Nearly 50,000 swimmers nationwide rely on the U.S. Masters Swimming organization for training, competitions, and various local programs. Started in 1970, the organization has grown to support 500 local clubs and its website, www.usms.org, is the hub that helps manage this large, distributed nonprofit. Yesterday, during a routine import, the database containing all the member… Continue reading U.S. Masters Swimming Data Drowns
Friday the 13th: How Lucky Are You?
It’s 6:30 p.m. on Friday the 13th, so if you’re reading this, it probably wasn’t a completely unlucky day. Did you avoid walking under a ladder today? Stood a bit further back from large windows? Drove a little slower? According to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute, about one in 15 people in the… Continue reading Friday the 13th: How Lucky Are You?
Ma.gnolia Wilts with No Backup
Ma.gnolia.com was a bookmark storing and sharing service (similar to Delicious.com) that has shut down due to data loss. The company started several years ago and built a small, but adoring user community that liked Ma.gnolia’s easy-to-use API and caching of linked pages. The service was the work of Larry Halff who nearly single-handedly built… Continue reading Ma.gnolia Wilts with No Backup
Backblaze Welcomes HP Upline Customers
HP is shutting down its Upline online backup service. No official announcement has been made, but HP has sent its users a notice (shown below) saying it will shut down the service on March 31st. TechCrunch has reported about previous trouble the service had and the current shutdown. Backblaze is offering HP Upline users a… Continue reading Backblaze Welcomes HP Upline Customers
Backblaze Attending TechCrunch Cloud Computing Roundtable
TechCrunch is holding its next roundtable on Feb 27th asking the question, “Whose Cloud Is It Anyway?” Assembling 275 people together, TechCrunch intends to discuss whether clouds will be closed, warring platforms or open, interconnected systems. Other questions I believe should be discussed include: What is the appropriate level for a cloud to exist at?… Continue reading Backblaze Attending TechCrunch Cloud Computing Roundtable
Faster Broadband Coming Soon?
Broadband connections in the United States are 10 times slower than those in South Korea. In fact, we are #15 based on average connection speed, behind not only Japan, Finland, France, and Sweden (which are all at least three times faster) but also countries including Iceland, Poland, and Portugal that are blessed with significantly faster… Continue reading Faster Broadband Coming Soon?
Bring Back Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs was sorely missed yesterday at Macworld. Loved for his hyperbole, showmanship, and black turtleneck, Jobs bowed out of Apple’s last Macworld. Rumors circled that he was ill, Apple had nothing to announce, he was stepping down, etc. In the end, Jobs issued a statement. Macworld would not be the same without Jobs’ keynote.… Continue reading Bring Back Steve Jobs
JournalSpace Shuts Down Due to No Backups
JournalSpace, a six-year-old blog hosting service, closed shop on Tuesday after losing all of its users’ data. Details are sketchy, but the company claims the cause was either an OS failure or a disgruntled employee that deleted the data. Regardless of the cause, since JournalSpace had no backups, in addition to the death of the… Continue reading JournalSpace Shuts Down Due to No Backups
Listen to Backblaze on the Radio
Backblaze’s first and only radio ad.
Goodbye 2008. Hello 2009.
At the beginning of 2007, we set off on a mission to make sure no one ever lost data again. 2008 saw numerous milestones along this path, so I wanted to take a quick look back and a glance forward into 2009. Realizing that the #1 reason users did not back up was the difficulty… Continue reading Goodbye 2008. Hello 2009.
Storage Is Recession-Proof
While the economic crisis continues to be at the forefront of our minds, business at Backblaze is booming. I would like to attribute that explicitly to our execution, but there is another factor at play: storage needs are skyrocketing. Every day, consumers and businesses are generating more digital data both in unit volume (# of… Continue reading Storage Is Recession-Proof
Brian’s 10 Rules for How to Write Cross-Platform Code
Introduction I’ve had a lot of success in my 20-year software engineering career with developing cross platform C and C++ code. At Backblaze, we just released the Mac beta version of our online backup service, so I thought it an apt time to discuss my 10 rules for writing cross-platform code. We develop an online backup… Continue reading Brian’s 10 Rules for How to Write Cross-Platform Code
Backblaze Launches Mac Beta
That may have been the most understated title for a blog post about a day like today. Less than three months after our Windows launch, today Backblaze announced a fully-featured Mac online backup service into private beta that followed the same “backup everything; no configuration setup; unlimited storage; $5 per month” approach. This happened so… Continue reading Backblaze Launches Mac Beta
Backblaze Selected as “Best of the Best”
After being selected as one of the AlwaysOn Global Top 250 Private Companies in July, Backblaze was selected as one of the 14 “Best of the Best” and asked to present at the AlwaysOn Venture Summit West. Backblaze was initially selected based on “innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value, and media buzz.” Held at the… Continue reading Backblaze Selected as “Best of the Best”
How to Make Strong Encryption Easy to Use
This post was originally written to describe the encryption process for Backblaze Personal Backup. To learn more about our security methods today, including our processes regarding Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage, please visit our security page. —The Editors Goal: Security Done Right Protecting the privacy of our users’ data is a top priority for us here… Continue reading How to Make Strong Encryption Easy to Use
Backblaze Online Backup Service Launched
Backblaze online backup launched publicly on Tuesday, September 16th, which US News called “gutsy” in today’s age of perpetual betas. I wanted to share a bit about what has transpired over the last few months that led us here. Backblaze Launch Visitors After four months in a stealth beta, we expanded the Backblaze private beta… Continue reading Backblaze Online Backup Service Launched
10 Reasons Your Backup Will Fail
1. Your backup strategy is to burn CDs and DVDs. A diamond may be forever, but CDs and DVDs have a shelf-life. Even the Optical Storage Technology Association says an unrecorded disk will only last five to 10 years . And this assumes you’ve selected the right files and remember to do it, which brings… Continue reading 10 Reasons Your Backup Will Fail
The Wisdom of Clouds
CloudCamp gathered a crowd of developers, entrepreneurs, business people, and investors last night to have an un-conference focused on honing the future of computing clouds. Despite spending less than a month on the event, Reuven Cohen and his team attracted several hundred people and 22 sponsors including Sun, Microsoft, Dell, Amazon, and a number of… Continue reading The Wisdom of Clouds