having to login to a remote service.  I use that for client files that I am currently working with.  And it is absolutely secure.  Dropbox gives you a few GBs free which is all I need for those files.  Not really a backup solution, but part of my approach to managing files and thought I would add it in here.

So if you are not backing up your files, you should.  It is easy, affordable, and you don’t want to find yourself wishing you had when it is too late.

That is my review of Backblaze.  Good luck!

Xmarks has a service that allows you to sync your bookmarks across browsers.  There are built-in options now to sync bookmarks within a browser, but not across browsers.  So Xmarks has been filling the gap for a while.

Unfortunately I have been having issues for a very long time (many many months) getting it to work on Safari.  Because I don’t use Safari that frequently, (I prefer Firefox primarily because of an indispensable web development addon called Firebug), I have not been super aggressive with getting the issue fixed.  I have gone back and forth about 10 times at least with Xmarks, now owned by LastPass, and never received any productive help.

Today, I changed something that seems to have made all of the difference.  I realized that I have to login with my email address and not my Username – even though the login box says “Username or email address” – that is not the case, at least not with me.  When I try to login with my username, it does not login, but when I login with my email address, it does.

More details:  I am on a Mac, now running Lion but two weeks ago was running Tiger and can only assume it was the same issue there.  To set preferences for logging into safari, you would open System Preferences and go to the Xmarks tab.  From there, on the General tab, there is a button to “Change login”.  Use that button to enter your EMAIL ADDRESS and password.  Try now.  For me, that worked.

What were the symptoms?  I had Xmarks working fine on Firefox, but not on Safari.  Everytime it tried to sync, it would just give the logging in… pop-up for a long time and eventually would say something like, “Sync Failed” – even though it was not really the sync, it was more accurately that it just could not login.

Hope this helps someone.  If it does, feel free to share below.

If you ever need to access files on more than one computer, and you haven’t heard of Dropbox, I can’t recommend more highly checking out their service.  On top of that, I have only read glowing feedback on-line from others, which has been my experience.

I am not exagerating by saying that dropbox was for me the easiest and most user-friendly application I have ever had to install and get up and running.  The learning curve to have this application serving your needs quickly so you could move on to other things you want to be doing – was almost nothing.  I would even go so far as to say it would be a stretch to say you have to even “learn” how to use it.  Not only have they made it incredibaly easy and simple, but they even hold your hand in explaining how to use it, kind of like, if you add 2 and 2 together, your will get 4. You can be sleep deprived and multi-tasking, and you will understand it.

After setting it up, you have a folder, just like any other folder, in which you can save, edit and delete files, just like you normally do.  Except all of those files will automatically synced with any other computer you have set-up with that same dropbox account.  And if you are away from your computer and need to access those files using another computer, you can login to your account with Dropbox and access those files that way as well.

Runs automatically.  Super Secure.  You can also have a folder specified to for sharing so you can invite others to view or collaborate with you live.  They have a free iPhone app so you can sync with your iPhone, if you have one.  And there is more, but I think you get the point.  Check it out, try it, use it.

And the price – Free for the first 2 GB.  That is a lot of free space.  For some people, you won’t need more.  For me, and how I plan to use it, I don’t actually need more space.  From there you can upgrade to $9.99 for 50 GB, or $19.99 for 100 GB.

I think that about says it. Check it now – visit Dropbox.

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